Old North Church Audio Guide

Old North Church: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Old North Church

   This section of the Mappu audio guide to the Old North Church highlights Welcome to Old North Church and points out what to notice during your visit.

   Welcome to Old North Church, on Salem Street in the North End of Boston. Its official name is Christ Church in the City of Boston, and it is the oldest standing church building in the city. Many visitors know it for one famous night in the spring of 1775. The church is an active Episcopal church. It is also one of eight sites within Boston National Historical Park and one of 16 stops along the Freedom Trail. Look up at the steeple first, because it is the part of the building that has been remembered the longest. Over the next few minutes we will cover the building's construction in the 1720s, the story of the two lanterns, the English architecture behind its design, and the people whose stories are now being added to its history.

2. 02

   A Church Rises on the Hill

   This section of the Mappu audio guide to the Old North Church highlights A Church Rises on the Hill and points out what to notice during your visit.

   The story starts in the early 1720s. The congregation collected subscriptions from late 1722 into early 1723 and used them to build a brick structure with a nave and a tower. The church is generally dated to 1723, and the wider building campaign ran from 1723 to 1740. The builders are named in the record. Ebenezer Clough and James Varney were the stonemasons, and Thomas Bennett and Thomas Tippin were the carpenters. The site sat on higher ground than any other church in Boston, while the land around it was being filled with speculative rowhouses. William Price and a church layman, Anthony Blount, are credited as the architects. Blount served as an architectural advisor to the congregation and stayed heavily involved with the project until his death. A trained architect did not work on the design, which makes the result more impressive.

3. 03

   Two Lanterns in the Steeple

   This section of the Mappu audio guide to the Old North Church highlights Two Lanterns in the Steeple and points out what to notice during your visit.

   Now to the night that made the church famous. On April 18, 1775, two lanterns were hung in the steeple. They were meant to warn patriots in Charlestown that British soldiers were setting out toward Lexington and Concord. Two lanterns meant the troops were crossing the Charles River by water, not marching out by the longer land route. It is believed that the sexton, Robert Newman, and the vestryman, John Pulling, hung the lanterns. That wording is careful for a reason, because the tradition names those two men while the exact details of the night have been told in several ways over the years. The church owes much of its worldwide fame to a poem. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote Paul Revere's Ride in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War. The poem turned the steeple into an international symbol of freedom, and Boston's own landmark study calls it one of the most visited sites on the Freedom Trail. Behind the church, the Paul Revere Mall holds Cyrus Dallin's equestrian statue of Revere, which is among the most photographed landmarks in Boston.

4. 04

   Wren's Shadow and the Georgian Style

   This section of the Mappu audio guide to the Old North Church highlights Wren's Shadow and the Georgian Style and points out what to notice during your visit.

   Architecturally, Old North is a rare example of Georgian design in the manner of Sir Christopher Wren, the English architect. Its design may have been inspired by a print of Wren's Saint James's Church in Piccadilly that Blount owned. The print leaves out several details, so researchers think other sources of inspiration were probably involved. The church also resembles Saint Ann Blackfriars in London, and the Old South Meeting House in downtown Boston was built to a similar design. Historian Suzanne Foley called the building an architectural stepping stone for Georgian church building in America. The church also has strong ties to English traditions. Inside, the church houses the nation's first maiden peal of bells and the first bust of George Washington. Outside, the buildings are connected by paths and gardens. Landscape architect Arthur Shurcliff designed the Paul Revere Mall, which opened in 1933 directly behind the church.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   This section of the Mappu audio guide to the Old North Church highlights Before You Head Off and points out what to notice during your visit.

   Old North Church is both a famous landmark and a living congregation, and it is still working on its own history. Researchers are now uncovering the stories of people who were left out of the traditional account, including the church's Black and Indigenous members. As you leave, step back and look at how the steeple rises above the brick and the narrow streets of the North End. Then walk through the Paul Revere Mall behind the church and look for the statue of Revere on horseback. It shows how a small building on Salem Street became part of the story Americans tell about their beginnings. The next stop on the Freedom Trail is only a short walk away, and the neighborhood has more history to offer.