Old North Church

Old North’s fame began on the evening of April 18, 1775, when the church sexton, Robert Newman, and vestryman Capt. John Pulling, Jr. climbed the steeple and held high two lanterns as a signal from Paul Revere that the British were marching to Lexington and Concord by sea across the Charles River and not by land. This momentous event ignited the American Revolution. Built in 1723, Christ Church in the City of Boston, known to all as the Old North Church, is Boston’s oldest surviving church building and most visited historical site. In 1775, on the eve of the Revolution, a substantial number of congregants were loyal to the British King, and many held official positions in the royal government, including the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, making Robert Newman’s loyalty to the patriot cause even more extraordinary. Each year we welcome over 500,000 visitors to our site to experience this unique and stirring monument to liberty.