Andrew Cotten, MFA
Boston’s Green Dragon Tavern: The Headquarters of the Revolution
In a letter to Thomas Jefferson in 1815, John Adams wrote, “The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexington.”
Long before the famed “shot heard round the world,” a revolution was taking place in the hearts and minds of the colonists as they wrestled with their place in the British empire.
At the center of it all? Boston, the “Cradle of Liberty.”
And tucked away in the North End of that peninsular city, right on the edge of Mill Pond, stood a two-story Georgian with a metal dragon hung above the door: the Green Dragon Tavern. Former Secretary of State Daniel Webster claimed the Green Dragon Tavern was the “Headquarters of the Revolution.”
How did a local bar with very little to do with the colonies’ efforts during wartime earn such an esteemed title?
Let’s find out…
Fraternity, fellowship, conspiracy, clubs, and caucuses—we’ll explore the Green Dragon Tavern’s role in what Adams considered the real revolution.
Session Handouts
[Click on the Download button above (gray bar, second from right) to open in a new window—where you can save a copy to your computer.]
[Click on the Download button above (gray bar, second from right) to open in a new window—where you can save a copy to your computer.]
Andrew Cotten, MFA, (andrewcotten.com, Instagram) is an eighth-grade English teacher in Birmingham, Alabama. He earned his BA in English from the University of the South and his MFA in Creative Writing from the Sewanee School of Letters. He is the father of two silly daughters, the husband to a very patient wife, and the author of several unwritten books.