On March 5, 1770, nine British soldiers shot into a crowd sixty steps from where you are standing.
Last reviewed 10 September 2026 · A three-minute read · 1700–1985
The short answer
At 21 Congress Street, Boston, a British sentry's dispute with a crowd of colonists on nearby King Street escalated on March 5, 1770, into gunfire that killed five men, including Crispus Attucks, in what became known as the Boston Massacre. The surrounding streets, later renamed Congress Street in 1800, also burned in the Great Fire of 1872.
Collection : A. D. White Architectural Photographs, Cornell University Library Accession Number: 15/5/3090.00236 Title : Trinity Church, Boston Architect: Henry Hobson Richardson (American, 1838-1886) Building Date: 1872-1877 Photograph dat — 1877 · Cornell University Library · No restrictions
March 5, 1770
Soldiers fired into a crowd on King Street
It started with one soldier and a crowd that would not leave him alone. A British sentry stood watch outside the Custom House on King Street, now State Street. A knot of colonists gathered to jeer at him. Word spread fast through nearby taverns and streets. Within minutes the crowd grew to something between 300 and 400 people, packed close in the cold.
Seven more soldiers came to back up the sentry, led by Thomas Preston. Wait — the officer who led them was Captain John Pitcairn. The crowd threw snowballs, ice, oyster shells and clubs. Someone knocked a soldier down with a club. He got up, raised his musket, and fired.
The other soldiers fired next, without an order from Preston. Three men died instantly. Two more died later of their wounds. The first to fall was Crispus Attucks, a sailor of African and Native American descent. He became the first American killed in the push for independence.
The town did not let it pass as an accident. Samuel Adams called it a massacre, and the name stuck. Paul Revere printed an engraving of the shooting. It spread through the colonies within weeks. It showed a disciplined line of redcoats firing on an unarmed crowd. It was propaganda, not photography, but it did its work. Captain Preston and his men stood trial for murder that fall. Their lawyer was John Adams, the future president, who argued that the soldiers had fired in self-defense. Six were acquitted. Two were convicted only of manslaughter, branded on the thumb, and released.
The soldiers fired without a command, and the empty street filled with bodies before anyone gave the order to stop.
1713 to 1770
The Old State House stood behind the mob's anger
The crowd that night was jeering at more than one sentry. The Old State House (Boston) stood a few dozen feet away, 78 feet) from the corner. It was built in 1713. It housed the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of colonial Massachusetts government. Taxes, troops, distant kings—everything the mob resented had an address. This was it. The soldiers guarding the Custom House were guarding the same authority that sat inside those walls. A crowd that gathered to jeer at one redcoat was really jeering at the building behind him.
1800, renamed
Quaker Lane vanished when Congress Street was named
The streets the mob and the soldiers stood on that night do not exist anymore, at least not by name. What is now Congress Street was once a tangle of colonial lanes. One was called Quaker Lane. It ran between King Street and Water Street. Boston renamed and consolidated them into Congress Street in 1800. That was thirty years after the shooting. The tangled streetscape where the crowd actually stood was straightened out of the map. The ground held still. The names did not.
centuries to the 1960s
Dock Square fell to urban renewal in a decade
Bostonians had somewhere to gather before this corner ever mattered. Dock Square sat just north of here. It was one of the city's oldest public spaces. It was a market and meeting ground for three hundred years. It survived the colonial era, the revolution, the nineteenth century. It did not survive urban renewal. The city tore it down in the 1960s. They built Boston City Hall and the Central Artery instead. A gathering place older than the massacre itself came down in a single decade of planning.
The soldiers' fire was not the only thing that leveled this corner.
November 9–10, 1872
Fire burned hottest at Congress and Devonshire streets
A century after the shooting, fire did what muskets had not. On the night of November 9–10, 1872, the Great Boston Fire of 1872 tore through downtown. It burned hottest along Congress and Devonshire Streets. This was the very corner underfoot. It destroyed 776 buildings across 65 acres. Between 26 and 30 people died. The commercial district that had grown up around the massacre site burned to its foundations in a single night. This included brick counting houses, warehouses, and shops.
Where soldiers once fired into a crowd, fire later leveled the whole block around them.
Traffic runs now over the corner where the crowd broke and the soldiers fired, past a building that has stood since 1713 and streets that were built back twice.
Open this place in Strata
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Sourced records, high and medium confidence. Era background is marked as such.
Early modern
before 1800
Before Congress Street was laid out and named in 1800, this stretch of downtown Boston was a tangle of colonial lanes including Quaker Lane, running between King and Water streets.
Completed in 1713, the Old State House housed the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of Massachusetts government and stands close to where the Boston Massacre took place.
Samuel Adams, born and died in Boston (1722-1803), helped organize the Revolution and signed the Declaration of Independence, and a monument to him stands a short walk north.
Phillis Wheatley, the first African American poet to publish a book, died in Boston in 1784.
Era background — not a record of this tile · Wikidata - Phillis Wheatley
March 5, 1770
On March 5, 1770, British soldiers fired into a crowd on what was then King Street, killing five men including Crispus Attucks, in the event that became known as the Boston Massacre.
In 1770, Paul Revere produced a widely circulated print of the Boston Massacre, shaping how generations would picture the killings on King Street.
Era background — not a record of this tile · Wikidata - The Boston Massacre (print)
1841
Designed by Isaiah Rogers and built in 1841, the Merchants Exchange became a central hub for Boston business activity on State Street.
Era background — not a record of this tile · Wikipedia - Merchants Exchange (Boston)
November 9-10, 1872
On the night of November 9-10, 1872, Boston's worst fire tore through downtown, and Congress and Devonshire streets sat inside the most heavily burned ground, killing between 26 and 30 people and destroying 776 buildings.
Built in 1874 in the Gothic Revival style at 55 Kilby Street, the Codman Building's first four stories are the only commercial design by architects Sturgis & Brigham still standing in the district.
Built in 1897 to a Beaux Arts design by Cass Gilbert, the eleven-story Second Brazer Building at 25-29 State Street is Gilbert's only work in the city, raised the same year he won the commission for the Minnesota State Capitol.
The 22-story John W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse, in Art Deco and Moderne style, was built between 1931 and 1933 to house federal courts, offices and postal operations.
Dock Square stood just north of this corner as a commercial and social hub for centuries before urban renewal wiped it out to build Boston City Hall and the Central Artery.
Completed in 1977, 60 State Street stands 509 feet tall with 38 floors, making it Boston's 19th tallest building at the head of State Street.
Era background — not a record of this tile · Wikipedia - 60 State Street
1981-1985
Exchange Place, built 1981-1985 at 1 Exchange Place between Congress and Kilby streets, is Boston's 18th tallest building, its glass tower growing out of the older 12-story Boston Stock Exchange building.
The ground sits near the site of the Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770, where British soldiers fired on a crowd on King Street, killing five men, and it later stood at the heart of the Great Boston Fire of 1872, which burned hottest along Congress and Devonshire streets.
What was here before Congress Street existed?
Before 1800, this stretch of downtown Boston was a tangle of colonial lanes, including one called Quaker Lane, which ran between King Street and Water Street until the city renamed and consolidated the streets into Congress Street.
Who died in the Boston Massacre?
Five men were killed, three instantly and two later of their wounds, when British soldiers fired into a crowd on King Street on March 5, 1770; the first to fall was Crispus Attucks, a sailor of African and Native American descent.
What was Dock Square and what happened to it?
Dock Square stood just north of this corner as one of Boston's oldest public spaces, serving as a market and meeting ground for three centuries, until the city demolished it in the 1960s to build Boston City Hall and the Central Artery.
How badly did the Great Fire of 1872 affect this area?
The fire of November 9–10, 1872 burned hottest along Congress and Devonshire streets, destroying 776 buildings across 65 acres and killing between 26 and 30 people.
What role did the Old State House play in the events of 1770?
The Old State House, completed in 1713, stood close to the shooting and housed the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of colonial Massachusetts government, making it the seat of authority the crowd was effectively confronting that night.
