Carpenters' Hall

The two-story brick building with the white-painted trim and the cupola sitting atop its roof is Carpenters' Hall. Completed in seventeen seventy-four, it began as the guild house for the city's master carpenters. When the First Continental Congress met here that September, they bypassed the official state house because delegates feared the colonial government would block their gathering. Instead, they walked into this private meeting room to debate the future of the American colonies while the carpenters' workbench remained in the corner.