Boston, MA, earned "The Cradle of Liberty" moniker from its prominent role as the center of early Puritan settlement at the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Boston Tea Party protested taxation without representation by the colonists, and soon Patriot Paul Revere would ride his pony to alert the countryside residents of the anticipated British Invasion to squelch the Independence Movement in the colonies by counting the lanterns hung in the Old North Church belfry signaling the British were coming "One if by land, Two if by sea".