USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The story of the Second Church in Boston, the original Old North; including the Old North Church mystery > Part 6
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A glance backward through the Second Church's history indi- cates that the revisions of 1958-59 have been entirely in the spirit of its highest moments. A prophetic pulpit characterized the preaching of Cotton Mather. Subjects boiling in the daily press were discussed constantly: schools, courts, piracy, government, charters. Efforts to liberalize the theology of the congregation had been constant endeavors of Samuel Mather, John Lathrop and Henry Ware, Jr. Though the services themselves were relatively plain in the Old North Church of Ralph Waldo Emerson, that emi- nent pastor had expressed a desire for a greater simplicity, hon- esty and spirituality in religious worship through the reforms he proposed. A more democratic form of church government - to re- place the lifetime control of its internal affairs by a lay oligarchy - had been sought, though not too successfully, by Samuel Checkley and Thomas Van Ness. All these precedents serve to show that the present-day changes in pulpit emphasis, theological position, worship forms and church government are compatible with this church's tradition.
In spite of what has been accomplished even more challenges and strenuous days lie ahead. Much remains undone. The end goals still gleam in the far distance. But the parish is determined to continue moving toward the high beacons it has raised for itself.
Proud of our church's past, our deepest concern is with the responsibilities of the present and a growing vision of the future. We are dedicated to the service of all mankind, the uplift of every
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spirit and the freeing of minds from the tyranny of unreason and despair. This church strives to inspire its constituents to reach for the highest goals possible to the human mind and spirit. For a world of tensions, conflict and injustice, it seeks remedies, strength and understanding. In place of dogma, narrow focus and irrelative emphasis, it substitutes a religion of free inquiry, uni- versal outlook and concern for individual and social betterment.
The Second Church in Boston is older than any corporation, court or government in this land. Within its buildings has been unfurled every flag which represents a stage in our nation's growth - from the simple red cross of old England to the present fifty- star flag of the United States of America. During this time its leaders and members have exercised powers and influence that have at times almost controlled the ecclesiastical, civil and edu- cational affairs of the Massachusetts Bay area. So scattered among many institutions are the leaders of present-day Massachu- setts that no single church can ever again hold the unique posi- tion occupied for so long by this venerable Old North Church.
In this century as the record clearly shows, the church has continued to occupy a leading role in Boston affairs - civic, liter- ary, educational, humanitarian and ecclesiastical - through the work of its ministers and lay people. Difficult periods have not for long weakened its force or silenced its voice. This single church has survived three centuries of shattering conditions in human society because it has had the wisdom to learn, the strength to grow and the courage to innovate. It remains a great institution.
Appendix A THE OLD NORTH CHURCH MYSTERY "Where were the Paul Revere lanterns really displayed?"
On the night of April 18, 1775, two lanterns gleamed dimly against the night sky from the steeple of a church in the North End of Boston. That signal sent Paul Revere riding toward Con- cord and Lexington and ushered in the war that gave independence to this nation.
What church played this key role in early American history?
The display of lanterns might have passed quietly into oblivion had not Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned his epic children's poem, "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." The verses state that, in order to hang the lanterns, the sexton:
climbed the tower of the Old North Church, by the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread To the belfry chamber overhead.
The best primary account we have by an actual participant in the lantern conspiracy is Paul Revere's letter written on January 1, 1798, to the Reverend Jeremy Belknap, founder of the Massachu- setts Historical Society.1. Twenty-eight years after the event, at the age of sixty-eight, Revere recalled, " ... if the British went by water we would show two lanthorns in the North Church steeple; and if by land, one as a signal. .. "
There exists only one other known reference to the church by a patriot who took part in the clandestine operations of that night. It is in an undated memorandum written afterward by Richard Devens, a member of the Committee of Safety and later commis- sary general of the colonies.2. Revere mentions that Devens came to him as his horse was being prepared for the momentous ride. Devens wrote: " ... the signal agreed upon was given: this was a lanthorn hung out in the upper window of the tower of the N. Ch. towards Charlestown."
The chief problem facing historians has been to determine which church in the North End of Boston was the true North Church. Perhaps this is not too important a splinter of history. But it is a curious bit of lore that is in recurring dispute. Exam-
1. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 16, Page 370 ff.
2. History of Paul Revere's Signal Lanterns, by William W. Wheildon, Page 13 ff.
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ining the possibilities, this writer has enjoyed many pleasant hours in detective work among numerous reference volumes and in visits to the North End. The matter is revived here because of fresh information that has been unearthed calling for a revision of a long-standing error in historical identification.
The possibilities have been narrowed definitely to two churches: Christ Church in Salem Street and the Second Church in Boston, then located in North Square. In 1876, the Boston City Council announced that it was going to place a tablet on Christ Church marking it as the famed Old North Church of Paul Revere fame. Such a clamor of protest was raised by citizens from all walks of life that the city established an impartial commission to exam- ine all the available evidence. After two years the members de- cided unanimously in favor of Christ Church. A tablet to that effect was placed on the church tower, in 1878, and the general public has been led to accept this verdict ever since.
An eloquent defense of the Christ Church position was deliv- ered before this commission of the Boston City Council in Decem- ber, 1877, by the Christ Church rector, Dr. Henry Burroughs. The Second Church did not push its own case. At the time the com- mission was appointed, a new clergyman, Robert Laird Collier, was just arriving at the Second Church directly from a charge in Leicester, England. His ministry here was barely longer than the lifetime of the commission, closing in 1879. During this brief term he was inordinately busy ridding his new edifice of a major debt. As he had just come from abroad, his lack of interest in, or background for, the whole controversy is understandable, though it left the church without a personal advocate.
This writer has made a careful review of the evidence consid- ered by the Boston citizens' committee: the 64-page monograph by William W. Wheildon in support of Christ Church entitled Histo- ry of Paul Revere's Signal Lanterns (published 1878 by Lee and Shepard, Boston), the 12-page presentation by Richard Frothingham in support of Second Church entitled The Alarm on the Night of April 18, 1775, a sermon-address by the Rev. Henry Burroughs and numerous other pertinent documents. Mr. Wheildon's disserta- tion in behalf of Christ Church is discredited by numerous factual
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errors - two of which are corrected in footnotes by his own pub- lishers. This work sums up almost the entire Christ Church brief. It seems to have been the source of mis-statements that have crept into Dr. Burroughs' sermons and the writings of other per- sons on this subject. Mr. Frothingham's sketchy defense of Sec- ond Church is simply a letter he addressed to Boston's Mayor Samuel C. Cobb and the City Council on December 28, 1876, at the beginning of the controversy.
These briefs submitted in 1876-78 seemed accurate and prob- ably would have compelled me to vote as the commission did. The citizens' committee became convinced that Christ Church was the institution primarily called North Church in Colonial days, and that neighborhood legends supported the contention that in this church its own sexton had displayed the lanterns. The coup de grace that seemed to eliminate the Second Church completely was not the contention that it was known as a "meet- ing house" and not a "church" in Revolutionary times but that triangulation proved lanterns displayed in its steeple could not have been visible in Charlestown because Copp's Hill stood in the way. Christ Church was obviously an excellent signal point, and its steeple was well known to Paul Revere.
Crucial material and arguments that seemed reliable in 1876-78 can now be proven to contain many errors, omissions and mis- interpretations. New and more accurate information and insights, not available to the commission, markedly transform the picture and re-establish the claim of the Second Church in Boston to its being the true North Church or Old North Church of Paul Revere renown.
- I -
Which church legitimately held the title North Church or Old North Church, either in 1775 or when Paul Revere and Richard Devens named it specifically in their firsthand accounts?
For sixty-five years after the founding, the Second Church was the only house of worship in the North End of Boston. It soon became known colloquially and formally as the North Church or
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North Meeting House. Overcrowded congregations under the Mathers prompted an off-shoot church to be gathered in 1714 on Hanover Street. It became officially known as the New North to distinguish it from the original North Church. Many writers con- tinued to call the Second Church the North Church, but numerous others adopted the nickname Old North Church. Captain John Bonner's map of Boston, drawn in 1722, lists the Second Church as the "Old North." The construction of Christ Church did not occur until 1722-1723. It would be unreasonable for us to be asked to believe that the general populace on that exciting April night in 1775 was calling the 52-year-old Christ Church "Old North," when the nearby Second Church, already 126 years old, had enjoyed this title before the Episcopal Church was founded. As a matter of fact, Fleet's Pocket Almanack for 1773, published in Boston just two years prior to the lantern episode, lists the two churches respectively as:
Second, or Old North, Rev. John Lathrop, DD.
Christ Church, E. Salem St., Rev. W. Walter, D.D.
Proponents of Christ Church have argued that this title, "Old North", passed from the Second Church building, after the British destroyed this older structure in 1776, to the building of the Episcopal church. This contention overlooks the presence of the nearby New Brick Church building in the North End. It was two years older than the Christ Church edifice and became, on March 31, 1776, the new home of the churchless Second Church congre- gation. In 1779, the New Brick Church was rightfully incorporated as "Old North, the Second Church in Boston." Thus, through its own age as a building and its own position as the successor- home of the displaced "Old North Church" congregation, it natu- rally inherited the distinguished title.
Various books up to the middle of the nineteenth century con- tinue to refer in their indexes under "Old North Church" solely to the Second Church in Boston. The notable reference work The History and Antiquities of Boston by Samuel Drake, published in 1856, is an example. Christ Church is referred to in this vol- ume by its proper name and not "North Church" or any other title. "Christ Church, Salem Street," is the usual designation for the
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church in official maps, registers and books this writer has ex- amined. It would be difficult, therefore, even to support the as- sertion that Longfellow's generation, living at the time these various books and documents were being published, in mid-nine- teenth century, thought of Christ Church when the phrase "Old North Church " was uttered. Indisputably, the true "Old North Church" of history is the Second Church in Boston, though it has shifted its location several times and is no longer in the North End.
In spite of the fact that this name was generally and deservedly confined to the Second Church, examples can be located where Christ Church was referred to in some letters, bills and other documents as "North Church" or "Old North Church." A few writers have attempted to explain away this oddity of two church- es, a few blocks apart, receiving the same nickname, on occasion, by saying that the Second Church, being of ancient Puritan back- ground, was known as the "Old North Meeting House" and that Christ Church, in distinction, was called "Old North Church." The Boston citizens' committee accepted this over-simplified explanation without examining it closely and felt that both Revere and Devens meant Christ Church, not Second Church, when they said that the lanterns were shown in the North Church steeple.
This argument sounds plausible. But in actual fact, long be- fore the 1770's, Puritan nomenclature had been declining in us- age. The term, "Meeting House," had become a minority usage, something an outsider like British General Howe might employ. The words, "Meeting House," for example, appear on none of the communion silver gifted to the Second Church during the eigh- teenth century because so many persons had dropped this term. Instead the word "Church" is engraved on all the silver pieces presented to the Second Church during that time. The New Eng- land Weekly Journal dated February 18, 1728, in describing Cotton Mather's death the previous Tuesday, called him the "Senior Pastor of the Old North Church in Boston." The terms "meeting house" and "church" were already being used interchangeably before Christ Church was organized.
Christ Church's geographical location (only about 100 yards
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farthest due north in the cluster of North End churches) does not really account for the occasional nickname. The type of people in the circle that informally used this colloquialism corroborates a different explanation. Actually, its position as the most north- erly of Boston's Episcopal edifices explains why some persons in, or working with members of that denomination would refer to it as the North Church in their own passing notations, despite the presence of another church that the public in general was already calling the North Church. Eventually this practice produced the various instances that are cited by Christ Church, many of which are by Episcopal clergymen. This origin of the usage is men- tioned on page 22 of Mr. Wheildon's dissertation.
This writer has searched the archives of the births, marriages, and deaths registry in the Boston City Hall Annex for records in which, according to some writers, Christ Church is often called North Church. We are well aware that if the clerk in the Registry Department happened to be close to Episcopal circles he might record Christ Church as the North Church. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the recorder or clerk was William Cooper. Christ Church records show that burial services for the one-day old daughter of a William Cooper were conducted on September 1, 1795. However, this whole question seems to be academic. With the exception of one book on cemetery internments, no rec- ords appear to exist to support the contention that vital statistics records usually called Christ Church anything but Christ Church.
We do know that it was often customary to place each church's name at the head of a column in the registry books. All entries thereafter, by anyone, inevitably had to be placed under whatever headings the clerk of the registry had introduced. The listing of cemeteries in the North district followed this practice. But it is interesting to note that when the information in the internment lists was later transcribed, the designation "North Church Ceme- tery" was usually corrected, in the new books, to Christ Church Cemetery. It would be unfair, therefore, in the face of this re- cording system, to suggest that many different people had made any entries, even in the internment book, that indicated that it was their habit to call Christ Church the North Church. In her
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book on Christ Church's Colonial period, Mrs. M.K.D. Babcock is careful to avoid citing any records of this kind that were a favor- ite argument of earlier, less cautious, writers.
It is still necessary to determine, if possible, which church Paul Revere and Richard Devens intended, Christ Church or Sec- ond Church, when they referred specifically to the "North Church." Unfortunately, they added no qualifying description to make the designation exact. Mr. Wheildon and Dr. Burroughs, whose various erroneous contentions we will shortly discuss, implied almost dogmatically in their briefs that eighteenth-century records and folklore point to Christ Church as the North Church. Hence, they said, Paul Revere could have meant no other institution but that one. Let us examine some more evidence that these gentlemen strongely overlooked!
The many old records quoted or reproduced in Mary Kent Davey Babcock's official Colonial period history of Christ Church, ex- cept in the one chapter on "The Old North Church of Paul Revere Fame," refer exclusively to it as "Christ Church" and not the "North Church" or "Old North Church." Even Mr. Wheildon con- cedes on page 24 of his Paul Revere lantern treatise that Second Church was called "North Church" in Paul Revere's day, though many people used the prefix "Old." During the several genera- tions that Second Church had been the only house of worship in the North End, and had exclusivelyheld the name "North Church," that designation had become so well established that many people (of whom Paul Revere appears to have been one when he wrote the description of his famous ride in 1798) continued to use the phrase into the nineteenth century.
Most of the mentions of Christ Church as North Church appear only in clerical entries, bills, memoranda or letters. There are allegedly a few in town records. In the case of the Second Church the designations, North or Old North, were practically official names or sub-titles, both with the church and with the public, rather than just occasional nicknames adopted for denominational or geographical clarification. They went beyond the colloquial into virtually an accepted custom. Hence the name North Church is found repeatedly in formal printed sermons, invitations, books,
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almanacs and published death notices. This was rarely the case with Christ Church. The 320 page official history of the church by the Rev. Chandler Robbins, published in 1852, was entitled, A History of the Second Church, or Old North, in Boston. Formally printed documents designed to meet many eyes would employ only names that the general public was likely to know, recognize and be using.
The following examples are mostly from documents by profes- sional people who generally used words carefully; they are not from single bills of sale, informal letters, or hastily-written cleri- cal notations. They cover over a century of time from 1675 until 1779. The illustrious Chief Justice Samuel Sewall, a man of proper legal mind, usually, though not always, called the Second Church "ye North." The will drawn up for Abigail Foster dated March 1, 1710-11, says: "I give and bequeath to the North Church in Boston the sum of twenty pounds in Plate for the use of the Communion Table to be delivered to the Deacons of the 2nd Church." Samuel Mather's published life of his father, Cotton, contains this description: "The Very Reverend and Learned Cotton Mather, D.D. & F.R.S., Late Pastor of the North Church, Boston, who Died February 13, 1727-28." In the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society under "Boston - Second Church" are sermons and essays of long ago on which are printed, "A Sermon to the North Church in Boston" or " ... kept by the North Church in Boston." Just one year before Paul Revere's ride, Mills and Hicks's, British and American Register, 1774, With An Almanack, printed in Boston and widely circulated for use in "all the New England provinces," gives this listing on page 67:
1650, North Church, Rev. John Lathrop
1722, Christ-Church, E. Rev. M. Byles, jun., D.D.
In October 1779, an invitation to the ordination of the Rev. Mr. Joseph Eckley, new minister of the Old South Church, was ex- tended to the Second Church members who were addressed as "The North Church, under the pastoral care of the Rev. Mr. Lathrop."
In the light of all this evidence, demonstrating widespread usage and printed in carefully worded, important documents over
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a long period, it is clear that the edifice generally accepted as the North Church or Old North Church was that of the Second Church in Boston, in North Square, the church that Paul Revere and Richard Devens specifically named in their written accounts.
- II -
The major charge against the Second Church which understand- ably played a decisive role in swaying the Boston commission's decision is perhaps best summed up in a paragraph in the chapter entitled: "The Old North Church of Paul Revere Fame," found in the excellent 271-page history of Christ Church, written in its behalf by Mary Kent Davey Babcock. Of Second Church, she says:
" ... it is a well known fact that the North Meeting House was the only one of the four churches in the North End without a steeple. By triangulation it was shown that no light displayed anywhere in the North Meeting House could possibly have been seen in Charlestown; moreover Copp's Hill at that time was ten feet higher than at present and would have barred effectually the signal."
If this statement were accepted as true, and the Boston Com- mission apparently saw no alternative, it obviously eliminated the Second Church. All argument had to end here. This one alle- gation appeared so valid, that it overbalanced the weighty evi- dence otherwise favoring the case of the Second Church in Boston. But Mrs. Babcock's assertion, part of which she obtained from Mr. Wheildon, happens to be incorrect on all points.
The citizens' commission should have known that in the North End during the Revolutionary period there were at least five church edifices: The Old North Church (founded 1649): the New North Church (founded 1714), The New Brick Church (founded 1721), Christ Church (founded 1722-23) and Samuel Mather's Tenth Con- gregational Church founded in 1741 after his dismissal from Sec- ond Church. A glance at any of the several sketches in existence of the Second Church, in North Square, clearly shows that it did possess a steeple. An ironical example is an engraving by Paul Revere himself, published in the January 1774 edition of the Royal American Magazine, and entitled "A View of the Town of Boston with several ships of war in the harbor," in which the
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church and its steeple are prominently seen. Or glance at the five North End Churches and their steeples in Wm. Price's famed painting of Boston harbor made in the eighteenth century.
Webster defines a steeple as "a tower or turret tapering to a point." If Mr. Wheildon and others were quibbling that the Second Church possessed a tower and not a steeple, and that the words had a different meaning long ago, in spite of Webster's definition, they should have been reminded that Richard Devens himself, in the eighteenth century, wrote of "the upper window of the tower of the N. Ch ... "
Richard Devens' reference to the "upper window of the tower"
Boston's North End in Price's 1743 painting
BREED'S HILL
IL 7[
CHARLESTOWN
TOWN
HILL
CHARLES RIVER
SNOW HILL RD.
COPP'S
HILL- 9
ST.
.15
SALEM
PRINCE
ST
C
BOSTON
2
1
4
5) 3
miles
1/8
1/4
yards 100
200
400
600
BOSTON'S NORTH END and CHARLESTOWN APRIL 18th 1775
Map of Boston's North End: April 18, 1775 KEY TO MAP
(1) Old North Church
(2) Sir Henry Frankland's House
(3) Paul Revere's House
(4) North Square
(5) New Brick Church
(6) Samuel Mather's Church
(7) New North Church
(8) Christ Church
(9) Burying Place
(10) Ferry Landing
(11) Warship "Somerset" anchored
(12) City Square
Davis 54
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A
HANOVER
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has been seized upon by several pro-Christ Church writers in an effort to discredit the Second Church's case. Among them were the Episcopal clergyman Dr. John Lee Watson, who was reported in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for November, 1876, and Henry C. Kendall writing in the Boston Sunday Herald, April 4, 1921. They have claimed that Price's 1743 painting of Boston shows that the Old North had only one set of windows or openings in the entire tower. They failed to add that Mr. Price's excellent picture depicts only the top of the tower where, of course, only one set of windows is visible. The old sketch of the church reprinted earlier in this volume shows the full steeple with its lower and upper openings. Richard Devens was right: the lanterns would be shown in an upper window of the tower.
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