Old North Church

  • Also Known As: Christ Church Episcopal

  • Travel Genus: Sight
  • Sight Category: Building

Built in 1723, Christ Church is better known as "Old North". It is Boston's oldest church building and still an active Episcopal Church. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow memorialized Old North's role at the start of the Revolutionary War in his poem, "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." On the night of April 18, 1775, sexton Robert Newman hung two lanterns in the steeple to warn Charlestown patriots of the advance of British soldiers. The church, a beautiful example of Georgian architecture, houses America's oldest maiden peal of bells and the first bust of George Washington. - NPS


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Timeline

Y/M/D Person Association Description Composition Food Event
Y/M/D Person Association Description Composition Food Event
1723/04/15 Rev Samuel Myles (Miles) Vocation Rev Samuel Miles, rector of Kings Chapel in Boston, sets the Christ Church foundation stone.
1736/09/00 Rev Charles Wesley Vocation Charles Wesley preaches at Christ Church in September and October of 1736.
1740/00/00 Shem Drowne Craftsman Designed by Boston book and print seller William Price, Christ Church Episcopal's 911 foot tall wooden tower is erected. The spire is topped by a swallow-tail weather vane designed by Shem Drowne.
1745/00/00 Ebenezer Clough Master Bricklayer After over 500,000 bricks from kilns in nearby Medford, Mass are laid by masons Ebenezer Clough and James Varney in the English bond style (70' long, 51' wide and 42' high sanctuary with 2.5' thick walls), Christ Church is complete.
1752/10/26 John Pigeon Groom Jane Dumaresq marries John Pigeon in Christ Church, Boston. The couple will have two sons and one daughter.
1754/00/00 Mary Newman Gibbs Widow, Bride After Mary Newman's husband Thomas is lost at sea, she marries John Gibbs of Christ Church, whose former wife was the daughter of the Rev Timothy Cutler (the first rector of the church).
1772/00/00 Robert Newman (sexton) Faith Robert Newman becomes sexton of Christ Church. He owns Pews 50 and 78. His brother is the organist at the Old North Church, and his cousin, Isaiah Thomas, is a Boston printer.
1775/04/18 Robert Newman (sexton) Sexton Newman pretends to retire to his chamber to go to sleep, but instead he sneaks out of his house and meets up with Old North vestryman Capt John Pulling Jr and Thomas Bernard, at the Old North Church. The Midnight Ride
1775/04/18 Robert Newman (sexton) Sexton Robert Newman hangs two lanterns in the steeple of the Old North Church. The Midnight Ride
1804/10/09 A New England storm topples the steeple of the Old North Church, destroying a house. No one is injured. New England's Storm of October 1804

Data »

Particulars for Old North Church:
Area of Significance Architecture
Criteria Architecture-Engineering
Sight Category Building
Architectural Style Georgian Architecture
Criteria Historic Event
Area of Significance Military
Level of Significance National
Owner Private
Historic Use Religious Property



US National Registry of Historic Places Data »

Accurate at time of registration:

PLACE DETAILS
Registry Name:
Registry Address:
Registry Number: 66000776
Resource Type:
Owner: Private
Architect: Price,William
Architectural Style: Georgian
Other Certification: Designated National Landmark, National Landmark boundary approved
Nominator Name: National Historic Landmark
CULTURAL DETAILS
Level of Significance: National
Area of Significance: Military, Architecture
Applicable Criteria: Event, Architecture-Engineering
Criteria Consideration: Religious property
Period of Significance: 1700-1749, 1750-1799
Significant Year: 1723, 1740, 1775
Historic Function: Religion
Historic Sub-Function: Religious structure
Current Function: Religion
Current Sub-Function: Religious structure

Creative Works »

WorkTypeAsNotedInCreatorNote
Paul Revere's Ride (poem) Poem Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (painting) Painting
Grant Wood Bird's eye view of the Old North Church

Paul Revere's Ride (poem)

By

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

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