Category: The People in the Pews
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The People in the Pews: Capt. Arthur Savage
In 1716, Arthur Savage displayed the first exotic animal to set foot in the American colonies. He exhibited a male lion at his Brattle Street home where a hand-painted sign declared, “The Lion King of beasts is to be seen here.” Such a royal and commanding African animal surely would have attracted throngs of colonists…
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The People in the Pews: Gillam Phillips
The connections between families in 18th century Boston and subsequently their connections to Old North Church are truly fascinating. Take Gillam Phillips for instance. Through his life journey, he can be connected to Cotton Mather and Peter Faneuil, AND an illegal sword duel started by his brother Henry. And yes, he attends Old North Church…
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The People in the Pews: The Sounding Board
Many visitors chuckle upon seeing the contents of pew 49, pointing to the large 1980s soundboard and mixer that runs the church’s “modern” audio system and proclaiming “Look! The original colonial speakers!” Ironically, these visitors need only look up to find that they are nearly directly below the church’s real audio system: the sounding board. Appearing to…
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The People in the Pews: The Wells Family
With all the marrying, death, remarrying, job switching, and political positioning that occurred in the 18th century, it’s no surprise how interconnected a small town like Boston was. Captain Francis Wells, who owned pew #49 and attended Old North Church with his family in the mid-1700s, serves as an example of someone with diverse professional experience…
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The People in the Pews: Lynde Walters, Jr.
Q. How is the Old North Church tied to the production of newspapers in the 19th century?A. Through a man named Lynde Walters, Jr., who attended Old North and owned pew #45. (His father, Lynde Sr., also attended the church and served as a junior warden in 1804.) So who was Lynde Jr.? Like many upstanding…
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The People in the Pews: Josiah Calef
To move us into the 19th century, we’ll examine the life of Josiah Calef, a Bostonian who owned pew #38 at Old North in 1807. Many of the previous people we’ve included in this article series lived during the 18th century, but pews were purchased and owned up until 1912 so all of them were owned and…
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The People in the Pews: Theodore Roosevelt
On December 29, 1912, the date that happened to be the 189th anniversary of its first service, a newly restored and refurbished Old North Church opened for the first time since the spring of that year. Over 1,000 people filled the pews, aisles, stairways, and entryways to hear the words of Bishop William Lawrence, the rector…
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The People in the Pews: Mehitable Mash
Peter Mash was born in Germany in 1783, immigrated to the United States at the turn of the 19th century, and moved to Boston where he worshipped at Old North and owned Pew #39. Peter married Mehitable Wattles in 1834 and lived with her until 1838. One day that year he informed her he was…
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The People in the Pews: Francis Shaw
Francis Shaw, who owned Pew #16 in the eighteenth century, was the great-great-grandfather of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. Francis Shaw was born in Boston on March 29th, 1721. He attended Old North Church in the mid-eighteenth century, serving as a Junior Warden from 1760-62 and as a Senior Warden from 1763-66. In November of 1744,…
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The People in the Pews: The Vassalls
Major Leonard Vassall, the owner of pews #10 and 11, was born in Jamaica in 1678. Before he moved to Boston in the early 1720s, he owned several large sugar plantations with enslaved labor in his native Jamaica. He was a staunch Episcopalian, became a member of Old North, and was elected warden in 1727.…