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Created as a companion tour for our Halloween's Beacon Hill With a BOO!, this tour presents the darker side of Boston.

On this tour you will hear about the dangers of Richmond Street, the scourges of smallpox and influenza, the vandalization of the Royal Governor's House, the Molasses Flood, the infamous Brink's Job, and a touch of organized crime, all against the backdrop of Boston's oldest neighborhood.

Had Samuel de Champlain settled the Shawmut Peninsula, would we be speaking French today? Without the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1598 and the renewed persecution of the French Huguenots, would we have Faneuil Hall? Had the Marquis de Lafayette not bent King Louis' ear on the noble cause of freedom, would our Revolutionary War have had a different outcome?

Come along with us and learn more about the French contributions to our history and society in Boston as we walk the Freedom Trail.

This former jail, designed by Gridley J. Fox Bryant in 1852, once housed 350 prisoners and now offers deluxe 21st century amenities to 288 guests. Join us as architect Gary Johnson of Cambridge Seven Associates presents a slide show of the former Charles Street Jail and details of how Cambridge Seven Associates along with Ann Beha Architects renovated and restored the building into the luxurious Liberty Hotel.

Visit the restored cornerstone of the hospital building Charles Bulfinch designed in 1818 and learn the early history of Massachusetts General Hospital including the legendary demise of Dr. george Parkman. Now a teaching amphitheater, more than 8,000 operations were performed in the Ether Dome during the 19th century and ether, "Medicine's greatest gift," was first demonstrated in 1846.

The 19th century literary flowering on Beacon Hill provided strong roots for the growth of 20th century literature. Even as the pen gave way to the typewriter, the literary spirit continued in such notables as poet Robert Frost, historians Samuel Eliot Morison and David McCullough, and medical novelist Robin Cook.

We'll take a look at how literary life on Beacon Hill has changed - and how it didn't - from one century through the next.

Boston's South Station opened in 1899 as the largest train station in the world and remained the busiest in the United States for many years. Originally designed by the H.H. Richardson's successor form, Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, the South Station story is another inspiring example of saving the old from demolition to help interpret the new.

Now completely renovated for the 21st century, South Station still provides a glimpse into the past century of American history as it arrived and departed through this marvelous terminal. Come rediscover the age of the locomotive on this tour of South Station.