Mac Rating: 0.00 | Votes: | Date: 03/06/2026 15:32:00

In the heart of the historic North End neighbourhood of Boston about half a mile north of Faneuil Hall, the Old North Church (formally the Episcopal Church of Christ in the City of Boston) is the oldest standing church building in Boston and one of the most historically significant religious buildings in the United States. The dramatic Georgian-style brick church was designed by the celebrated colonial-era Boston printer and architectural draughtsman William Price (modelled in part on the celebrated Christopher Wren London churches of the late seventeenth century) and substantially completed in December 1723. The defining single moment in the church's long history occurred on the evening of 18 April 1775, when the church sexton Robert Newman climbed the 154 narrow steps to the church's 191-foot steeple and briefly hung two lanterns in the windows of the steeple's belfry. The two lanterns served as a pre-arranged warning signal to the colonial militia patriots across the Charles River in Charlestown, signalling that the British troops mustering in Boston that night were marching out by water (two lanterns) rather than by the longer land route (one lantern) to seize the colonial militia's munitions caches at Concord and Lexington. The signal was the famous "one if by land, two if by sea" lantern signal immortalised in the celebrated 1860 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem Paul Revere's Ride. The 154-foot steeple itself has been rebuilt twice during the church's long history. The original 1740 steeple (added some 17 years after the main building's completion) was destroyed by a celebrated 1804 hurricane and rebuilt to a slightly modified design by the celebrated American architect Charles Bulfinch in 1807. The 1807 Bulfinch steeple stood until 1954, when it too was destroyed (this time by Hurricane Carol, which struck Boston with particular force that summer) and rebuilt the following year to a precise replica of the 1740 original design. The church's interior preserves several historically significant features. The celebrated tall-back box pews on the main floor (one of the largest collections of intact colonial-era box pews in the United States) include the celebrated Pew Number 54, used by the celebrated General George Washington when he visited the church. The church is open daily for self-guided tours, with paid Behind-the-Scenes tours that climb the steeple available by advance reservation.