The modern Old State House, built on the site of the First Town House, is Boston's oldest extant public building. Over the years, the Old State House has been known by multiple alternate names, including the Second Town House, Old Provincial State House, or City Hall and variants thereof.
Seat of colony government First building: 1712–1747 After the First Town House burned down, the governments of the town of Boston,
Suffolk County, and
Massachusetts Bay Province lacked a meeting place. Town and provincial officials quickly agreed to erect a new building on the same site, William Payne built the Second Town House; the designer is not known, The
Massachusetts General Court, the provincial legislature, had moved into the building by April 1713, when its first session took place there. and the town government collected rental income from the basement spaces. The building's first floor housed a merchants' exchange, a feature derived from old English town halls; this space was enclosed, in contrast to the First Town House's open-air market. From west to east, these were the Suffolk County and
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court courtrooms; the General Court legislative chamber; and the Council Chamber of the Royal Governor. The central chamber was also used by Boston's selectmen. There was an octagonal tower with a bird-shaped weathervane. A 1743 view showed steps ascending to double doors on the eastern
elevation of the facade, and there was also a sundial. At , the Second Town House was the
tallest building in Boston until 1745, when it was surpassed by the
Old North Church in the
North End. The Second Town House was used for government business, announcements, and ceremonies, including welcoming parties for new provincial governors. Colonists sometimes convened to protest provincial government actions, requiring frequent window repairs. A riot took place there in November 1747 after British leaders tried to "
impress" colonists into serving in the British military. after sparks from a first-floor hearth spread rapidly. The blaze destroyed all goods and records inside; the exterior brick walls survived the fire, The provincial government considered relocating to another Massachusetts town or to present-day
Maine, The first exterior views specifically focusing on the building date from shortly afterward, in 1751. The interior was rebuilt likely according to the original plan, Details of the first-floor space are scarce, but the
Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts sometimes used it for drills. Though Captain
Francis Goelet wrote in 1750 that the first floor was open to the elements, later historians wrote that he was likely talking about Faneuil Hall. Two staircases ascended to lobbies between three second-floor rooms—from west to east, the Court, Representatives' and Council chambers. The third floor housed committee rooms and offices, while the basement was rented out. The exterior was altered: The
gambrel roof was replaced by a
gable roof, the octagonal tower was replaced by a tiered square tower, and the parapet on the eastern end was adorned with lion and unicorn figures. Beneath the eastern parapet, new laws were announced from a small balcony. For nearly a century afterward, significant modifications were mostly confined to the interior; The
Cape Ann earthquake of 1755 did not damage the building, but a later study found that it was structurally vulnerable to north–south transverse forces. The third-floor space had been subdivided no later than 1756, when its western end was designated as the General Court's committee room. Judicial activities were moved to a new courthouse in 1767 or 1769. By the mid-1760s, there was growing pro-independence sentiment. This created friction between the legislative and executive branches, both of which met on the second floor. The gallery was built by Thomas Crafts In response to protests over taxes, the British government sent troops to Boston in September 1768 and pointed weaponry at the Town House's front door, prompting the General Court to move to Faneuil Hall. The legislature, refusing to convene at the Town House while British troops were present, temporarily moved to
Cambridge in 1769. moving into the first floor. These modifications involved the "taking down the East End and rebuilding", along with repainting the exterior. Phips's proclamation inspired a 2021 documentary, where descendants of the Penobscot read the proclamation aloud at the building. Pro-independence activities were organized at the Town House, In 1761,
James Otis argued against the
Writs of Assistance before the judges in the Council Chamber; he lost the case, but influenced public opinion in favor of the American Revolution. Legislation such as the
Stamp Act was also announced at the Second Town House. , portraying the
Boston Massacre, shows the Old State House sitting prominently behind the action. When the Boston Massacre took place on March 5, 1770, Lieutenant Governor
Thomas Hutchinson stood on the building's balcony, ordering colonists to return to their homes. The building also hosted court proceedings, including the 1769 trial of the four men who hijacked the frigate
Rose, as well as the trial of the officers involved in the Boston Massacre the next year. Massachusetts's last colonial governor,
Thomas Gage, took office at the Second Town House in 1774, after which declining relations with Britain led to the Revolutionary War.
Seat of state government: 1776–1798 On July 18, 1776, two weeks after the United States declared independence, the
Declaration of Independence was read from the balcony to jubilant crowds, who tore down and burned the lion and unicorn atop the building. That October, the state government bought the Court Chamber from the county to make space for the House of Representatives, whose membership had grown following U.S. independence. The
Massachusetts Senate occupied the Council Chamber, while the first floor continued to be used by merchants. State legislators first convened at the building on November 7, 1776, and the former Town House became the Massachusetts State House. A temporary
triumphal arch designed by
Charles Bulfinch was built west of the building, celebrating newly-elected President
George Washington's visit to the town in 1789. During that visit, Washington observed a procession in his honor from the building's balcony; Modifications to the building itself included changes to the windows in 1782 and the establishment of a treasurer's office below the Council Chamber in 1787, where that office remained for five years. Bulfinch designed the new
Massachusetts State House, to which the legislature was relocated on January 11, 1798.
Boston government building Business use: 1803–1829 For several years after the new State House opened, there was uncertainty as to how the Old State House should be used; The town of Boston bought the county's and state's ownership stakes in 1803, Instead, the town government sought to lease the building under terms that prevented alterations without the selectmen's approval; later sources described the lease terms as "an early form of preservation restriction". Possibly around this time, the first floor underwent several changes, including removal of doorways and steps.
Charles Bulfinch's wife wrote in 1804 that the structure had been turned into stores, which sold a wide variety of merchandise "to draw attention of the young and gay". Initially, the basement was used as a wine cellar, and the second floor housed the
Boston Board of Health and a fencing school. and windows in the basement and a doorway on the north elevation were also added around that time. while Boston's treasurer used a room at the western end of that floor.--> There was another proposal to destroy the building the next year, This was not carried out, and neither was an 1828 proposal to cover the brickwork with imitation stone. The Old State House was used by offices and businesses until 1830. City officials decided to use the building as a city hall the same year, while work for the newsroom and post office was already ongoing.
Isaiah Rogers, collaborating with his assistant
William Washburn, altered the building's interior in a
Greek Revival and the building was rededicated six days later on September 17. The renovation's $25,000 cost and the architectural style were not well received. Aside from an 1882 drawing labeled as a "facsimile" of Rogers's plan, Abel Bowen's 1838
Picture of Boston describes City Hall's interior. The first floor had a post office, a merchants' exchange interrupted by columns, and a newsroom from west to east. Several floor girders were partially removed to make way for a
spiral staircase between the first and second floors, Other city offices occupied small rooms around the second-floor stair landing and on the third floor, and there was also a vaccination hall on the third floor. These spaces were illuminated by gas lamps throughout. one newspaper from 1882 noted that the building "narrowly escaped utter destruction", but a 1970 report noted that the damage was minor. The city government moved out during March 1841, The post office and newsroom stayed on the first floor.
Commercial use: 1841–1880 After City Hall's relocation, the space was again rented out to commercial tenants, including a telegraph office, lawyers, and architects. The exterior fell into disrepair, and signage and windows were added to the facade without regard to esthetics. The building's occupants included tailors, clothing merchants, insurance agents, and railroad-line offices. The clothiers Brown, Lawrence & Stickney, which occupied the building's eastern section, modified the basement openings there. By the late 1840s, the eastern elevation had advertising signage for Brown, Lawrence & Stickney. Both Smith and Brown, Lawrence & Stickney ran advertisements depicting the building; one of Smith's advertisements, from 1850, is among the earliest known depictions of the interior. The building recorded 29 tenants by 1855 (although some room numbers may have had multiple tenants), and further repairs took place later that decade. The earliest known photograph of the State House, from , depicts some signage on the facade and two
skylights in the roof. Comparisons of illustrations from the 1860s show that additional signs may have been installed during that decade, along with stairs on State Street and
semaphore lamps on the eastern elevation. A group of three tenants signed a ten-year lease for the building in 1866, after which the Old State House's exterior condition declined further, with peeling paint and missing architectural details. The structure had 50 simultaneous occupants by 1870. Boston's Joint Standing Committee on Streets proposed demolishing the building to make way for street widening, The council also leased the building for five more years. City registrar (and later) alderman
William Henry Whitmore unsuccessfully sought to relocate his department's offices to the Old State House. Contemporary images show that, by 1880, there was a recessed doorway where the portico once stood; the former balcony on that elevation was replaced with a window. The tower was also repaired, but the rest of the building was left untouched, amid continued debate over its future. The City Council was again discussing the building's disposition by 1880. By then, there were calls to demolish the building to make way for office development or to speed up traffic. Advocates of demolition claimed that the building had lost its original design details and was seeing declining profits, and one such advocate proposed constructing a monument to commemorate the site's history. Although the building's facade was hidden by advertising billboards, The council considered a proposal in May 1881 to spend $35,000 renovating the building for governmental use. The council also considered again leasing the building to businesses, which would have generated an estimated $762,380 over twenty years. Ultimately, the lease expired on July 1, 1881, and existing tenants were evicted.
Museum use: 1881–present 1880s renovation The Bostonian Society (originally the Antiquarian Club That June, the City Council passed a resolution sponsored by Whitmore, which allocated $35,000 for the renovation of the exterior, stair, and upper-story interiors. After a local bank offered to pay for the restoration, the City Council wished to accept this plan, but Whitmore argued that a private-sector restoration would be destructive. The council allocated these funds to the Committee on Public Buildings in September, while rejecting a proposal to lease out the building. The Bostonian Society first met there on October 10 and initially had its offices, exhibit space, and storage rooms on the second and third stories. occupying the first story's eastern end. which could be rented for up to $20,000 a year. The basement's facade and the northern and southern elevations' doorways largely retained their appearances, which dated from Isaiah Rogers's 1830 renovation. Clough replaced the eastern entrance with brick walls, doors, and windows, and he added windows to the western elevation. The mansard roof was removed, though the cornice and trusses underneath were in good condition and were retained. The extremely dilapidated rooftop tower was almost completely reconstructed. The lion and unicorn decorations elicited objections, with one observer calling them "an outrage on the memory of our fathers". Clough also added the Massachusetts coat of arms and a gilded eagle to the western elevation. but was in place by 1884. More contentious was the interior, which was returned to its 1830 appearance. Whitmore had discovered Rogers's plans in a
Cincinnati archive and confused them with the 1748 plans, and four anterooms were built around the staircase on the second floor. Workers also installed a heating system with a boiler room and chimneys. Vandals attempted to remove the lion and unicorn figures three years later, amid continuing
anti-British sentiment from
Boston's Irish population. After outgrowing its existing space, the Bostonian Society leased the rest of the building in 1894. The city government agencies and the remaining merchants were evicted, and the first floor was converted into a three-room suite with secretary's and director's offices; A new unicorn and lion's head (the latter with a
time capsule) were mounted on the eastern elevation in 1901, and the eagle was regilded in 1905. By the late 1890s, the
Boston Transit Commission planned to construct the
Boston subway's
State station next to the basement. There would be two intersecting subway lines: the
East Boston Tunnel under State Street (now part of the
Blue Line) and the
Washington Street Tunnel (now part of the
Orange Line). The transit commissioners wanted to construct a subway entrance in the Old State House by 1902. Woodbury & Leighton received the subway entrance's construction contract in January 1903. The modifications proceeded largely without issue, despite some objections from local groups. An entrance lobby for the station was built in the eastern portion of the basement, Workers gutted the basement, raised the eastern portion of the first story, modified the windows on the eastern elevation, and added an entryway to the subway lobby's north wall. The Bostonian Society temporarily relocated during construction and, in late 1903, re-leased the whole building aside from the subway lobby. The East Boston Tunnel opened in 1904. In 1903, the State station was approved as one of the Washington Street line's stations. When the transit commission proposed further modifying the Old State House two years later, the Bostonian Society initially agreed to the plans. Significant public objections subsequently arose, Following advocacy from preservationists, in 1907, the General Court passed legislation mandating the building's restoration and prohibiting further subway-related changes, including a Washington Street subway entrance.
Joseph Everett Chandler was hired for the restoration, The tunnel opened in 1908. The next year, workers began carrying out Chandler's design. Work included removing paint, redesigning the entrances, replacing the granite foundation with brick, and redesigning Keayne Hall on the first floor's west end. Workers also restored the eastern elevation's balcony, modified the basement, and replaced some interior columns. The city and state governments split the construction cost equally.
1910s to 1950s Chandler's renovation was finished by early 1910. and a coat of arms on the western elevation was dedicated in June. The Bostonian Society reorganized the exhibits and renamed two first-floor rooms after
Robert Keayne (who had funded the First Town House) and William Henry Whitmore. The society added a maritime exhibit to Keayne Hall, which was operated by the newly formed
Boston Marine Museum. The state government began providing some funding for the building that year. The Bostonian Society continued to lease the building; the city refused to lease to any other tenant, effectively preserving the structure. Its exterior clock was part of Boston's fire alarm system and was maintained by the
Boston Fire Department. The building had 45,000 annual visitors by the mid-1910s. The city government provided money for fireproofing work in 1917, and a lit cigarette caused another fire in April 1921, burning parts of the attic and the roof trusses. The building was consequently closed for several months; the same year, an automatic fire-alarm system was added, and replicas of the lion and unicorn figures were installed. No sprinklers were installed because of concerns that the water would ruin invaluable artifacts. on the grounds that the plaques had misleading inscriptions. During the beginning of that decade, the city also repaired the tower, expanded the fire alarm system to cover the entire building, and divided the third floor into two sections. The facade was repainted in 1935. The next year, the exterior was floodlit, and
Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers repaired the roof. WPA researchers also found over two thousand documents in an unsuccessful attempt to partially restore the building to original plans. The next year, architectural firm
Perry, Shaw and Hepburn renovated the building's Council Chamber. The room was redecorated with Georgian details. The Marine Museum merged in 1947 with the Bostonian Society, which continued to host maritime exhibits there. The next year, the exterior (including the rooftop decorations) was restored. The building was repaired again in the mid-1950s as part of a project designed by George Sherwood. The project, which cost over $50,000, By the late 1950s, Boston officials claimed that it was too expensive to maintain the Old State House. The Massachusetts Senate passed a bill in 1957, allowing the state government to acquire the building, but the Massachusetts House rejected it the next year. Further exterior repairs occurred in 1958 and 1959.
1960s to 1990s In the early 1960s, the Massachusetts General Court again considered taking over maintenance; Boston's government also urged the federal government to assume operations, amid efforts to make the building a
national historic site (see ). There were again unsuccessful efforts to move the building, this time to
Government Center. admission fees were waived for state residents each January. In the mid-1970s, the roadway south of the Old State House (formerly part of State Street) was converted to a
pocket park and became a
pedestrian zone. and the subway lobby's windows and doorways were modified. as part of the
National Register of Historic Places'
grant-in-aid program. The building was closed for one year, reopening in May 1976. During the Bicentennial celebration,
Queen Elizabeth II and her husband
Prince Philip toured the building on July 11, 1976. Elizabeth II gave an address from the balcony: and Goody, Clancy and Associates was hired as preservation architect. The facade's cracks were repaired, as were the corroded support beams underneath, which dated from the subway's construction and had never been replaced. the trusses were attached to the north and south walls by gravity alone, causing the walls to lean. The work also included upgrading utilities and replacing decayed materials. The appearances of the exhibit halls were restored to different eras. After the renovation was completed in 1992, the building reopened on July 10 that year. The building's masonry had long experienced water damage and leaks, which were aggravated by
Hurricane Wilma in late 2005. Masonry repairs were conducted the next year; at the time, the building needed $3 million in repairs, of which the Bostonian Society had raised about half. The repairs, comprising the first phase of a wider-ranging renovation, was covered in an episode of
The History Channel's
Save Our History. Further repairs, costing $10 million, began in the late 2000s. and were reinstalled later that year. Restorers removed the time capsule in the lion decoration, which was replaced with a new capsule. the merger was finalized in January 2020 with the creation of a new organization, Revolutionary Spaces. The merger allowed the Old State House and the Old South Meeting House to coordinate their operations, although the buildings' names remained unchanged. In 2026, Revolutionary Spaces obtained a $286,000 grant through the
Save America's Treasures program to finance the building's structural stabilization. ==Architecture==