Harbor & Waterfront Explorer

1. 

   Mission 1

   The Harbor That Started a Revolution

   Boston Harbor in 1773 was one of the busiest ports in the American colonies — a deep natural harbor protected by a chain of islands that made it ideal for merchant ships carrying goods between Britain and New England. When the British wanted to punish Boston for the Tea Party they closed the harbor entirely with the Boston Port Act of 1774, cutting off the city's food supply and economy in a single stroke — and instead of breaking Boston's will, it united the colonies behind Boston's cause.

2. 

   Mission 2

   342 Chests of Tea

   On the night of December 16, 1773, approximately 116 men disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded three ships and systematically dumped 342 chests of East India Company tea into Boston Harbor over three hours. The tea was worth approximately £10,000 — roughly $1.7 million today — and the participants were so disciplined that they swept the ships' decks clean afterward and replaced a broken padlock. Not a single participant was ever prosecuted because no one would identify them.

3. 

   Mission 3

   The Harbor Islands

   Boston Harbor contains 34 islands spread across 50 square miles of water — most invisible from the city streets but accessible by ferry. The islands have served as farms, military fortifications, quarantine stations, prisons, and lighthouses over four centuries. Boston Light on Little Brewster Island is the oldest lighthouse site in America — a light has warned ships away from the rocks there since 1716.

4. 

   Mission 4

   Old Ironsides' Home Waters

   The USS Constitution — Old Ironsides — has been berthed in the Charlestown Navy Yard since 1897 and is the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world, still technically in active service in the United States Navy. She earned her nickname during the War of 1812 when British cannonballs were observed bouncing off her thick oak hull. The Constitution was launched in Boston Harbor in 1797.

5. 

   Mission 5

   The Fish Pier

   Boston has been a fishing city since before it was a city — the abundance of cod in the waters off New England was one of the primary reasons European settlers came to this part of America. A sacred codfish made of painted wood hangs in the Massachusetts State House — the Sacred Cod — as a reminder of how completely the fishing industry built this state.

6. 

   Mission 6

   The Comeback Harbor

   In 1986 Boston Harbor was declared the dirtiest harbor in the United States — decades of raw sewage and industrial waste had turned the water so toxic that swimming was banned and fish populations had collapsed. A court-ordered cleanup that cost $3.8 billion over 20 years transformed it into one of the great environmental recovery stories in American history — today harbor seals have returned and whale watching boats operate from the same docks that once discharged raw sewage.

7. 

   Mission 7

   The View From the Water

   The best view of Boston is not from any building or park in the city — it is from the harbor itself, looking back at the skyline from the water. The city was designed to be approached from the sea, and the skyline from the harbor reveals the geography that shaped everything: the narrow peninsula, the hills, the church steeples that once guided sailors home.

8. 

   Mission 8

   The Harbor at Golden Hour

   Boston Harbor at sunset is one of the finest urban waterfront views in America. The same water that carried the tea ships in 1773, that launched Old Ironsides in 1797, that was declared the dirtiest harbor in America in 1986 and restored to health by 2006, catches the same evening light it has caught every day for 400 years since the first settlers looked out at it and decided this was where they would build their city.

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