The Samuel Adams statue outside Faneuil Hall is Boston's favourite piece of accidental symbolism. The bronze figure, arms crossed, chin lifted in defiance, was never meant to be here.

Sculptor Anne Whitney made the original in marble for the US Capitol in 1876. It proved so popular when briefly shown in Boston that the city commissioned a bronze version. Whitney had won the commission anonymously, then been stripped of an earlier award when judges found she was a woman.

The figure looks nothing like the real Adams. He was squat, bald, and 5 foot 7 tall, wearing a threadbare red coat so mortifying that fellow delegates quietly bought him new shoes, socks, a shirt and a hat.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours use the statue to trace Adams's long campaign against British rule, from his years as a famously negligent tax collector to the night he unleashed the Boston Tea Party.