Built in 1742 (and enlarged using a Charles Bulfinch design in 1805), this building was a gift to the town from prosperous merchant Peter Faneuil. The "Cradle of Liberty" rang with speeches by orators such as Samuel Adams -- whose statue stands outside the Congress Street entrance -- in the years leading to the Revolution. Abolitionists, temperance advocates, and suffragists used it as a pulpit in the years afterward. The upstairs is still a public meeting and concert hall, and downstairs holds retail space, all according to Faneuil's will. The grasshopper weather vane, the sole remaining detail from the original building, is modeled after the weather vane on London's Royal Exchange.

National Park Service rangers give free 20-minute talks every half-hour from 9am to 5pm in the second-floor auditorium and operate a visitor center on the first floor. On the top floor is a small museum that houses the weapons collection and historical exhibits of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. Admission is free.

To continue on the Freedom Trail: Leave Faneuil Hall, cross North Street, and follow the trail through the "Blackstone Block." These buildings, among the oldest in the city, give a sense of the scale of 18th- and 19th-century Boston. Pause on Union Street.