Sparks in the Harbor: Portsmouth’s Prelude to Revolution

Before the first shots at Lexington and Concord, a bold raid in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, helped set the Revolution in motion. Join us for a day of living history as we explore Strawbery Banke’s colonial village, sail historic waterways aboard a gundalow, and view Fort Constitution — the site of the daring 1774 raid on Fort William and Mary. Through immersive stories and sweeping views, we’ll uncover how Portsmouth’s patriots helped ignite America’s fight for freedom.

This all-day tour includes van transportation to & from Boston, entrance to Strawbery Banke, lunch, informal lectures by Cynthia Hatch and Mary Adams, and a cruise on a gundalow (a flat-bottomed cargo barge used for trading up and down rivers).

Tentative schedule: this tour will leave Boston around 9 a.m. and return by 5 p.m. A detailed schedule will be sent to participants 4 weeks in advance.

Updated July 23: One remaining spot has opened up!

Price (per Person): $140.00

Your Guides

Cynthia Hatch, PhD, is a dedicated academic and historian specializing in the Revolutionary War, currently serving as an instructor at the Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology. She has cultivated a deep expertise in the political, social, and cultural dynamics of the 18th century, focusing on how these elements shaped the trajectory of the American Revolution. Her research interests encompass a range of topics, including the colonial legal traditions during the Revolutionary period and the impact of local narratives on broader historical interpretations. Dr. Hatch is committed to bridging the gap between scholarly research and public history, aiming to make her findings accessible to both academic and non-academic audiences.

Mary Adams has worked in public history for her entire adult life, first as an interpreter for the National Park Service in both Glacier National Park and on the National Mall. She is currently an educator and homeschool program developer for the New Hampshire Historical Society as well as serving as the Manager of The Pursuit of History Weekends.

A Town Torn Apart: Patriots vs. Loyalists in the American Revolution

Take a 30-minute ferry ride across picturesque Boston Harbor to Hingham and explore a well-preserved 18th century New England town that still bears the scars of its Revolutionary War Patriot and Loyalist split.

Meet your guide at the Long Wharf ferry terminal in Boston and take a 30-minute ride across Boston Harbor to Hingham, Massachusetts. As you travel across Boston Harbor, they will point out islands and areas of historical interest as they pertain to the heady days of the American Revolution — a time where towns across America, like Hingham, were split between Loyalists and Patriots. As the conflict developed, Boston Harbor was a war zone of massive strategic interest to both the British and Americans. There’s no better way to learn about the struggle over Boston Harbor than on a ferry sailing across the harbor itself!

Perhaps more than any South Shore town, Hingham’s loyalties were divided during the American Revolution. Even individual families were split by divided loyalties. On this tour of Hingham, guests learn the history of how one town came to grips with this division. Stories of Patriots are interspersed with the struggles of Loyalists. These stories, amongst others, highlight the human drama of a town caught in the middle of the seismic forces of history. Guests will be provided with a tour of historic downtown Hingham along with tours of multiple properties including the Benjamin Lincoln House, the Old Ordinary, and the Old Ship Church. The Benjamin Lincoln House is a meticulously conserved 18th century house that was once home to American Major General Benjamin Lincoln – a general with a muddled and controversial military career whose father was one of the most prominent Loyalists in Massachusetts. The Old Ordinary was the home of a loyalist Hingham family who were connected to a wider loyalist network throughout the South Shore. In this building, guests will have the opportunity to learn from Hingham historian Ellen Miller about an enslaved painter who self-emancipated himself from his Loyalist enslavers by joining the American forces in their campaign against the British. Lastly, guests will tour the Old Ship Church – the oldest continuously operating wooden church in the United States, whose American Revolutionary War Loyalist minister Ebenezer Gay, found himself struggling to maintain his pulpit.

At the end of the tour of Hingham, guests will return to Boston via the ferry.

For guests that have mobility needs, the Hingham Historical Society History Cart (an electric low-speed, street legal, six-seater, golf cart) is available for transport between sites.

This all-day tour includes your round-trip ferry ticket, transportation & tours in Hingham, entrance into historic properties, and lunch. A detailed schedule will be sent to participants 4 weeks in advance.

Price (per Person): $135.00

Black History in the North End — Morning walking tour

In this tour, Joel Mackall will connect current/evolving Boston and colonial Boston at America’s birth.

The group will meet at Haymarket/Faneuil Hall to discuss three African women in the 1600s who lived there, then walk to Long Wharf (Boston’s connection to the birth of the Atlantic world).

Next, the group will walk to the Revere House/Revere Mall to discuss architecture, newspaper/media, and accounts of African life in Africa and in urban sidelighted with southern, island and global enslavement survivals. The next stop will be Copps hill cemetery (1st black community site in Boston, at least 1,000 Black folks interred there) and lift up the beginning of incredible activism and involvement in the American revolution-the birth of the Commonwealth).

The group will then walk back to Haymarket (minimal hill incline/decline in the last 20 minutes). This tour sets the stage for a clear understanding of the Black community’s original formation in the North End leading into the West End, the civil war and the “Great Migration.”

Please note: this tour is scheduled to coordinate with the afternoon walking tours. Participants will have a break for lunch following the tour, allowing time to join additional tours offered in the afternoon.

Price (per Person): $30.00

Your Guide

Joel Mackall is an award-winning Educator & Project Developer with the ReIdren Business Group based in Roxbury, Massachusetts. He is the founder of the Hidden History of Black Boston Tours and Black Connections: the Mobile Black History Museum. He has also served as secretary of the Cameroonians of Lowell Association, as an officer on the Warren Gardens Housing Cooperative board, on the Network of Immigrant and African American Solidarity advisory council, and as a technology chairperson with the Black Community Information Center. He has delivered numerous professional workshops & illustrated talks for all ages in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, greater Boston, nationally, and abroad. Topics include African American genealogy, African World history, business design, and generative technology.

A Bank Heist, a Donnybrook, and Waves of Molasses — Morning walking tour

Join Mike Manning of the Friends of the Boston Harborwalk (FBHW) for a walking tour of the North End and the Charlestown Navy Yard.  The tour will begin at the Mirabella Pool located at 475 Commercial Street in Boston’s North End.

We’ll tour the North End and visit the following sites:  Edmund Hartt shipyard (1794) — where the USS Constitution was built, the Great Molasses Flood (1919), the Civil War Draft Riot of 1863 (on Prince Street), and the 1950 Brink’s Robbery (at Commercial and Prince streets).  We’ll make our way across the North Washington Street Bridge (now known as the Bill Russell Memorial Bridge) and into Charlestown.

Once in the Navy Yard (1801), we’ll discuss the founding of the yard as one of the original six Navy yards in the United States.  We’ll explore shipbuilding (1814 to 1956), shipyard architecture, and the yard’s eventual closure in 1974 (and its re-use since).  The tour will end at the USS Constitution Museum at approximately 12:30 PM.

Please note: this tour is scheduled to coordinate with the afternoon walking tours. Participants will have a break for lunch following the tour, allowing time to join additional tours offered in the afternoon.

Price (per Person): $20.00

Your Guide

Mike Manning is a native Bostonian with roots in the Charlestown and South Boston neighborhoods. During the work week, he is an engineer in the energy/clean transportation fields. On weekends, Mike leads the Friends of the Boston Harborwalk, a volunteer group with a mission to publicize and promote Boston’s 43-mile-long Harborwalk. He is also an advisor to the USS Constitution Museum and a senior docent at the Collings Foundation.

Black History on Beacon Hill — Afternoon walking tour

In this tour, Joel Mackall will connect current/evolving Boston and colonial Boston at America’s birth.

The tour begins at the USCT 54th Shaw Memorial in front of the State House, continues down to Charles Street, and returns to the Joy Street Museum—the African Meeting House—with a hill incline at the tour’s end.

This tour loosely follows the African American Freedom Trail through the north slope of the West End Hill, focusing on the role of early Black organization and resistance there—agency in community building, activism, religion, civil rights, and abolition. We explore the impact an isolated but determined community had from after the American Revolution up to the start of the 1900s, including the writings and speeches of Maria Stewart and David Walker, all the way up to Geraldine and William Monroe Trotter’s “Hollywood” protests on the Common.

Please note: this tour is scheduled to coordinate with the morning walking tours. 

Price (per Person): $30.00

Your Guide

Joel Mackall is an award-winning Educator & Project Developer with the ReIdren Business Group based in Roxbury, Massachusetts. He is the founder of the Hidden History of Black Boston Tours and Black Connections: the Mobile Black History Museum. He has also served as secretary of the Cameroonians of Lowell Association, as an officer on the Warren Gardens Housing Cooperative board, on the Network of Immigrant and African American Solidarity advisory council, and as a technology chairperson with the Black Community Information Center. He has delivered numerous professional workshops & illustrated talks for all ages in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, greater Boston, nationally, and abroad. Topics include African American genealogy, African World history, business design, and generative technology.