Because I messed up with a question on my last “So You Think You Know Boston” quiz, I decided to add some details with a post about the subject of my goof: Long Wharf.

I started to write a comprehensive post but, as so often happens, I found more history than I could cover in just one post. So, I’ll start with the structure’s history today and add the buildings on Long Wharf next week.

The Big Dig in Reverse

Now, we know that the Puritans weren’t very imaginative when it came to naming things around the city and Long Wharf provides a good example. What else would you call the longest wharf on the waterfront?

Long Wharf with T Wharf projecting from the side

Located at the end of what is now State Street, Long Wharf originally stretched along King Street from just before the old State House and extending well out into Boston Harbor. Constructed by Captain Oliver Noyes in 1710, Long Wharf was originally named the Boston Pier and represented the greatest enterprise of Boston’s provincial period. (Sort of the Big Dig but in reverse.)

After the Revolutionary War

Long Wharf extended 1,743 feet from the shore of Town Cove into the harbor. It ran “from Andrew Faneuil’s corner to low water, to be of the width of King (State) Street.” (After the Revolutionary War, King Street became State Street and Queen Street became Court Street.)

Map of the Shawmut Peninsula with Long Wharf in circle

At 104 feet wide with sea water no less than 17 feet deep at the end, Long Wharf provided the town’s main access to the sea.  The deep end still occupies its original location but landmaking truncated the wharf’s length by half as the harbor was filled in at the town end.

Merchants’ shops, counting rooms, and solid granite warehouses went up along Long Wharf’s north side. Long Wharf’s reach into the harbor allowed larger ships to tie up and unload directly to these new warehouses and stores.A portion that joined with a remaining bit of the deteriorating old Barricado was called T-Wharf. (Because it looked like the letter T.)

Military Activities on Long Wharf

As one of the city’s oldest structures, Long Wharf has acquired a detailed past. Historical events that happened on or near Long Wharf include these:

• 1748 — the Boston captain of a ship owned by the Quincy family and carrying a letter of marque (which made it a privateer) docked at Long Wharf with 163 chests of silver and gold. They had won this prize in an engagement with a Spanish ship, which they fooled by pretending to have more men and more weapons than they actually carried. It took four carts, guarded by armed sailors, to carry the treasure up King Street and along the High (Washington Street) to the Quincy wine cellar. The prize ship was sold at auction at the Royal Exchange Tavern.
• 1768 — The British Regulars, or Redcoats, disembarked at Long Wharf and marched up King Street to help enforce the Townshend Acts. General Gage also boarded his troops here to sail across the river to the Battle of Bunker Hill.
• 1776 — The troops boarded boats at Long Wharf for the last time, evacuating the city when General Washington’s maneuvers made Boston untenable for them.
• 1789 — The day before Washington left Boston after his visit, he came to Long Wharf, boarded the barge of the French admiral and inspected two 74-foot-gun warships of our French allies “about 4 miles below the town.”

Exotic Adventures from Long Wharf

Long Wharf is where Bostonians embarked for distant lands and faraway islands and brought exotic goods into the city.

• 1819 — a group of seven men along with their wives, children, and helpers, left the wharf to sail to the Hawaiian Islands as missionaries from the Park Street Church.
• 1836 — 21-year-old Richard Henry Dana landed at Long Wharf after his two years before the mast and turned the notes he had kept into a classic novel of the sea.
• 1842 – Charles Dickens, then a young man, came ashore in Boston for the first time.
• Today – Commuters and tourists leave Long Wharf for trips to the Harbor Islands, take harbor cruises, and sail to Provincetown.
• 1871 – Captain Lorenzo Baker sailed the schooner Telegraph from Port Antonio to Long Wharf with the first large shipment of bananas to come into Boston. He saw an opportunity despite the ridicule of his Wellfleet neighbors who called it “monkey food.”

“Monkey Food” on Long Wharf

Long Wharf Today

Today, Long Wharf is just as busy and bustling as it was in the 18th and 19th centuries. Only the nature of the traffic has changed. Instead of merchant vessels, we have passenger ferries, whale-watching boats, commuter shuttles, harbor cruise boats and, for thrill seekers, Codzilla. Customers check into the hotel and arrive for lunch or drinks at restaurants. Kids and their parents spill into and out of the New England Aquarium. Vendors sell tee shirts and baseball caps instead of bananas. Tour buses mix with Duck Tour amphibious vehicles, limos, and ride-share vehicles.

After its long and storied history, this important wharf still generates money for Boston, albeit in ways that Oliver Noyes and General Gage could never have imagined. It also still holds historic buildings. More on that next week.

Long Wharf from the Sea (MIT)