JFK PRESENTED WITH OLD NORTH CHURCH LANTERN REPLICAS
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On February 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy was presented with two silver lanterns* at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner held at the Sheraton-Park Hotel here in the Nation's Capital.
The lanterns were given to the President by Garnett D. Horner, reporter for the Washington Star. He was also the outgoing president of the Association.
The lanterns are replicas of those hung in the belfry of the Old North Church in Boston on the night of April 18 1775 by order of Paul Revere to alert patriots that 700 Redcoats were moving out of Boston "by sea."**
Celebrities attending the dinner included Julie London, Ralph Bellamy, Joey Bishop, and Jerome Hines.
*The silver lanterns were made by William de Matteo, master silversmith at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. JFK had the lanterns mounted on the walls on opposite sides of the windows behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.
**The lanterns were hung by either or both Old North Church sexton Robert Newman and vestryman Capt. John Pulling, Jr. The prearranged signal was one lantern meant the British Redcoats were heading to capture patriot/rebel military supplies at Lexington and Concord via the Boston Neck. This was strictly a land route.
Two lanterns meant the route was by boat across the Charles River. Thus, from Longfellow's "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," 'one if by land and two if by sea...' The British soldiers would disembark on the other side of the Charles then march to their destination.
JFK+50 Note
On his midnight ride, Paul Revere alerted the countryside to the trouble heading out of Boston by shouting, "The Regulars are out!" The British regular army wore bright red coats.
Revere would not have shouted "The British are coming!" because HE was British, in fact, the majority of American colonists were British.
SOURCE
"Who Actually Hung the Lanterns in Old North Church?," by Matthew Reed Baker, July 4, 2017, www.bostonmagazine.com/
