Boston's Old State House was completed in 1713 as a town house for the Massachusetts colonial government, replacing a building lost to fire. It stood at a commercial crossroads, with government offices and the exchange below and chambers above. Royal authority, the elected assembly, merchants, petitioners, and townspeople all met around the structure. Its brick walls therefore witnessed both routine administration and a mounting argument over the political rights of the colony.

In 1761 James Otis challenged writs of assistance, broad customs search orders, before a colonial court meeting in the building. His speech became a touchstone for later Patriots, though it did not immediately end the practice. In the following decade Parliament's revenue laws and the presence of British soldiers made Boston increasingly tense. On March 5, 1770, soldiers fired on civilians just outside the building; five people died. The event remembered as the Boston Massacre unfolded in the street, while officials inside and nearby faced demands for an inquiry and troop withdrawal.

As the imperial dispute became revolution, the Old State House remained a seat of government. Following the British evacuation, the Declaration of Independence was read to an assembled crowd from its balcony on July 18, 1776. The royal lion and unicorn that symbolized the crown were pulled down. After independence, state government continued to use the building until a larger Massachusetts State House opened in 1798. The older structure then served several civic and commercial purposes while the city grew around it.

Nineteenth-century alterations changed the interior and exterior, and demolition was considered as downtown land became valuable. The Bostonian Society formed in the 1880s and helped establish a museum in the building. Later preservation work restored architectural features and adapted rooms for exhibitions, but the structure is not an untouched 1713 interior. Its varied uses and repairs are part of the record of how Bostonians handled an increasingly famous landmark.

Revolutionary Spaces now cares for the Old State House and interprets it with nearby Old South Meeting House. Visitors can examine surviving fabric, reconstructed elements, exhibits, and the setting of the 1770 violence outside. The site helps separate the physical location of the Massacre from later pictures and stories that simplified it. It also shows how a colonial government building became a museum of civic protest and how memories of independence have been reconsidered over time. The surviving council chamber and balcony setting also give visitors a spatial sense of the close proximity of government, commerce, and crowds.