Otis House is the last surviving mansion in Bowdoin Square in Boston’s West End neighborhood, with deep family ties to the American Revolution. Harrison Gray Otis and his wife Sally Foster Otis witnessed revolutionary-era Boston firsthand as children. Otis’s aunt, Mercy Otis Warren, and uncle, James Otis, were key figures during the American Revolution. The Otis House tells the story of domestic life in post-Revolution Boston and features important objects connected to the conflict, including a desk and bookcase confiscated by the British during their occupation of Boston, as well as a couch made in honor the Marquis de Lafayette’s triumphant tour of the United States in 1824.

Pierce House is one of the last surviving examples of seventeenth-century architecture in the city of Boston. During the American Revolution, Colonel Samuel Pierce participated in the fortification of Dorchester Heights. His remarkable personal papers and diaries allow us to explore everyday life during the war. Pierce was “a regular guy”—a middle-class farmer, not a politician or general or wealthy merchant. His journal entries offer visitors an eyewitness account of how events such as the Boston Tea Party and the Battles of Lexington and Concord were perceived by those living nearby and how the unrest and eventual war interrupted and shaped daily life.

This country estate overlooking Quincy Bay transports you to the eve of the American Revolution era and tells the story of a woman’s work to preserve her family’s history more than one hundred years later. Col. Josiah Quincy built the house, where from a third-floor perch he reported the movement of British ships to General George Washington in 1776. Josiah Quincy, Jr. (who supported American independence) defended the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre along with John Adams while his brother Samuel Quincy (who supported the Crown) was the prosecutor. The Quincy family played key roles in the social, political, and intellectual life of Massachusetts for generations, producing three mayors of Boston and a president of Harvard.

The 230-acre site includes a 1690 manor house that served as the country seat of wealthy Newburyport merchants. Among them was Nathaniel Tracy, who outfitted a fleet of privateer vessels during the American Revolution. Upon his death in 1796, Tracy’s widow sold the farm to Offin Boardman, who had achieved fame during the Revolution for his daring exploits aboard privateer vessels, which landed him in prison in England twice.