The Freedom Trail: Faneuil Hall & Gilded Grasshopper

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Faneuil Hall is the 6th site on the Fallout 4 "Road to Freedom," and the 11th site on the real-life Freedom Trail in Boston, where it is part of an extensive shopping and dining area with cobblestone promenades, musicians and outdoor performers. 

The area is occupied by super mutant enemies in the game and is also the main location of the Nick Valentine quest, "The Gilded Grasshopper." 


The real Faneuil Hall at night - Photo by Tony the Misfit CC BY-SA 4.0

Fallout 4 Faneuil Hall at night - Screen capture by Jewelsmith

Faneuil Hall was proposed and funded in 1740 by Peter Faneuil, a Boston merchant who prospered from the slave trade, goods produced by slave labor, and materials sold to plantations. He is buried in the Granary Burying Grounds. 

Completed in 1742, Faneuil Hall served as not only a marketplace but also a public gathering place for concerts, meetings, banquets and ceremonies. Despite being built by a slave owner, and the fact that one in five Boston families owned slaves at that time, so many meetings were held there prior to the Boston Tea Party and American Revolutionary War that it became known as the "Cradle of Liberty," 

The inside of Faneuil Hall IRL, without mutants or meat bags
Photo by ctj71081 CC BY-SA 2.0

The inside of Faneuil Hall in Fallout 4. Note the similarities with the real location, with paintings, galleries, pillars, light fixtures, bunting, and there's even track lights on the ceiling. 
Screen capture by Jewelsmith

A closer look at the paintings and stage in Faneuil Hall IRL
Photo from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0

The Faneuil Hall paintings and stage as they appear in Fallout 4 
Screen capture by Jewelsmith

A clock inside Faneuil Hall, which is almost identical to the one seen in Fallout 4. I couldn't find any information about who made this clock IRL but if I do, I will update this page. 
Photo by Michael Ricco, via Google maps

The Faneuil Hall clock as it appears in Fallout 4, fallen from its place 
Screen capture by Jewelsmith

Later, in the 1800s, Faneuil Hall became an important gathering site for public dissent and organized resistance to slavery and fugitive slave laws. 

Photo courtesy of Roadtrippers.com
The bronze statue outside of the real Faneuil Hall is an artist's rendition of Samuel Adams as he demanded Governor Hutchinson remove British troops from the city after the Boston Massacre. The troops were subsequently sent to Castle Island, which corresponds to an area called "The Castle" in Fallout 4. 

The lower base of the statue's pedestal is made of Quincy granite, which was also used to build the Bunker Hill Monument. 

In the video game, the town of Quincy is overrun by Gunners, forcing the characters Preston Garvey, Mama Murphy, Sturges, Marcy and Jun to escape to Sanctuary Hills. Nearby are the Quincy Quarries, which contain Vault 88 if the player has the Vault-Tec Workshop add-on. 

The statue outside of Faneuil Hall is destroyed in Fallout 4, though a slightly more intact version appears in Jamaica Plain. Both resemble a bronze sculpture of Benjamin Franklin that stands outside of real-world Boston's Old City Hall, which is the former site of the Boston Latin School and another site on the IRL Freedom Trail. Ben Franklin, John Hancock, Sam Adams and other notable students studied at the school. 

Destroyed statute with Faneuil Hall plaque, in Fallout 4
Screen capture by Jewelsmith

Bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin outside the Old City Hall
Photo by Jim Reynolds via Wikipedia

Faneuil Hall is part of the quest "The Gilded Grasshopper," in which the player searches for a missing person named Marty Bullfinch. He is found dead on the roof, near a gilded grasshopper unique junk item that can be sold for caps or scrapped for copper, glass and gold. 

In real life, Charles Bulfinch was the architect who remodeled Faneuil Hall in 1805. He also designed the Old State House, Boston Common and Massachusetts State House, and several other Federal style buildings of the period. 

The copper grasshopper weathervane also exists IRL, created by the coppersmith Shem Drowne in 1742. Drowne had a shop on Ann Street (now North Street) and was a deacon of the First Baptist Church of Boston for more than fifty years. 

Salem-born Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a fictional retelling of Pygmalion, featuring "Deacon Drowne" and the artist John Singleton Copley (who I mention in the Long Wharf section). 

Drowne's grasshopper is guilded with gold leaf, weighs eighty pounds, and measures four feet (1.2 meters) long. 

The gilded grasshopper weathervane in Fallout 4 (left) and IRL (right)
Screen capture by Jewelsmith - Photograph by Sesmith (public domain)

After finding the grasshopper, the quest will take the player to the North End Graveyard, near Pickman Gallery. Digging up Shem Drowne's grave will yield Shem Drowne's skull, the Shem Drowne sword, one gold bar, two silver bars and three copper bars. 

The game's North End Graveyard seems to be based on Copp's Hill Burying Ground in Boston, where the real Shem Drowne is indeed buried. 

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