WALKING TOURS

Our Boston walking tours are back!

Nothing brings history to life like the landmarks of the past. On the Partnership of Historic Bostons’ walking tours through downtown Boston - the heart of the original colonial settlement - you can see the 17th century for yourself, and image life for Native people on Shawmut (probably originally Mashauwomuk, “place near the bay to land the mishoons/dugout canoes”) thousands of years before the Puritans landed.  

From the site of the first Congregational meetinghouse, by the place where the stocks and pillar exacted punishment, to the fish weirs tended by Native Americans - we’ll take you to Boston’s early days. 

Each tour is roughly 1½ hours and covers about two miles. Attendees are limited so that everyone can see and hear.

Tours include: Survival, the story of how the first European arrivals survived that first, freezing winter; Food and Drink, the taverns, recipes, and kitchens of the colonial era; and Poxes and Prescriptions, taking in the sights of early medicine.

Our 1630 tour marks the colonial founding of Boston on Native land, exploring Puritan politics, religion and society. It starts with an examination of the so-called founders memorial on Boston Common - the bas relief showing John Winthrop and other English Puritans being greeted by William Blackstone, an English settler already living there, with Native people looking on. When the monument was opened in 1930, it was lauded as a marker of “tolerance of each for all.” We keep the question of tolerance in mind as we visit sites of significant Bostonians: Mary Dyer, Anne Hutchinson, Henry Vane Jr. (the only governor of Massachusetts to be executed), John Cotton, John Endicott, and John Winthrop.