This detailed view shows the busy square in Boston dominated by the eastward façade of the Old State House, built in 1747. The Boston Massacre took place in this square in 1770, and from the balcony in July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read publicly for the first time in Boston and was mentioned in a letter from Abigail Adams to her husband, John. News of the end of the Revolutionary War, carried from France on the ship Astrea in 1783, was also proclaimed from this balcony.