Page 53 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2017 - Boston

BEA C ON HILL AND WEST END  51

reopened in fall 2002 w Museum of
after extensive reno­ African American
vations. Among the History
Athenaeum’s major
holdings are the 46 Joy St. Map 1 C3. Tel (617) 725­
personal library 0022.  Park Street. Open 10am–
that once belonged 4pm Mon–Sat. Closed public hols.
to George Washington & 8 ∑ afroammuseum.org
and the theological
library supplied Built from town house plans by
Stone frieze decoration on the 19th-century, Renaissance by King William III Asher Benjamin (see p34), using
Revival-style Athenaeum of England to the salvaged materials, the African
King’s Chapel Meeting House was dedicated
0 Boston (see p60). In its early years in 1806 and is the centerpiece
Athenaeum the Athenaeum was Boston’s of the museum. The U.S.’s
chief art museum; when the oldest black church building, it
10½ Beacon St. Map 1 C4. Tel (617) Museum of Fine Arts was was the political and religious
227­0270.  Park Street. Open 9am– proposed, the Athenaeum center of Boston’s African
8pm Mon–Thu, 9am–5:30pm Fri, graciously donated much of American society. Cato
9am–4pm Sat, noon–4pm Sun. 8
∑ bostonathenaeum.org its art, including unfinished Gardner, a native African, raised
portraits of George and Martha $1,500 toward the eventual
Organized in 1807, the Washington purchased in 1831 $7,700 to build the church and
collection of the Boston from the widow of the painter is honored with an inscription
Athenaeum quickly became Gilbert Stuart. Non­members above the entrance. The
one of the country’s leading of the Athenaeum may visit interior is plain and simple but
private libraries. Sheep farmer only the first floor of the rang with the oratory of some
Edward Clarke Cabot won the building, an area that includes of the 19th century’s most fiery
1846 design competition to the art gallery (with changing abolition ists: from Sojourner
house the library, with plans exhibitions) and several Truth and Frederick Douglass
for a gray sandstone building reading rooms. to William Lloyd Garrison (see
based on Palladio’s Palazzo p32), who founded the New
da Porta Festa in Vicenza, a q Massachusetts England Anti­Slavery Society
building Cabot knew from State House in 1832. The meeting house
a book in the Athenaeum’s basement was Boston’s first
collection. The building See pp52–3. school for African American
children until the adjacent
Abiel Smith School was built
Black Heritage Trail in 1831. When segregated
In the first U.S. census in 1790, education was barred in 1855,
Massachusetts was the only state however, the Smith School
to record no slaves. During the closed. The meeting house
19th century, Boston’s substantial became an Hasidic synagogue
free African American commu­ in the 1890s, as most of
nity lived principally on the Boston’s African American
north slope of Beacon Hill and community moved to Roxbury
in the adjacent West End. The and Dorchester. The synagogue
Black Heritage Trail links sev eral closed in the 1960s, and in
Holmes Alley, once an escape route for key sites, ranging from the 1987 the building reopened as
slaves on the run African Meeting House to private the linchpin site on the Black
homes that are not open to Heritage Trail.
visitors. Among them are the 1797 George Middleton House
(Nos. 5–7 Pinckney Street), the oldest standing house built by
African Americans on Beacon Hill, and the Lewis and Harriet
Hayden House (No. 66 Phillips Street). The Haydens made their
home a haven for runaways in the “Underground Railroad”
of safe houses between the South and Canada. The walking
tour also leads through mews and alleys, like Holmes Alley
at the end of Smith Court, once used by fugitives to flee
professional slave catchers.
Free tours of the Black Heritage Trail are led by National Park
Service rangers – (617) 742­5415 – from Memorial Day weekend
to Labor Day, 10am, noon, and 2pm Monday to Saturday,
leaving from the Shaw Memorial. Tours are at 2pm Mon–Sat
through late November and in May. Abiel Smith School, where Boston’s free
blacks received an education

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