Any tourist visiting Boston quickly learns the crucial role that the Hub played in the American Revolution. Bostonians set the pace of the rebellion from the Stamp Act protests in 1765, through the Boston Massacre in 1770, the Tea Party in 1773 and the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775. Many leaders of the Continental Congress hailed from Boston, as did several influential newspaper publishers, pamphleteers, merchants and ministers.

But the history of the American Revolution in Boston extends beyond these human actors to the landscape of the city itself. Boston's position as a natural harbor for New England gave rise to its commercial prosperity and strong merchant class, and also placed it at the center of struggles to negotiate the boundaries of imperial trade policy. Boston's shape as a peninsula attached to the mainland by a thin strip of land at the Neck made it an easy town for the British Regulars to occupy and fortify.

The map above, drawn by Richard Williams in 1776, is one of many that depict Boston and the surrounding areas and waterways during the American Revolution. This map emphasizes the vast size of the harbor that seems to almost entirely circle Boston. The Charles River in the upper right hand corner of the map appears a tiny detail. The rest of this page examines some of the ways that the water around Boston impacted the Revolution by looking at the Boston harbor, Paul Revere's crossing the Charles to begin his famous ride, and the Siege of Boston in 1775 and 1776.

Harboring the Revolution

• Information on the most famous Revolutionary event in the waters around Boston from the "Inventing New England" Tea Museum.
• An engraving by Paul Revere of British troops entering the Boston harbor in 1768.
• A 1775 map of Boston showing the harbor and islands around the city.

Revere's River Ride

• John Singleton Coplyey's 1768 Portrait of Paul Revere.
• Letter from Revere to Dr. Jeremy Belknap describing his crossing of the Charles River and the rest of his ride. From the Massachusetts Historical Society.
• Longfellow's Poem, "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." The third stanza recalls Revere's row across the Charles under the guns of the H.M.S. Somerset.
• A Map of Revere's ride showing the Charles River from the Paul Revere House website.
• An Interactive website allowing user to ride along with Paul Revere across the Charles.
• Information on Charles River tides on the night of April 18, 1775, when Revere and the British rowed across from Boston.
• A map of the British Expedition to Concord, showing their crossing of the Charles just hours after Revere.
• The Paul Revere Park, created along the Charles River in Charlestown as part of the Big Dig.
• According to the website of the Northeastern University Boathouse, Paul Revere created competitive rowing: "Competitive rowing made its debut on the eve of April 18, 1775 when Paul Revere did a power 20 across the Charles River basin to Cambridge to warn the countryside of the oncoming Brits."

The Siege across the River

The Charles River affected military strategy during the Siege of Boston. The location of the river created a natural boundary between the British soldiers besieged inside Boston, and the Americans surrounding them at camps in Cambridge and Roxbury. In the winter of 1775/6, the Americans considered a plan to attack the city by marching soldiers across the ice. So too, they constantly worried that the British might attack them. The shape of the river mattered too. The Charles was not deep enough for the British fleet to sail up, which kept the American camps out of the range of British bombardment. The most famous battle of the Siege of Boston was the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, when the British Regulars crossed the Charles from Boston to attack American positions in Charlestown. But there was other fighting before and after then all around the River.

• The Widener Library Diorama looking out over the river from Cambridge in 1775 during the Siege.
• This 1775 map shows some fortifications and the positions of the armies during the Siege of Boston when Washington took command. "A Draught of the Towns of Boston & Charlestown" drawn by John Montresor, 1775. From the Clinton Collection of the Clements Library of the University of Michigan.
• Compare it to a modern, schematic view of the positions of the armies during the Siege of Boston in 1775. It is from Richard W. Wilkie and Jack Trager, Historical Atlas of Massachusetts (1991).
• A diary entry from Private Amos Farnsworth about fighting in May, 1775 over harbor islands at the mouth of the Charles River.
• "View of The Attack on Bunker's Hill, with the Burning of Charles Town, June 17, 1775.
  Copy of engraving by Lodge after Millar, circa 1775-80."
• The Massachusetts Historical Society's virtual display on the Battle of Bunker Hill
• A Worcester Polytechnic Institute ROTC military analysis of The Battle of Bunker Hill
• A Letter from Abby Adams to John Adams, Braintree, November 12, 1775 about fighting along the Charles River.