The Old South Meeting House is a museum and historic church building at 310 Washington Street, on the corner with Milk Street, in the Downtown Crossing area of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Built in 1729, the meeting house originally hosted the Congregational congregation of the Old South Church. It was the organizing point for the 1773 Boston Tea Party and later became a free speech symbol for its role as a pre–American Revolution meeting house. The building has served as a museum since 1877 and is operated by Revolutionary Spaces. One of the landmarks on Boston's Freedom Trail, the Old South Meeting House is designated a National Historic Landmark and a Boston Landmark. It is also part of the Boston National Historical Park.
The Old South Meeting House, designed by Robert Twelves and built by Joshua Blanchard, replaced the congregation's first building, the 1669 Cedar Meeting House. It hosted religious services alongside town meetings and speeches, functioning as an overflow space for town meetings too large for Faneuil Hall. In 1775, British troops occupied the interior and gutted it, turning the interior into a horse-riding facility. The interior was rebuilt in 1783, and the building was modified several times in the 19th century. The congregation used the Old South Meeting House until the Great Boston Fire of 1872 and moved to its Copley Square building in 1875.
The old building temporarily served as a post office after the 1872 fire and, following lengthy legal disputes, was sold for scrap in 1876. A group of citizens organized to buy the site and building in what was one of the area's first successful preservation movements. The Old South Association (OSA) took over the building, operating it as a museum. The building underwent additional renovations from the late 19th century onward, including an 1898–1914 overhaul designed by Bigelow and Wadsworth. The pews were reproduced in 1947, the exhibits were overhauled in 1987, and a basement was built during a 1990s renovation. Revolutionary Spaces took over operations in 2020.
The Old South Meeting House is one of the few remaining New England meeting houses with a Georgian exterior and a traditional meeting house–style interior. The building has a mostly rectangular plan with a brick facade. The main entrance is on Washington Street to the west, where there is a protruding tower with a steeple. The rest of the building is two stories high, with large windows and a combination hipped and gable roof. Inside is a square meeting hall with replica pews, a pulpit, and a balcony-level upper gallery. The meeting hall is arranged symmetrically around a secondary entrance on Milk Street, placing the main entrance through the side. Although the building has received mixed architectural reviews, commentators have described its history as highly significant.
Site
The Old South Meeting House is a former church building at 310 Washington Street in the Downtown Crossing area of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, at the northeast corner with Milk Street. The church sits at one end of Boston's former Newspaper Row. At the corner of Washington and Milk streets, the church has a courtyard measuring about . An entrance to the MBTA subway's State station adjoins the building. The Old South Meeting House is a stop on the Freedom Trail, a path connecting historic sites in Boston; sequentially, it is between the Old Corner Bookstore and the Old State House.
The site was gifted by Mary Norton, the widow of former First Church pastor John Norton. The current building's original tenant, the Old South Church congregation, received the land in three pieces between 1669 and 1677. whose homestead occupied half of the block. The building occupies the former site of Winthrop's garden.
Church usage<span class="anchor" id="Church (1729–1872)"></span>
History
The Old South Meeting House is the second building of the Old South Church congregation (now located at Copley Square). The congregation was founded in May 1669 by Congregationalist dissenters from the First Church. It was known as the Third Church to distinguish it from the First and Second Congregational churches in the city.
Context and development
The congregation's first meeting house or church building, the Cedar Meeting House, was built in 1669 at the corner of Washington and Milk streets. It was cited as measuring wide. The congregation's first pastor was Rev. Thomas Thacher, The congregation began accepting women members in 1674 and, under duress from Governor Edmund Andros, hosted Church of England services in the 1680s. Its members included future U.S. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, who was baptized at the building in 1706. After the First Church's building was destroyed by the Great Boston Fire of 1711, the Third Church offered them the Cedar Meeting House. When the now-defunct New South Church was formed in 1717, the Third Church became known as the Old South Church.
A new meeting house was proposed under the combined ministries of Joseph Sewall (serving 1713–1769) and Thomas Prince (serving 1718–1758 By then, the existing meeting house could no longer accommodate the congregation and, as workers later found, was seriously deteriorated. The old building was demolished during March 2–3, 1729; work on the new building started on March 31, and the floors were laid by April 24. with the first recorded service taking place on April 26 of that year. It was built by Joshua Blanchard (who later worked on Faneuil Hall) and designed by Robert Twelves. The church was then at the southern end of the town of Boston; commercial development to the south had yet to be built, and the land to the west and east was mostly residential. The meeting hall originally had box pews, like other New England meeting houses; the design allowed the pews to retain heat during the winter. The pews bore the names of their owners, along with African American members. The congregation had at least 122 enslaved members,
The building hosted services on Sundays and speeches on Saturdays. A bell, donated by the estate of deceased seaman Timothy Cunningham, was installed in 1731 and was regularly rung for meetings and civic events, as well as at 5 a.m., 11 a.m., and 9 p.m. daily. In the building's early years, Prince maintained a collection of documents in the church's steeple; the collection was later donated to the Boston Public Library. The church's first organ was installed in 1745,