Talk:Old North Church

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There was actually no confusion in the colonial period between Second Church, (the true "Old North," where Revere hung his lanterns) and the Anglican Christ Church, Boston, which is never so called in the maps of the period, or in Revere's deposition.

The "sexton," to whom Revere gave the lanterns is never named as Robert Newman, and the standard punishment for a signal site was to reduce it for firewood.

Someday I'll get around to writing the article correcting this; it's one of the "three lies" of Boston. Dellaroux (talk) 22:54, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Right on, Dellaroux, you're absolutely right. The question is how to handle it. Create a separate article for Old North Church (colonial period) or simply make the necessary corrections here. I have been wanting to do this as well, but I haven't thought of a good way of handling it. Can you? Pasquale (talk) 00:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Better line up your references well, folks. I call your attention to

• Robbins, Chandler (1852). A History of the Second Church, or Old North, in Boston. A Committee of the Society. p. 129.

Which makes specific mention of both April 19, 1775 and the tearing down of the church, but no mention of lanterns in the steeple. It's hard to believe that the Minister in charge of the church, writing after the fact, would not have taken credit for his institution for such an important event.

• "'From the memorable 19th of April, 1775', writes Dr. Lathrop [the Minister] in our church records, 'the day on which the British troops began hostilities in America...'"
• "At this time, most of the churches in the town were broken up..."

. . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 12:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Did the tower originally have a clock? The old illustration in the article shows what appears to be a clock. --76.115.67.114 (talk) 09:55, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]