Old North Church (officially Christ Church in the City of Boston) is an Episcopal church on Salem Street in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The church, built in 1723, is the oldest standing church in the city. Old North Church is notable for its role in Paul Revere's midnight ride on April 18, 1775, when two lanterns in the steeple were illuminated, alerting Patriots of British military movements amid the American Revolutionary War. The congregation continues to host services there, while the secular nonprofit Old North Illuminated oversees tourism and preservation efforts. One of the landmarks on Boston's Freedom Trail, the Old North Church is designated a National Historic Landmark and a Boston Landmark, and it is part of the Boston National Historical Park.
Christ Church held its first service on December 29, 1723, becoming Boston's second Anglican congregation. The building was completed in 1726, and additional features, including an organ and steeple, were installed over the two following decades. The church was closed between 1775 and 1778, amid the ongoing war. Among other 19th-century modifications, a new steeple and pews were added in the 1800s, and a rectory and sexton's house were built in 1850. The congregation dwindled during the late 19th century as the owners of pews died or moved out. After taking over the church, the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts renovated the building and added a chapel in the 1910s. Further modifications in the 20th century included various commemorative tablets, a new steeple in 1955, and renovations in the 1970s and 1980s. During the 21st century, Old North Illuminated added a gift shop and made additional repairs.
The Georgian-style design was likely influenced by Christopher Wren's London churches. The building has a rectangular nave, flanked by a tower to the west and a semicircular apse to the east. The tower has a belfry with eight change ringing bells cast in 1744, the oldest in North America, along with a steeple rising above ground. Inside, the church has two levels of pews, along with an organ, a pulpit, and ceiling murals. Below the nave is a crypt where an estimated 1,100 people, such as John Pitcairn and Samuel Nicholson, are interred. The grounds also include the church house at 193–195 Salem Street, the Italian chapel (now a gift shop), and Clough House. The buildings are all connected by paths and gardens. Commentators have described its history as highly significant and its architecture as imposing.
Site Old North Church ( Christ Church) is situated at 191–193 Salem Street in the North End of Boston in Massachusetts, United States. It has frontage on Salem Street to the west and Unity Street to the east bordering Salem Court on the south. When the site was acquired in 1722, it had frontages of to the west, to the north, to the east, and to the south. The plot covers , with irregular borders. The Old North Church complex consists primarily of four buildings: the church building, Italian chapel (now gift shop), vicarage, and Clough House. The complex also includes the church office and parish office, located in neighboring rowhouses on Salem Street.
The complex has multiple gardens, which flank the church to the north and south, surrounded by an iron fence. The 18th Century Garden, containing plants from that era, is at the rear (eastern) end of the church, near Clough House to the southeast. Next to it is the Memorial Garden, dedicated in 2007; it has dog tags commemorating Americans killed in Middle Eastern wars, along with a plaque and wreath commemorating British and British Commonwealth victims of these wars.; Along Salem Court (next to the gift shop) is the St. Francis Garden, dating from the 1970s and commemorating the gift shop's former use as an Italian chapel. The northern side of the complex contains the Washington Memorial Garden, dating from the 1920s; it consists of a square garden and memorial plaques, surrounded by a brick wall. Next to it is the Third Lantern Garden, created to commemorate a lantern illuminated by U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1975. Brick paths connect the complex's buildings, and there is a brick stairway along the primary west–east path.
The Old North Church complex is surrounded by low- to mid-rise residential or commercial buildings. Paul Revere Mall extends southeast of the church and Unity Street, running to Hanover Street, and contains an equestrian statue of Paul Revere. The church is a stop on the Freedom Trail, a path connecting historic sites in Boston; sequentially, it is between the Paul Revere House and Copp's Hill Burying Ground.
History
18th century The Old North Church is an Episcopal congregation formed as Christ Church in 1723. Its colloquial name – "Old North" – originally referred to the Second Church, a Puritan congregation from 1649. Christ Church was the second Anglican church in the town of Boston, after King's Chapel, and was founded in response to overcrowding at King's Chapel. In 1722, Anthony Blount of the King's Chapel congregation paid Nathaniel Henchman £100 for a land property in the North End, upon which Christ Church was to be built. The site, situated inland from Boston Harbor and away from the existing meetinghouses, was less expensive than comparably sized lots in other parts of town. It also sat on higher land than any of Boston's other churches; the surrounding land, at the time, was being developed with speculative rowhouses.
Development Christ Church's congregation collected subscriptions from late 1722 to early 1723, with which they built a brick structure with a nave and tower. Ebenezer Clough and James Varney were the stonemasons, while Thomas Bennett and Thomas Tippin were the carpenters. Blount, an architectural advisor for the congregation, was heavily involved with the project until his death . Excavation of the cellar began in April 1723, and the cornerstone was laid on April 15 by King's Chapel rector Samuel Myles. The nave's columns were being installed by July, and windows from London were being imported the next month. Bricks were obtained from Medford, Massachusetts, and timber was sourced from York, Maine. In September 1723, Timothy Cutler arrived in Boston to become the congregation's first rector, serving for 42 years. Jason Haven had been called to minister, but his parishioners at the First Church and Parish in Dedham convinced him to stay. Work accelerated following Cutler's arrival.
The congregation held its first service on December 29, 1723, with a sermon where Cutler said: "For mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people." Christ Church initially had 80 families in its congregation and received aid from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG). Black people, both free and enslaved, were relegated to the upper gallery. Many furnishings, including the pulpit and pews, were temporary. In place of the current windows on the western wall, there were initially doors, which led to the nave's side aisles. Christ Church, as with Church of England congregations in Boston, did not receive funding from the Province of Massachusetts Bay, so the congregation had to raise its own money. As such, the congregation solicited large gifts or subscriptions, and it sold pews. These sales raised £1,230 from forty-five owners, who could vote on congregational matters and customize their pews. Before the American Revolution, both pro-British Loyalists and pro-independence Patriots worshipped at Christ Church, although there were substantially more Loyalists than Patriots. The Washington Post retrospectively wrote that the church endured despite being "barely tolerated" by the majority-Puritan population.
Nearly from the outset, Christ Church was informally known as the "North Church". The parish of Christ Church was organized on April 6, 1724, and construction continued in stages for two more years. By early 1724, workers were installing trim and interior decorations, and they were installing pews in the upper gallery, along with staircases leading to these seats. The church's tower was completed that June, with a pyramidal wooden roof and an entrance providing access to the nave's central aisle. Additional work that year included an interior stairway for the tower, a pulpit canopy, and ceiling decorations. Two brass chandeliers were hung from the ceiling, and South Carolina colonial governor Francis Nicholson donated cedar planks for an altarpiece. During 1725, workers added woodwork trim and covered the walls in plaster, and the congregation added 58 pews to the main floor. An additional 24 pews in the galleries were ordered in 1726. Following the pew installations, the church's original design was complete. Work continued for years afterward, and some additions, such as an organ, would not be added for more than a decade.
Late 1720s to early 1770s Additional changes to the building were led by William Price, a vestryman who oversaw nearly all modifications in the church's first two decades. During the late 1720s, he decorated the interior with details such as rusticated columns and decorative curtains. John Gibbs, a congregant, was then hired to paint cherubs inside. Gibbs painted the galleries, columns, organ case, apse, and chandeliers, along with the woodwork. Richard Avery built a clock for the interior, while Bennett built the clock case. Temporary benches were installed in the western gallery, and the first vestry room was replaced by a wooden room. An altar was completed in 1730, and the second pulpit had been added to the eastern wall. The pulpit was hourglass-shaped and divided into a gallery-level deck, a reader's desk below it, and a clerk's desk at the bottom. The basement was converted to a tomb in 1732. Gibbs further modified the nave's columns during that decade, adding fluting and giving them a marble-like appearance. By the mid-1730s, the congregation was discussing adding a clock for the church's as-yet-unbuilt spire.
The church received its first organ in 1736 or 1737, and the organ loft was decorated simultaneously. An additional site measuring wide was acquired from John Baker in 1737. That year, church leaders also began a subscription campaign to collect the remaining funds needed to construct the first spire, which was completed in August 1740. After the congregation raised funds for new bells, they ordered a set of change ringing bells, which were installed in 1745. The British maritime captain Thomas Gruchy, a pew owner, donated four angel sculptures to the church in 1746, having plundered them from a French vessel. Gruchy also gave Christ Church a chandelier, which was later given to one of Old North's mission churches. By mid-century, the congregation had 800 worshippers.
In the early 1750s, a clock was affixed to the spire, and the congregants bought an additional site from Thomas Greenough, measuring . The spire underwent minor repairs in 1756. The congregation installed a second organ in 1759, which took the place of the original. This organ was built by Thomas Johnston, who had been hired seven years earlier but had not been paid because of monetary shortfalls. James Greaton was also hired as an assistant reverend, taking over as the rector for two years after Cutler died in 1765. In 1768, Mather Byles took over as the rector. The British Parliament closed the port of Boston in 1774; with trade stalled, the congregation could not source the funds needed to pay Byles, who would flee Massachusetts shortly after. The congregation stopped convening in April 1775, and with the onset of the American Revolution, it stopped receiving support from the SPG.
American Revolution