Boston's Notable Addresses

Boston is a great city!  It was made great by a fortunate combination of location, historic chance, and a steady stream of notable residents who helped influence United States history and culture.

   John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Quincy Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Edgar Allen Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Edison, John Singleton Copley, Samuel Morse, General Knox, and Charles Bulfinch are only a few of the names that come to mind when one thinks of “the Athens of America.” All these men have something else in common: the Boston houses in which they lived and worked have long been torn down and lost to posterity. And yet so many of the homes of the rich or famous – and infamous – have survived and can still be seen and/or visited.

   This 310 page book, which contains more than 200 photos and historic portraits, detailed maps of five suggested neighborhood tours and describes more than a hundred notable Bostonians, is not intended as an architectural guide. It's not the style of the homes that fascinated this author. The mystique of these homes comes not from the way they were built, but from the people who once occupied them.  What were those people like? Did living at this particular location influence them and their work? If only the walls could talk, what tales could they tell?

   Come take a tour through history and learn about some famous and infamous Bostonians and where they lived and made history.