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Patriots Day Lantern Ceremony Adds Honors For Marathon Survivors

BOSTON (CBS) – Ceremonies at Boston's Old North Church Sunday night linked the historic events commemorated every year on Patriots Day and the tragic events at last year's Boston Marathon.

Two lanterns were lit Sunday night at the Old North Church in a re-enactment of the signals that told Paul Revere the British regulars were marching to Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775.

steeple
The steeple of Old North Church. (WBZ-TV)

Revere rowed to Charlestown before mounting his horse and setting out to alert the inhabitants of "every Middlesex village and town" that the redcoats were on the way. The ride was later immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1860 poem, "Paul Revere's Ride."

The Old North Church has been re-enacting the hanging of the lanterns in the steeple since 1875.  But Sunday night's ceremony also honored the survivors and first responders involved in last year's Boston Marathon bombings.

survivor with lantern
The lanterns are carried up into the steeple of Old North Church. (WBZ-TV)

Bombing survivor Roseann Sdoia and the first responders who saved her life, Boston police Officer Shana Cottone, Boston Firefighter Mike Materia, Northeastern University student Shores Salter, and Roseann's mother Rosemary Buckley served as honorary lantern carriers.

The events at last year's marathon will also have an impact Monday morning during the annual re-enactment of the clash between minutemen and British troops on Lexington Green, where the shot heard round the world sparked the American Revolution.

In response to last year's marathon attacks, security will also be beefed up in Lexington.

As with the marathon, officials are asking people attending the re-enactment to keep their belongings in clear or mesh bags and to leave backpacks and other large items at home. Tighter security had been in the works for years but last year's attacks prompted officials to put them in place.

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