A custom house or customs house was traditionally a building housing the offices for a jurisdictional government whose officials oversaw the functions associated with importing and exporting goods into and out of a country, such as collecting customs duty on imported goods. A custom house was typically located in a seaport or in a city on a major river, with access to an ocean. These cities acted as ports of entry into a country.
16-1890: (Redirected from Customs House ) [REDACTED] Look up custom house or Custom House in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Custom House or Customs House may refer to: Buildings [ edit ] Custom house , a building housing the offices that process the tariffs associated with importing and exporting goods Australia [ edit ] Customs House, Brisbane , Queensland Customs House, Maryborough , Queensland Customs House, Rockhampton , Queensland Customs House, Sydney , New South Wales Fremantle Customs House , Western Australia Newcastle Customs House , New South Wales Canada [ edit ] Custom House, Montreal , Canada China [ edit ] Customs House, Shanghai Ireland [ edit ] The Custom House, Cork The Old Custom House, Dublin The Custom House , Dublin Custom House, Belfast The Custom House, Limerick Myanmar (Burma) [ edit ] Customs House, Yangon Norway [ edit ] Customs House, Porsgrunn Tollerodden, Larvik Thailand [ edit ] Customs House, Bangkok United Kingdom [ edit ] Custom House, Barrow-in-Furness , England Custom House, Belfast , Northern Ireland Custom House, Exeter , England Custom House, Lancaster , England Custom House, Liverpool , England Custom House, City of London Custom House, Newham , London, England Customs House, Newcastle upon Tyne , England Custom House, Poole , England Customs House, South Shields , Tyneside, England Custom House, Weymouth , England Custom House station ,
32-522: A global payments and foreign exchange company Custom House Stadium, a name for West Ham Stadium "The Custom-House", Nathaniel Hawthorne's introductory essay to The Scarlet Letter Custom House, an imprint of William Morrow and Company See also [ edit ] Customs broking Customs House Hotel (disambiguation) Old Customhouse (disambiguation) Customs house agent , type of licensed agent in India Topics referred to by
48-658: A station serving the DLR and Elizabeth line United States [ edit ] Old Custom House (Monterey, California) United States Customs House (Chicago) Boston Custom House , Boston, Massachusetts Custom House (Salem, Massachusetts) United States Custom House (New York City) Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House , New York City Custom House (Sag Harbor, New York) Customs House (Sodus Point, New York) United States Customhouse (Portland, Oregon) Customs House (Nashville, Tennessee) Other uses [ edit ] Custom House (global payments) ,
64-504: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages custom house Due to advances in electronic information systems, the increased volume of international trade, and the introduction of air travel, the term "custom house" became a historical anachronism. There are many examples of buildings around the world that were formerly used as custom houses but have since been converted for other uses, such as museums or civic buildings. As examples,
80-577: The Boston Landmarks Commission in 1986. Custom houses have existed at several locations: The Royal Commissioners of Customs administered customs in Boston during the colonial period. In the late 17th century, the custom house was located at the waterfront, on the corner of Richmond St. and Ann St. At the time of the Boston Massacre in 1770, it was located on King Street , very near
96-502: The Old State House . Paul Revere's illustration of the massacre depicts the customhouse (along the right-most edge of the picture). After the revolution, the custom house remained on State Street. Employees included Thomas Melvill (1786–1820). In 1810 it moved into a new building on Custom House Street (between Broad St. and India St.). In the 1830s American author Nathaniel Hawthorne worked there. A new site on State Street
112-400: The rotunda was capped with a skylight dome. The entire structure sits on filled land and is supported by 3,000 wooden piles driven through fill to bedrock . Before land reclamation was done in the mid-19th century, Boston's waterfront extended right to this building. Ships moored at Long Wharf almost touched the eastern face of the building. The Custom House was built at the end of
128-471: The City docks, to facilitate inspection and registration of cargo. The federal government used the building to collect maritime duties in the age of Boston clipper ships. This description of the original Custom House appears in the 1850 Boston Almanac: By 1905, increased shipping required the building's expansion. In 1913–1915, the architecture firm Peabody and Stearns added a 496 ft (151 m) tower to
144-687: The base. It was the tallest building in both Boston and New England for almost half a century, until the Prudential Tower surpassed it in 1964. In 1986 when custom officials of the United States Customs Service moved to the Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. Federal Building in the West End , the Custom House on State Street was declared "surplus property". On April 16, 1987, the city of Boston purchased
160-882: The former Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in Manhattan, New York , (now the George Gustav Heye Center ) presently houses a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian , the former U.S. Custom House in New Orleans, Louisiana , is now home to the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium , the former U.S. Custom House in San Francisco, California , now houses offices of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Social Security Administration and
176-564: The former U.S. Custom House in Baltimore, Maryland , was in 1973 serving as a Selective Service office. As of 2019 , the Custom House of Valletta in Malta was still being used for its original purpose. Custom Houses became a prominent feature of English ports after 1275, following the creation of a national system for collecting duties on overseas trade. In the United Kingdom , since 1386,
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#1732844286560192-677: The phrase "custom house" has been in use over the term "customs house". This was after the City of London's Custom House was erected at Wool Wharf in Tower Ward , to house just the officials overseeing the Great Custom on Wool and Woolfells. The singular form was used even though in later years the City of London's Custom House served as the workplace for other customs officials as well. Boston Custom House The Custom House in Boston , Massachusetts ,
208-421: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Custom House . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Custom_House&oldid=1243555454 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
224-536: Was a cruciform (cross-shaped) Greek Revival structure, combining a Greek Doric portico with a Roman dome , resembled a four-faced Greek temple topped with a dome. It had 36 fluted Doric columns , each carved from a single piece of granite from Quincy , Massachusetts; each weighed 42 tons (37 metric tons ) and cost about $ 5,200. Only half these actually support the structure; the others are free-standing. They are 5 feet (1.5 m) and 4 inches (162 cm) in diameter and 32 feet (9.7 m) high. Inside,
240-467: Was established in the 17th century and stood near the waterfront in several successive locations through the years. In 1849 the U.S. federal government constructed a neoclassical building on State Street ; it remains the "Custom House" known to Bostonians today. A tower was added in 1915; the building joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and was designated a Boston Landmark by
256-479: Was purchased by the federal government on September 13, 1837. Construction of a custom house was authorized by U.S. President Andrew Jackson . When it was completed in 1849, it cost about $ 1.076 million, in contemporary U.S. currency, including the site, foundations, etc. Ammi Burnham Young entered an 1837 competition to design the Boston Custom House, and won with his neoclassical design. This building
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