Model of the Old State House as it looked in the mid-1700s
The Council Chamber and Representatives Hall are on the second floor of the Old State House. The more impressive is the Council Chamber. This is where the Royal Governor would meet with his Council Members—twenty-eight for Massachusetts in the 1760s. The Council was one half of the legislative branch of the colonial government. Council members were nominated by the House of Representatives (the other half of the legislative branch) and approved by the Governor. They served mainly as an advisory board. The only sway the Council Members had over the Governor is that they determined his salary for the upcoming year based on his performance during the previous year.
View of the Old State House’s Council Chamber facing the interior entrance
To communicate directly with the people, the Governor would make speeches from the balcony of the State House, which is accessed through the Council Chamber. Under normal circumstances, only the Governor would give a speech from the balcony, but by July 1776, circumstances were no longer normal. On July 18th, the Declaration of Independence was read for the first time in Boston from the balcony, and it wasn’t read by the Governor. The British had vacated Boston four months earlier in March after an 11-month siege by Patriot militia, so the Patriots did not have to forcibly take over the State House in order to read the document.
View of the Old State House’s Council Chamber facing the balcony door
Shortly after the reading of the Declaration of Independence, the building was declared the state of Massachusetts’s first State House, though technically there was no state of Massachusetts. It wasn’t until 1780 when the former colony ratified its own constitution—the oldest written constitution in the world that is still in use by an active government—that the building officially became the Massachusetts State House. The state’s first elected governor, John Hancock, was inaugurated in this room.
Representatives Hall is the room in the Old State House where the House of Representatives met. This branch of the legislature was comprised of 125 elected officials who could pass laws, but there was nothing democratic about it since the Governor had veto power, and his veto could not be overturned. While the Council Men were most likely on the Governor’s side in affairs since they were approved by him, many in the House of Representatives were against taxes and other hardships imposed on the colonies by the King of England.
Representatives Hall at the Old State House in Boston
The existing room is way too small to hold 125 men, but back in the 1760s it was the biggest room on the second floor. In fact, it has been altered more than any other room in the building. The Old State House caught fire multiple times—and each fire gutted the interior—with the first major fire being in 1747. The building was renovated back to its original layout, which consisted of three large rooms with staircases and hallways between them. The center room, Representatives Hall, was a little larger than the other two. The third room at the back of the building (opposite the balcony) was the Court Chamber.
Court Chamber and Representatives Hall inside the Boston’s Old State House are now divided into smaller rooms
By the time the current Representatives Hall was constructed, the Old State House had not been a state house for over thirty years. Its replacement, the current Massachusetts State House that overlooks Boston Common, was finished in 1798, and after that the Old State House was used as a commercial building until it became Boston’s City Hall in 1830. Another fire destroyed the interior in 1832, and this time it was redesigned in the Greek Revival style; it is this layout that largely survives today. Only the exterior of the Old State House, including the bricks, remain from the original building. The Council Chamber is still close to its original size, but Representatives Hall is much smaller. Furthermore, there is now only one central staircase.
None of the furniture in the building is original, for it was destroyed long ago. What is on display are modern reproductions made in Boston at the North Bennett Street School using the same techniques that were used in the 1760s. The school is a traditional-trades school where carpentry, cabinet making, jewelry making, locksmithing, and even violin making are taught.
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Last updated on February 1, 2024
