Paul Revere

Born January 1, 1735
Boston, Massachusetts
Died May 10, 1818
Boston, Massachusetts

Silversmith, industrialist, political leader, courier, soldier

Paul Revere, one of colonial Boston's leading silver artisans, was accomplished in several fields. This creative and versatile man was an innovator in the processing of copper and bronze and an important political organizer in Revolutionary Boston. He is best known as the subject of a famous poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow titled Paul Revere's Ride.

Paul Revere's father was a man of French descent named Apollos De Rivoire (pronounced ah-po-LOW duh ruh-VWAR), who later changed his last name to the simpler Revere. He came as a boy to Boston from the British Isle of Guernsey and learned the silversmith trade, which included the crafting and repair of silver articles. Paul was the third of thirteen children born to Apollos and his wife, Deborah Hichborn Revere.

Young Paul was educated at the North Writing School in Boston and learned from his father how to create elegant silver and gold objects. Apollos Revere died when Paul was nineteen, leaving his son with the major financial responsibility for the large family. The young man now had to pay the rent for the house and fully equipped silver shop, either with money he earned or with the items he crafted. In time, the shop Revere operated for nearly forty years provided hm with a very comfortable living.

Revere employed a number of assistants in his shop to produce his designs for items ranging from spoons and forks to entire tea sets. His bowls and pitchers were especially prized. His work remains among the outstanding achievements in American decorative arts.

Revere also branched out into other crafts, including engraving copper printing plates. His shop produced business cards, songbooks, certificates, magazine illustrations, and menus for taverns. He would later engrave the printing plates for the state of Massachusetts's first money and design the official seal for the State of Massachusetts, which remains in use today.

Military service, marriage, business expansion

In 1754 France and her Indian allies were fighting the British in the American colonies in a conflict known as the French and Indian War (1754–63). The war was part of a larger global conflict. In 1756, when Massachusetts asked for volunteers to fight, Paul Revere served as a second lieutenant (pronounced lew-TEN-ant) in the colonial artillery (the gunners' group). He took part in an unsuccessful expedition to capture Crown Point in New York. But before the next winter set in, he returned to Boston and went back to running his shop. At that time, armies did not continue to fight in the winter.

In 1757 Revere married Sarah Orne. When she died in childbirth in 1773, Revere married Rachel Walker. Revere had sixteen children, eight by each wife; five died in infancy.

As the nation prepared for war and Revere approached middle age, he helped in the war effort and also expanded his business activities. From 1768 to 1775 Revere ran his silversmithing business, produced surgical instruments, and worked repairing teeth and wiring in false teeth made from walrus ivory or animal teeth. He also made engravings of political cartoons that reached a wide audience.

Political involvement

It was through his contacts with businessmen and members of Boston organizations that Revere became involved in politics. Revere was a member of the Masons, a secret society that promoted charity and mutual aid. As a result of his membership in the Masonic Lodge of St. Andrew from 1760 to 1809, he became friends with revolutionary activists such as James Otis and Joseph Warren (see Mercy Otis Warren entry). As an old man Revere said that the period he served as the grand master of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge of Masons (from 1795 to 1797) brought him the "greatest happiness" of his life. During the 1760s and 1770s, as the political situation in America heated up, Revere spent most of his free time on revolutionary activities.

In 1765 Revere became a member of the Sons of Liberty, a radical political organization. Radicals desire extreme change in the political system or social structure. In 1768 Revere fashioned one of the most famous pieces of colonial silver, the Liberty Bowl. It had been ordered by the Sons of Liberty to honor the members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives who stood up to their British rulers by protesting the Townshend Acts. The Townshend Acts imposed taxes on the colonists for such items as glass, paints, paper, and tea.

Revere's most famous engraving was an image of the Boston Massacre, an encounter between a group of American patriots and British soldiers that took place on March 5, 1770. The violent street encounter left four men dead and eight wounded. Revere's engraving of colonists being shot by British soldiers stirred up Americans to oppose British rule and made him one of the best-known producers of anti-British propaganda. Propaganda is information and argument designed to influence public opinion about political matters.

In 1770 Revere bought an old but roomy brown house at Boston's North Square. This home is preserved as a memorial to the renowned patriot and remains one of the biggest tourist draws in Boston.

Helps plan Boston Tea Party

Revere observed the movements of British soldiers in and around Boston and reported them to his fellow revolutionaries. He frequently delivered messages on horseback for the Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. The committees of correspondence were groups in the various colonies that shared information, coordinated the activities of colonial agitators, and organized public opinion against the British government. The Massachusetts Committee of Safety was one of many committees in different locales that had the authority to call up militias, groups of volunteer soldiers.

Along with other members of the Sons of Liberty, Revere took an active part in planning and carrying out the 1773 Boston Tea Party, a political action in which Boston citizens threw hundreds of crates of tea into Boston Harbor to protest British taxation practices.

Gains fame as courier

Revere was one of the most respected couriers of the American Revolution. Couriers are messengers who deliver information, usually in haste. It was an important strategy on the part of the Sons of Liberty to make sure every British action against the colonists was well publicized, in order to rile up Americans against their British rulers and prepare them to go to war.

After the Boston Tea Party, Revere spread the word about the event to the cities of New York and Philadelphia. He made the seven-hundred-mile winter trip in a mere eleven days, faster than anyone thought possible. Revere then became the official courier of the Massachusetts provincial assembly to the First Continental Congress, the revolutionary government that met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1774.

The First Continental Congress met to discuss what the colonies should do about their worsening relations with the British government. Revere brought Congress news of events in Boston (where British soldiers were stationed) and carried copies of Congressional documents to the colonies. Revere became so well known that he was mentioned by name in England's newspapers.

Paul Revere's most famous ride was carried out on April 18, 1775. Revere and two men went from Boston to Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, to warn the revolutionaries there about the coming of British troops. In fact, Revere was prevented by British troops from getting the message through, but one of his companions succeeded in doing so (see box).

Wartime activities

After the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, Revere served as a lieutenant colonel in a Massachusetts artillery unit. From 1778 to 1779, he was commander of Castle Island in Boston Harbor. Revere and his soldiers did not see much action at this post. However, they did take part in minor expeditions to Newport, Rhode Island, and to Worcester (pronounced WUSS-ter) Massachusetts.

Revere's military career was undistinguished and ended under a black cloud because of the failure of the Penobscot Expedition of 1779. Revere had been ordered to keep himself and one hundred men in a state of readiness, so that with one hour's notice they could leave their camp and attack the enemy at Penobscot, Maine.

But Revere ran into trouble with two of the leaders of the Penobscot Expedition, who were plagued by indecision and confusion. Their lack of leadership allowed time for the enemy to organize a relief expedition. The Americans were forced to retreat.

Court-martialed, found not guilty

After the defeat at Penobscot, Revere was accused of disobedience, cowardly behavior, and unsoldierly conduct. He lost his command at Castle Island on September 6, 1779. Revere demanded a court-martial, a trial in a court made up of military personnel. Three years later he was found not guilty of any wrongdoing.

Starts new businesses

The fighting ended in 1781 and Revere returned to his silver shop. Before long he was leaving more and more of the shop's business in the hands of his oldest son while he branched out into other business ventures. In 1783 Revere began importing goods from Great Britain to stock a small hardware store, where for the next six years, he sold such items as eyeglasses, cloth, wallpaper, playing cards, and sealing wax.

As American manufacturing industries took off at the end of the eighteenth century, Revere saw that the United States was importing all of its sheet copper from England. He became the first man in the United States to learn how to roll sheet copper. He set up a foundry and began producing copper goods at Canton, Massachusetts, where he also opened a gunpowder mill. Canton was a village outside of Boston where Revere could get the water power he needed to turn copper rolls and press metal flat. He supplied nails, bolts, and spikes to Boston's developing shipyards.

Expands business operations

In time Revere expanded his business to produce cannons and cast bells. Finally his foundry replaced his silversmithing. The foundry eventually became the Revere Copper and Brass Company, which is still operating today. One of his bells can still be heard ringing in Boston's famous King's Chapel.

Copper sheeting he produced was used on the hull of the U.S.S. Constitution and on the dome of the Massachusetts State House. Revere worked with inventor Robert Fulton in 1808 and 1809 to develop copper boilers for steamboats.

By the turn of the nineteenth century, Paul Revere was a rich man. No one in America was a more skilled artist with silver, and his bell casting operation produced more than four hundred bells for churches throughout the new nation. The Reveres moved into a handsome yellow-painted brick house. Revere sent his sons to be educated in Europe and bought luxurious clothing for his daughters. He bought himself a fine horse.

Community involvement

Throughout his lifetime, Revere was involved in many community and social groups. He was very active in working for the passage of the Constitution of the United States (1789). Revere was the first president of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association, an organization founded in 1794 and made up of artisans, laborers, and businessmen. Its aim was to improve working conditions for laborers and aid members who fell on hard times. He was also a member of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society and the Boston Library Society.

From 1795 until 1802 Revere served as the coroner of Suffolk County. A coroner is a public official whose chief duty is to determine the causes of any deaths that are not obviously due to natural causes. He also helped to create Boston's first board of health, and he held the position of its president for two years, begining in 1799.

Later years

Paul Revere continued his work in the metal trade until his retirement at the age of seventy-six. In 1804 he formally made his son, Joseph Warren Revere, his business partner. A few years later, he turned over his successful copper business to be run by his sons and grandsons. He was grief-stricken by the deaths of his wife Rachel and his son Paul in 1813. He lived for five more years until his death at the age of eighty-three on May 10, 1818.

After his death, his obituary in the Boston Intelligence newspaper stated, "seldom has the tomb closed upon a life so honorable and useful." Paul Revere was buried at Boston's Granary Burying Ground, alongside several other patriots.

For More Information

Boatner, Mark M., III. "Revere, Paul." Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1996, pp. 930-32.

Bourgoin, Suzanne M,. and Paula K. Byers, eds. "Revere, Paul." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998, vol. 13, pp. 110-11.

Forbes, Esther. America's Paul Revere. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1946, renewed 1974.

Rinaldi, Ann. The Secret of Sarah Revere. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995.

Web Sites

"Boston Society of Mechanics History." [Online] Available http://www.mindstorm.com/mechanics/history.html (accessed on 10/15/99).

"Paul Revere: A Brief Biography." Paul Revere Memorial Association, 1997. [Online] Available http://www.paulreverehouse.org/theman/bio.html (accessed on 10/15/99).

Paul Revere's Famous Ride

Around the time of the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Paul Revere was a silversmith with a flourishing business in colonial Boston. He designed and crafted beautiful teapots, silverware, and platters from silver and pewter (a less expensive mix of tin and lead). Although he could have lost his business and his life, Revere was a rebel. Today we would call him a patriot, one of the first to object to British tyranny and rise in the fight for liberty.

Like most of the rebels, Revere at first wanted the British to recognize the Americans' rights to make some decisions for themselves. Soon, however, the rebels wanted more. They wanted complete freedom from England.

As part of the rebel spy network in Boston, Revere had watched the British seize the American war supplies at the nearby towns of Jamaica Plains, Salem, and Marshfield. He knew that the British would be marching again and, this time, the Americans planned to be prepared. But the rebels didn't know exactly where the British would head and whether they would make their move by ship, up the Charles River, or by land. The rebels' goal was to learn more about the British plan and then send out messengers to warn the America militiamen throughout the countryside.

Then on the night of April 18, 1775, a signal came from the Old North Church in Boston. From the bell tower, high above the town, the light of two lanterns gleamed into the darkness. Revere and William Dawes, waiting below, now knew that the British were crossing the Charles River to march overland to the American arsenal at Concord, a town about twenty miles west of Boston. Revere managed to warn the Americans in several towns before being detained for questioning by the British, but Dawes continued his ride through the night.

The Americans were warned and on the morning of April 19, their militia (citizen soldiers) formed up at Lexington, on the road from Boston. When the British attempted to march through, the Americans blocked their path. The British ordered them to desist, the Americans refused, the British gave the order to fire, and there came "the shot that was heard 'round the world." It was the beginning of the American Revolutionary War.

Paul Revere's midnight ride and the battles at Lexington and Concord are celebrated in a famous poem called Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem somewhat distorted events as they happened, but made Revere's name one of the best known in the popular history of the American Revolution.