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Faneuil Hall: then and now

c. 1900 vs 1806 · Boston, MA

Faneuil Hall, 1806Faneuil Hall, c. 1900
NowThen
Then, c. 1900Faneuil Hall on a colored postcard from around 1900, with horse-drawn wagons at the market. Detroit Publishing dated it only as after 1898.Photo: Detroit Publishing Company (NYPL scan) · Public domain · Source · cropped and resized
Today, 1806The hall was doubled in width and a third floor added in 1806 by Charles Bulfinch, so it is wider than the original. Photo taken in 2010.Photo: EgorovaSvetlana · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source · resized

The story

Peter Faneuil, a wealthy merchant, offered to build a market for Boston. The town voted 367 to 360 to accept it in 1740, so the vote was very close. The hall opened in 1742.

The ground floor was a market and the second floor was a meeting hall. After 1763 it hosted pro-independence speeches, and it picked up the nickname 'Cradle of Liberty.'

Faneuil made part of his fortune in the slave trade, and the building was funded in part by those profits. Faneuil Hall now has a permanent exhibit on slavery that opened in 2023.

Did you know? The gilded grasshopper weathervane on top was made by Shem Drowne in 1742 and weighs 25 pounds.
Historians argue about this. Nobody agrees on why it is a grasshopper. One theory links it to a London building's crest. Another says Drowne chased grasshoppers as a boy. Both are unproven.

Fact or tall tale?

Sources

More: Look for historic photos at the Boston Public Library

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Go there, answer the question that only someone standing at Faneuil Hall can answer, and add the stamp to your passport. Free, no sign-up.

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More in Boston

Next: Paul Revere House. Written from the cited sources, not yet walked on site unless noted.