Mini Felicity Visits the Old North Church

To review: It's spring 1775, the British have taken over Boston. They are coming for our guns! What

to do? The citizens of Massachusetts have a plan. This is where that Paul Revere fellow comes in.

Mini Felicity reviews the plan of action for rebellion against the Crown

The Sons of Liberty have come up with a plan. They will send messengers to warn the colonists the British are coming. They will send their two best riders William Dawes and Paul Revere to ride halfway to the town of Lexington. Their job is to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock. In case they get caught, Paul Revere has come up with a backup plan. 30 extra riders will be placed across the river in Charlestown. Militia leaders should look to the steeple of the Old North Church, right above where I'm standing, every night for signal lanterns. The number of lanterns will tell the riders when the British army is leaving Boston and how. One lantern means the British will march over land and two means the British will come by sea. (a ha! So that's why he's important).

Mini Felicity studies a map of Boston

                       
See the map here? The British MAY march across Boston neck, that narrow strip of land that connects Boston to the mainland. That could take a long time. The British may choose to take a shortcut and tow across the Charles River into Cambridge saving time.

                           

The British are coming! “One if by land, two if by sea.”

 It's now the 18th of April, '75, almost Felicity's birthday.... No wait... Boston... The redcoats are coming! They're coming by sea! Paul Revere is ready to ride and sound the alarm!

He said to his friend, “If the British march

By land or sea from the town to-night,

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

Of the North Church tower as a signal light, —

One, if by land, and two, if by sea;

And I on the opposite shore will be,

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every Middlesex village and farm,

For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

Mini Felicity sees the famous window

Paul Revere has asked two men to come to the church last night, 18th April. One is the caretaker, Robert Newman. The other man is a friend of Mr. Revere's, Captain John Pulling, Jr. The two men came into the church's front door, locked it, climbed a staircase in the back corner. Once in the upper gallery, they squeezed behind the pipe organ. Then they went through a small door in the tower. The men climbed the winding stairs and went up a ladder 8 stories. It was pitch black. At the top they used flint and steel to light two lanterns.

Mini Felicity in front of the famous window

This is the window of the bell tower. Mr. Newman and Capt. Pulling lit the two lanterns and held them out the window facing towards Charlestown for sixty seconds. That was all the time that was needed. I can fit up there no problem! They should have asked a kid.

Plaque commemorating the signal lanterns 

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,

By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,

To the belfry-chamber overhead,

And startled the pigeons from their perch

On the sombre rafters, that round him made

Masses and moving shapes of shade, —

By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,

To the highest window in the wall,

Where he paused to listen and look down

A moment on the roofs of the town,

And the moonlight flowing over all.

A plaque memorializing Robert Newman

                                              But mostly he watched with eager search

The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,

As it rose above the graves on the hill, 

Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. 

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height 

A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! 

He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, 

But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight 

A second lamp in the belfry burns!

Behind mini Felicity is the steeple with belfry immortalized in Longfellow's poem

The riders rode off to warn the surrounding countryside the British were marching to steal their ammunition. An hour later, Paul Revere arrived in Charlestown. He borrowed a horse and began his own ride.

Following along with Paul Revere

Mini Felicity admires a drawing of the Old North Church

Even though Paul Revere was captured by the British, other men rode on. The message reached as far north as New Hampshire and south to Connecticut. The next day, when the British arrived in Concord, they found an armed and waiting militia. Oh dear, I fear what may happen next.

You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled, —
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

Mini Felicity learns about the men who died in the Revolutionary War

Susanna tells me that in the future, the country will be divided over the issue of slavery. A poet by the name of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a Bostonian, wrote a poem to create a national hero. Paul Revere was an example of the country's noble past.

Henry Wardsworth Longfellow

That poem Susanna knows is so popular people all around the country worked to have the steeple restored. We did not have time to go up.

Mini Felicity learns about the preservation of the church steeple

Here is the pew of Rev. Mather Byles

Mini Felicity learns about the Loyalist preacher Rev. Mather Byles

Rev. Byles is a preacher, poet and Loyalist! (and some sort of cousin to Susanna's guardian). He was the second rector here at the Old North Church (1768-1776). The parishioners are about to fire him on April 18, 1776. They did not like the fact he was a Loyalist. To be fair, the parishioners stopped paying him because he was a Loyalist and partly because they ran out of money after the port was closed. He considered moving to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Later he will move to Canada.

Outside the church they have a beautiful Georgian garden. I look for signs of spring.

Mini Felicity spies signs of spring

Spring is springing. I see crocuses trying to pop up.

Mini Felicity in the Georgian garden behind the Old North Church

 I must return to my owner now and tell her what I learned. I am sure she will be back in Boston soon to tell you more about Paul Revere. 

Mini Felicity Visits Boston's Historic North End

My Felicity doll's adventure didn't end with chocolate. Read on to see what else she learned and how much I have to tell her.

"Here I am in Boston's North End. This is the home of a great number of those strange Puritan people. In the future, Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrants will move in and the area will become known as the Italian section of Boston.

Mini Felicity at Clough House in Boston's North End

Here you can see a historic home from before my time and how it has changed and grown from then to your time. Clough House (rhymes with "fluff") was built between 1712-1715. Master Mason, Ebenezer Clough, lived here. He helped build the church here in the North End of town. (That's the true church, the Church of England, not one of those Puritan meetinghouses). Mr. Clough built other, similar houses in the neighborhood. One house belonged to somebody you and I both know about - Benjamin Franklin! His sister Jane lived there.

Mr. Clough's family will live here for only two generations. In 1806 a third floor was added and the house became a tenement for immigrant families.

Mini Felicity looks at architecture rendering of Clough House in 1806

180 families will live here over the next 150 years!

Clough House

In the way far off future, in 1959, the house will become part of the church holdings. In your day it will be a museum space to interpret the history of the North End.

Who is this person and why does he have such a giant statue?

Mini Felicity with Cyrus Dallin's Paul Revere statue

Paul Revere? Isn't he a silversmith and engraver? What on earth has he done to deserve this statue? My human, Susanna, starts to recite a poem she learned from her friends Addy, Samantha and Molly.

LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, 

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; 

Hardly a man is now alive 

Who remembers that famous day and year. 

Oh, so he's some kind of hero? Let me go find out what happens next year that's SO important several generations of school children know this man's name.

Here is the Old North Church 

Mini Felicity behind the Old North Church

Mini Felicity in front of the Old North Church

What is going on in Boston? What is this Old North Church? Let's go in and look around, shall we.

                                             

Here is a map of Boston. It's on a peninsula, surrounded on three sides by water, much like Williamsburg.

 It looks similar to the Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg. Susanna's Puritan meetinghouses are much more plain in comparison.

Mini Felicity inside Old North Church

Each family has their own pew. They may decorate it as they wish.

                       

I am trying to find out more about the man on the horse. Why is he so important? First, I need to learn about what has been happening in Boston lately.

                                             

A lot has happened since I arrived in Boston. A year ago, in the spring of 1774, the British Crown decided to punish Boston for the Boston Tea Party.

The British Parliament all the way in London passed what the Bostonians are calling The Intolerable Acts. The port of Boston has been closed and Bostonians are required to pay for the lost tea. Back home in Virginia, I remember when the House of Burgesses passed a resolution calling for a day of fasting and prayer in sympathy with Boston. Then Lord Dunmore dissolved the Burgesses, our freely elected representatives. My father was not happy. The same thing is happening in Boston.

                                               


The port is closed, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress has been dissolved and British General Thomas Gage appointed military governor! The people's right to assemble is gone and a strict curfew is in place! People can not come and go as they please. The British army is on the way - 4000 troops are coming to occupy Boston! Officials charged with a crime growing out of their enforcement of the law or suppression of riots will be sent to another British colony or even Britain to be tried. The new royal governor also has the powers to remove judges, marshals and justices of the peace. When the British soldiers arrive, the governor will house them in unoccupied barns and houses.

Mini Felicity boos in front of the pew of General Thomas Gage

Governor Gage is afraid people will arm themselves against the royal government. Governor Gage has decided to reclaim all government arms and munitions stockpiled around the colony! In September '74 he went to seize the gunpowder in Charlestown across the river.

Do you think the citizens of Massachusetts Bay Colony were happy with that? No way! Remember when Lord Dunmore tried to steal our gunpowder and real Felicity warned everyone? I think I know what is going to happen now!

                             

The Massachusetts Provincial Congress continues to meet illegally in Concord, twenty miles west of Boston. They made plans to defend the colony against the British: build an alarm network, form companies of minutemen, and aiding towns in storing ammunition. The leaders of the Congress were some men you may have heard of, says Susanna. Do you know Sam Adams (he has nothing to do with beer, giggles Susanna) and John Hancock? They are wanted by the British! They fled 8 miles away to Lexington. General Gage plans to send 700 troops to seize munitions in Concord.

Mini Felicity learns about the plan the Massachusetts Provincial Congress has to save their colony

What are the Massachusetts colonists planning? This is where that Paul Revere man comes in. 

Mini Felicity Learns How to Make Chocolate

Meet Felicity! This is my doll Felicity. I named her Felicity because she looks very much like my friend Felicity in 1774. I even got her the same dress as Felicity. A few weekends ago I sent her on an adventure in colonial Boston! She learned how to make hot chocolate! No sillies, in 1774 cocoa powder was not invented yet. No microwaves either. You had to make drinking chocolate from scratch. It is soooooo good and worth the effort. I will let Felicity tell you all about it.

"Good day from Boston! I am here at Captain Jackson's Chocolate Shop learning where my favorite drink comes from. Chocolate has been made in Boston since 1682.

Chocolate comes from the cocoa tree (cacao). About 3000 years ago (or 1500 BCE Susanna's/your time) the cocoa tree was domesticated in the Amazon region of South America.

The Aztec king Montezuma drank chocolate many times a day in a show of strength and power.

This chocolate was made from ground cocoa beans, chile pepper and water.The Spanish sent the recipe back home to Spain where they added honey, or possibly cane sugar, and the newly discovered vanilla plus some cinnamon and black pepper. This is basically how we make it today in the 1770s! Watch how it's done.

First you need a rainforest and the cocoa pod.

chocolate in rawest form from Wikipedia

Inside the pod are beans.

chocolate beans  Chocolatier Nestlé of Broc , Switzerland, Canton of Fribourg. (Wikpedia)

The beans are sent from Central and South America to chocolate mills in the colonies.

The beans are roasted like coffee beans in a long handled pan over the open fire. This takes 45 minutes to one hour plus cooling time. The chocolate maker does this in his mill.

From beans to drink. Chocolate making tools

The shells are sifted off. This is called winnowing. It's done in a winnowing basket. You want to get off the indigestible chaff.  This is done outside on a windy day.

That gives you cocoa nibs. The chocolate maker says they are very, very bitter.

Then you grind the cocoa nibs in a  mortar and pestle.

Next you put the ground cocoa nibs on a mano and rub and rub. This creates heat and friction to grind the cocoa nibs into a paste.

Then the chocolate is placed into a mold. That is allowed to set and then turned out. You have a brick of 100% pure dark chocolate. This is sent to the consumer. The real Felicity's father sells chocolate in his shop.

It isn't tasty yet. You must add things to it to make it taste good.

Your/your cook/your mother/your slave/ grinds or shaves the chocolate brick and mixes it with hot water. Then she adds the tasty parts.

We add some of this thing wrapped in blue paper. It's not salt but... sugar. You knew that right? My namesake has one of those.

The peel of a fruit that's also a color. (Hmm can't taste that at all) cinnamon, nutmeg, anise (a spice used in Italian cooking that tastes like licorice) and a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper. (Mrs. Washington's cook uses annatto for color).

All that goes in a special chocolate pot. The pot has a stirring stick to stir up the spices and make the chocolate frothy. It is then served in small chocolate cups, something like the ones Italians use to drink their strong, bitter coffee they call espresso. The servants/moms then serve the chocolate to the family and guests for breakfast or any time coffee or tea was served.

Try making chocolate yourself. Use a stone ground chocolate or heritage chocolate.

Hot Milk Chocolate 

1 quart milk

4 ounces chocolate without sugar
1/8 ounce fine sugar
1/8 ounce flour or starch
Salt to taste
The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary, Or, The Accomplish’d Housewifes Companion By John Nott, cook John Nott

While edible chocolate is not yet available in my time, it is sometimes used in cooking. Mr. Nott has a good recipe for chocolate biscuits.

Scrape a little Chocolate upon the Whites of Eggs, so much as will give it the Taste and Colour of the Chocolate. Then mingle with it powder Sugar, till it becomes a pliable Paste. Then dress your Biskets upon Sheets of Paper in what Form you please and set them into the Oven to be bak'd with a gentle Fire both at top and underneath.

You can reuse the shells. Mrs. Washington loves to drink cocoa shell "tea". In your time people sometimes use these shells for mulch for their gardens.

Watch a video from George Washington's Mount Vernon about the process

Boston, Massachusetts

The Freedom Trail

Good day followers! On Saturday I had the pleasure of visiting Boston, Massachusetts. I traveled along the Freedom Trail visiting sites of Revolutionary War history. Alas the clouds kept spitting rain and the crowds prevented me from getting as many pictures as usual, but here's a little taste of what I saw.

We started our tour on the Boston Common, America's oldest public park, founded in 1634. It has a Rhode Island connection (we found a bunch of those in Boston) - the land was originally owned by William Blackstone (or Blaxton as they said it back then). He was a bit of a recluse so when the Puritans moved to Boston, he sold his land and went to... not exactly Rhode Island but what's NOW Rhode Island! First to my neighborhood (Rehoboth) and then to what's now Cumberland. Another Rhode Island connection at the Boston Common is the famous painter Gilbert Stuart, who painted the portrait of George Washington on the $1 bill, is buried on the Boston Common. Apparently his family forgot where they buried him so he couldn't be moved back here to his birthplace. I will go find out and try to change history!

Moving along on the tour, we stopped for a time at the Granary Burying ground to look at the old grave stones. It was established in 1660 and many famous people are buried here like Paul Revere, John hancock, Sam Adams, victims of the Boston Massacre and Benjamin Franklin's parents. (Another Rhode Island connection - Benjamin's brother James and his wife Ann lived in Rhode Island. Ann was the first female newspaper editor in America!)

The Granary was once part of the Boston Common and the grass was kept neat by grazing livestock. In the 19th century, the stones were moved into neat rows to make way for the lawnmower. I don't think I like that idea. How do I know where my ancestors are actually buried? 

Puritans didn't believe in graven images but used tombstones as an artistic expression of their attitudes towards death. Many of the gravestones feature skulls with wings that represented the soul flying to heaven.

uritan churches did not believe in religious icons or imagery, so the people of Boston used tombstones as an outlet for artistic expression of their beliefs about the afterlife. One of the most popular motifs was the "Soul Effigy," a skull or "death’s head" with a wing on each side that was a representation of the soul flying to heaven after death. Elaborate scroll work, poetic epitaphs, and depictions of the Grim Reaper and Father Time also adorn many headstones. - See more at: http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/freedom-trail/granary-burying-ground.shtml#sthash.lnxH4uJB.dpuf

Here I am in front of the grave of the great patriot Sam Adams. He did not invent beer but he was a politician and a lawyer and a leader of the rebellion against Britain. In my travels I have encountered him as a hot headed revolutionary, something like a terrorist leader, at least from the Loyalist point-of-view. He became a member of the Continental Congress and a governor  

Here I am with another Franklin monument - this one to Benjamin Franklin at the Boston Latin School, the first public school in America (founded 1635). It was only for boys - boo! Benjamin Franklin did go here but he dropped out! Sam Adams and John Hancock, signers of the Declaration of Independence went here, as did Charles Bullfinch, designer of the Massachusetts State House. 

 Moving on, we stop at the site of the Boston Massacre. On the 5th of March 1770, British troops were trying to occupy Boston and prevent rebellion but ended up starting one instead when a soldier hit a Bostonian with his musket for insulting an officer. An angry mob of Bostonians confronted the soldiers and they fought. In the confusion, some soldiers fired and 5 men were killed or wounded. The Bostonians, influenced by an engraving by Paul Revere, saw this as a bloody massacre but John Adams, who defended the soldiers in court, argued they fired in self-defense. 

This ring of stones is the first commemorative site of the Boston Massacre where the men fell. 

This ring is the new monument, showing where the soldiers stood.

This sign inside the Old State House Museum shows the spot of the Boston Massacre then and now.

We traveled on and I stopped for a photo with this gentleman in front of the Green Dragon, named after a famous colonial tavern where the revolutionary leaders met in the back room. 

Our final stop is in front of Paul Revere's house.Paul Revere was of French-Protestant origins, an engraver, printer and silversmith who is most famous for his "midnight ride" as told by Henry Wardsworth Longfellow.  

Longfellow got some facts wrong, but Paul Revere did ride out to warn the countryside the British were coming. He got captured but other men escaped and helped warn the farmers the British were coming. That led to the Battle of Lexington and Concord. (See my previous post about the Concord Museum).

This is the oldest house in Boston, built in 1680 on the site of the childhood home of my guardian's cousin, Cotton Mather, a famous Puritan minister. The house was originally a large and fashionable place built for  a wealthy merchant. Paul Revere moved here in 1770 when the house was no longer fashionable. It was large enough to hold his family (first wife Sara, their five children and his mother; later his second wife Rachel and their children! A total of 8 children lived here at one time.) 

I want to visit his daughters, but we must return home soon. I have other photos of me on the Freedom Trail in my Visitors album!

I finished the day weary from so much walking and traveling through time. Felicity's cook prepared me some special cornbread and buttermilk as a late night snack before bed. (from Pippaloo on Etsy).

I hope you liked my tour. Come back next week when I will be visiting early 19th century Providence!