The Old State House is a historic building in Boston, Massachusetts. Built in 1713, it was the seat of the Massachusetts General Court until 1798. It is located at the intersection of Washington and State streets, and is one of the oldest public buildings in the United States. One of the landmarks on Boston's Freedom Trail, it is the oldest surviving public building in Boston, and now serves as a history museum that, through 2019, was operated by the Bostonian Society. On January 1, 2020, the Bostonian Society merged with the Old South Association in Boston to form Revolutionary Spaces. The Old State House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 1994. History The Massachusetts Town House: seat of colony government 1713–1776 The previous building, the wooden Town House of 1657, had burned in the fire of 1711. Today's brick Old State House was built in 1712–13, and possibly designed by Robert Twelves. Some historians credit Thomas Dawes with being the architect, but he was of a later generation. His contributions probably came in about 1772, after a four-year period of the General Assembly having to meet in Cambridge due to British use of the building as a military barrack (which resulted in considerable damage). A notable feature was the pair of seven-foot tall wooden figures depicting a lion and unicorn, symbols of the British monarchy. A Royal Coat of Arms was later removed from Council Chambers during the Revolution by Loyalist fleeing the then colony and now located at Trinity Anglican Church in Saint John, New Brunswick since 1791. The coat of arms is now in the nave having survived the fire at Trinity in 1877. The building housed a Merchant's Exchange on the first floor and warehouses in the basement. On the second floor, the east side contained the Council Chamber of the Royal Governor while the west end of the second floor contained chambers for the Courts of Suffolk County and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The central portion contained the chambers for the elected Massachusetts legislature, the General Court. This chamber is notable for including public galleries, the first known example of such a feature being included in a chamber for elected officials in the English-speaking world. The interior was rebuilt in 1748, after a fire in 1747 (the brick walls of the 1712–13 building