The Meeting House on Smith Court

Down a short dead-end lane off Joy Street on the north slope of Beacon Hill stands a plain brick meeting house built in 1806. It is the oldest surviving church building in the United States built by and for a free Black community. The congregation, led by the Reverend Thomas Paul, raised the money with help from members such as Cato Gardner, who helped gather the $7,700 it cost. It served as church, school and meeting hall. In 1832 William Lloyd Garrison founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society here, and during the Civil War Frederick Douglass spoke here to recruit men for the Massachusetts regiments. Abolitionists took to calling it the Black Faneuil Hall. As the community moved away late in the century, the building became a synagogue. It is now restored as part of the Museum of African American History and the Boston African American National Historic Site.