stands, and bears a tablet claiming for
its steeple the credit of the signals for Paul Revere; but the Old
North Church in North Square, near which Revere lived and where he
attended service, and from the belfry of which the lanterns were
really hung, disappeared in the conflict it initiated. In the
winter of the siege of Boston the old meeting-house was pulled
down by the British soldiers and used for firewood. Fit ending of
the ancient edifice which had stood for almost exactly one hundred
years, and in which the three Mathers, Increase, Cotton, and
Samuel,--father, son, and grandson,--had preached the unctuous
doctrine of hell-fire and damnation; teaching so incendiary was
bound sooner or later to consume its own habitation.

Revere was not the only messenger of warning. For days the
patriots had been anxious concerning the stores of arms and
ammunition at Concord, and three days before the night of the 18th
Revere himself had warned Hancock and Adams at the Clarke home in
Lexington that plans were on foot in the enemies' camp to destroy
the stores, whereupon a portion was removed to Sudbury and Groton.
Before Revere started on his ride, other messengers had been
despatched to alarm the country, but at ten o'clock on the
memorable night of the 18th he was sent for and bidden to get
ready. He got his riding-boots and surtout from his house in North
Square, was ferried across the river, landing on the Charlestown
side about eleven o'clock, where he was told the signal-lights had
already been displayed in the belfry. The moon was rising as he
put spurs to his horse and started for Lexington.

The troops were ahead of him by an hour.

He rode up what is now Main Street as far as the "Neck," then took
the old Cambridge road for Somerville.

To escape two British officers who barred his way, he dashed
across lots to the main road again and took what is now Broadway.
On he went over the hill to Medford, where he aroused the Medford
minute-men. Then through West Medford and over the Mystic Bridge
to Menotomy,--now Arlington,--where he struck the highway,--now
Massachusetts Avenue,--to Lexington. Galloping up to the old
Clarke house where Hancock and Adams were sleeping, the patriot on
guard cautioned him not to make so much noise.

"Noise! you'll have enough of it here before long. The Regulars
are coming."

Awakened by the voice, Hancock put his head out of the window and
said,--

"Come in, Revere; we're not afra