Boston’s Old North Church focuses on children, partners with candy firm founded 1806

By Grace van Duyn
Nonprofit Sector News
August 3, 2026

In honor of America’s 250th anniversary this summer, Old North Illuminated, the nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and sharing the history of Boston’s Old North Church, has launched a children’s audio tour designed to make Revolutionary history more engaging for young visitors.

To further celebrate the anniversary, the organization has also partnered with Ye Olde Pepper Candy Companie, America’s oldest candy company, to further create an interactive experience rooted in American history.

The new audio tour, called Prince’s Revolutionary Tale, follows Prince, a black cat who lived at Old North until his death in 2016. As a cat with nine lives, Prince serves as the narrator, guiding visitors through Boston’s North End while introducing them to historical figures whose stories are often overlooked in traditional accounts of the American Revolution.

“A cat would be more accessible to children…a cat can travel through time and a cat can eavesdrop,” said Nikki Stewart, executive director of Old North Illuminated. “It opened up the vehicle for storytelling in a way that if you were narrating through the eyes of a human, you may not be able to.”

Stewart said that the tour was intentionally created to make visiting a historic site more accessible and enjoyable for children. Rather than focusing exclusively on Paul Revere’s midnight ride, the event for which Old North Church is best known for, the tour introduces visitors to the experiences of children living in Boston around the time of the American Revolution. Along the way, Prince shares the stories of Paul Revere Jr., the teenage son of Paul Revere, Rebecca Byles, the daughter of the church’s Loyalist minister who was forced into exile, and Mary Cranky, a free Black child whose family maintained a three-generation relationship
with the Old North Church.

The 20-minute experience leads visitors through the historic box pews, with each stop revealing an individual piece of Boston’s past. Although the tour was designed for children ages 7 to 12, Stewart said that it has resonated with visitors of all ages.

To complement the audio tour, Old North Illuminated partnered with Ye Olde Pepper Companie. The collaboration extends the educational experience beyond the church by connecting visitors with another piece of Massachusetts’s history through candy-making traditions.

Robert Burkinshaw and Jackie Russell, the third- and fourth-generation owners of Ye Olde Pepper Candy Companie, said that preserving the company’s history has always been a priority for them. “When my grandfather got the recipe from the Peppers, he kept the recipe identical to the original recipe. It has never changed in all of the years since 1806,” Burkinshaw said. Russell further elaborated by saying, “We're not just a regular candy store. We are written up in history
across the country."

The pop-up shop, which will be open through Halloween, displays antique candy making equipment from the 1800s. Visitors can learn about the origins of the shop’s signature Gibraltar and Black Jack candies, which date back to founder Mary Spencer, while also sampling new recipes such as cookie dough and M&M fudge.

For Stewart, both the audio tour and candy pop-up are intended to make history feel approachable and memorable. In terms of the Old North experience, she said, “we want people to find it to be unexpectedly fun and engaging and informative.”