Person:John Pulling (1)

John Pulling is one of the principles in the controversy over the lanterns used by Paul Revere. Paul Revere's Signal; The True Story of the Signal Lanterns in Christ Church, Boston by Rev. John Lee Watson, advances evidence that "the lanterns were hung from the steeple of Christ Church by Capt. John Pulling, a warden of the church". NEHGR, p. 31:109 (July 1877), "Rev. Henry F. Lane ... remembers hearing when a lad his great-grandmother, Capt. Pulling's widow, who died at Abington about thirty years ago, in her 99th year, say that "her husband hung the lights in the steeple of the Old North Church to give the alarm to the country people." This last is clearly a reference to Sarah. Benjamin Newman is likewise said to have also been the hanger of lanterns by his descendants. A refutation of Rev. Watson was made by William W. Wheildon. To quote Esther Forbes in Paul Revere and the World He Lived in:"...after careful research [by the City of Boston and Christ's Church both], accepted Newman and left Pulling in the street guarding the tower".

1. ↑ "Christ Church, Boston, Records", in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society)
   99:207.

   1736/7 Feb'ry 27 Pullen John Son of John & Martha.

2. ↑ Dunkle, Robert J., and Ann S. (Ann Smith) Lainhart. Inscriptions and Records of the Old Cemeteries of Boston. (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, c2000)
   317.

   Copp's Hill Burial Ground
   "In Memory of Cap't John Pulling / who departed this / life Jan. 25th / 1787 / in the 51st year / of his age."