Old Corner Bookstore

The Old Corner Bookstore is downtown Boston’s oldest commercial building, built in 1718 at the corner of Washington and School Streets and now an official Freedom Trail site. Dr. Thomas Crease first used it as his home and apothecary shop. It later housed booksellers and publishers, most famously Ticknor and Fields, which issued Thoreau’s Walden, Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Atlantic Monthly.

Many writers of the American Renaissance, including Hawthorne, Stowe, Longfellow, Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes, were first published here, as were the first American editions of Charles Dickens. In 1960, when the building was slated to become a parking garage, a group of Bostonians formed Historic Boston Incorporated to buy and restore it. HBI still owns the building, and lease revenue supports its preservation work in Boston neighborhoods.

What to Know

• It is the only official Freedom Trail site that is entirely commercial, with shops and offices inside.
• In 1985 HBI converted long-abandoned upper floors into office space and upgraded building systems.
• Its rescue launched HBI, which has since restored dozens of historic buildings across Boston.
• The building’s success led HBI to become a nonprofit developer in 1979.