Our JFK tour guide filling us in on Faneuil Hall, a place where the histories of President Kennedy and the American Revolution directly intersect, big time.

According to a nice brochure supplied by the JFK Presidential Library: “In 1742, Boston’s wealthiest merchant, Peter Faneuil, as a gift to the city, built Faneuil Hall.  The edifice was home to merchants, fishermen, and meat and produce sellers, and provided a platform for the country’s most famous orators.  It is where colonists first protested the Sugar Act in 1764 and established the doctrine of ‘no taxation without representation.’  Firebrand Samuel Adams rallied the citizens of Boston to the cause of independence from Great Britain in the hallowed hall, and George Washington toasted the nation there on its first birthday.” 

Not surprising then, that Faneuil Hall was nicknamed “The Cradle of Liberty.”

Faneuil Hall was also the site of JFK’s final campaign speech on November 7, 1960, a one-hour nationally televised address.