Paul Revere
Patriot, Horseman and Industrialist
I started writing this in early April but somehow was sidetracked. But as this fellow was a key player at the beginning, he is worth remembering on our nation’s birthday.
Years ago we had a neighbor, Mr. Charles Bradford. He was a direct descendant of Governor Bradford, of Mayflower and Massachusetts Bay Colony fame. He was a very well read man and a real devotee of the American Revolution and wrote several unpublished books on various facets of the war. Among these, he wrote one book about the leading figures in the Revolution from the Boston area. I recall him giving my father several draft chapters to proof, and among them was a chapter on Paul Revere. I read the drafts – excellent, but I have no idea what ever became of them. If anyone knows…
In any case, today Revere seems to have fallen out of the scan of nearly everyone, which is too bad as he was a remarkable fellow, and he is worth a few minutes of your times as a fellow who was there when it was needed, and then went back to working hard, and worked hard his entire life. He is an excellent example to us all.
I don’t remember much of what Mr. Bradford wrote but I do recall a few comments about Revere: he was known to be smart, an excellent silversmith, and a fantastic horseman – his abilities on the horse and his central role in getting the word to Concord, Lexington, and to John Hancock and Sam Adams – has been watered down over the last few generations as story tellers have tried to bring more people into the story. Nevertheless, the key figure was Revere.
I also recall a comment from one of the British Army officers who held Revere for several hours, commenting that the man was, apparently, fearless.
Paul Revere was born in Boston’s North End on December 21st, 1734 (per the Julian calendar in use at the time, now adjusted to January 1st, 1735) making him 40 when he made his famous ride. His father was a silversmith and Revere was apprenticed to John Coney in 1748. Revere also began attending (over his father’s objections) the church of John Mayhew some time after his 15th birthday.
Mayhew, along with his preaching a unitarian theology (though he didn’t call himself one), spoke vigorously against the Stamp Act of 1765, which imposed direct taxes on the colonies and also required most printed material to be printed on British made – and stamped – paper. And taxes had to be paid in British money.
He served briefly in the provincial army (1756), then returned to Boston and assumed control of his late father’s shop. In 1757 he married Sara Orne, they would have eight children.
As with most other businessmen in the colonies, the Stamp Act hurt. The end of the 7 Year War left the British government up to its ears in debt and Britain slid into a recession, which affected the American colonies. This was in large part the root of the Stamp Act: raising money for the nearly broke British government.
In the summer of 1765, as opposition grew to the manner in which the British were ruling and treating the colonies, the Sons of Liberty was created – an underground organization of “radical” Bostonians (similarly named organizations rapidly appeared across the colonies) – and began organizing and protesting. Revere joined that summer.
Revere was an active member of the Sons of Liberty and participated in the Boston Tea Party. Beginning in 1773 he also served as a courier for the Committee of Public Safety, a patriot shadow government, and in 2 years road to Philadelphia 18 times.
In early April 1775 Joseph Warren, physician and patriot, was watching British Army movements in and around Boston, and by April 7th, his intelligence network and his analysis pointed to a British plan to move against stockpiles of arms in Concord, and to take captive senior rebels. Warren knew he had a solid intelligence network and the word was passed that the British were planning some sort of move, but exactly what, and when, how many, and what route were points that Warren was trying to develop.
On April 14th Gen. Thomas Gage, commander of the British Army in the Colonies, received orders from the Secretary of State, the Earl of Dartmouth, to do just that, arrest the leaders of the rebellion – John Hancock and Samuel Adams would be the obvious targets. Interestingly, just before the “Redcoats” set off, Gage decided not arrest Hancock and Adams, but they would not have known, and they were obvious targets. Warren never learned this; his earlier intelligence was now incorrect.
Warren recruited Revere and William Dawes, a tanner known and trusted by Warren, to pass the alert to the farmers in Lexington and Concord, and to also warn Hancock and Adams. General alerts were passed but the key was to know when the troops were actually moving and what route they might take.
Warren instructed Robert Newman, sexton to North Church, to signal at night once the details of the British Army movement was known, hence the “one if by land” (moving southwest over Boston Neck – roughly the current Washington Street) and “two if by sea” (crossing Charles River by boat and preceding from there – the route they eventually took.
On the night of April 18th Newman hung 2 lanterns, they were coming via Charlestown. Revere – still on the Boston side of the harbor, followed the British in a small boat road by two friends Joshua Bentley and Thomas Richardson, landed, and immediately began to tell members of the Charlestown militia, in a loud whisper, that “the Regulars are coming out.” By the time he began his ride it was probably around 11PM.
As he proceeded more riders took to the road, so that there were scores of riders who road short distances and long that night, passing the warning and rousing the farmers. It has been estimated that there were 40 riders in Middlesex county alone.
Along the road to Somerville Revere narrowly avoided capture at least once and arrived in Lexington around midnight, where he met with Hancock and Adams; Dawes arrived shortly thereafter. Looking at the size of the British force (roughly 700 men), they realized the intent was more than the capture of the two men, that the effort was directed at Concord and the militias’ weapons and gunpowder; the Powder Alarm must sound to bring out the militia. Revere and Dawes set off for Concord and along the way met Dr. Samuel Prescott, who was courting Miss Lydia Mulliken and had left her house at the then awkward hour of 1 AM!
In Lincoln (between Lexington and Concord) the three men were stopped by a British patrol. Revere was a short distance ahead of the other two men; the two men saw the ambush of Revere, Prescott jumped a wall (on his horse) and escaped in the dark and eventually made it to Concord, Dawes did the same but shortly fell off his horse and was left on foot, having escaped but never completing the ride. Revere charged off the road and into a nearby field but six British horsemen were in front of him and they managed to corner him and he was taken.
At this point the alarms – gunfire – began to sound in the darkness and the British officer demanded Revere tell him what was going on. Revere answered that “The bell’s ringing, the town’s alarmed and you’re all dead men.” The British were at a loss as to what to do and finally simply released Revere on foot and headed back to Boston; discretion being the better part of valor. Revere walked to Reverend Jonas Clarke’s House, where he knew Hancock and Adams were waiting.
He then helped move Hancock and his papers and his family, and Adams, to safety in Woburn. Hancock and Adams protested, Hancock was a Colonel in the Massachusetts Militia and said he needed to go to the battle. Revere convinced him and Adams that they were not needed on the battlefield and that their loss would not help, that they needed to move.
The British were, of course, met by the farmers of Concord and Lexington (“Here once the embattled farmers stood, and fired the shot heard round the world” – RW Emerson), as well as those awakened by Revere and his compatriots on the ride out, and the British were sniped at and repeatedly ambushed. British reinforcements were sent and in the end more than 1,500 men – some of the finest troops in North America – participated in the running gunfight out and back.
At the same time nearly 4,000 militia are estimated to have taken part, fewer than 400 at Concord, fewer than 100 at Lexington, but nearly 3,500 along the road back to Boston. Of the farmers some 49 were killed in action, and 39 were wounded. The British had the worst of it, with 73 killed and 174 wounded, and some 53 missing.
The British buttoned up Boston, and Revere could not return. Revere continued as a courier, and also helped set up a powder mill (gunpowder), after taking a tour of the one powder mill in the rebel hands, in Philadelphia, despite the owner refusing to cooperate. After the British evacuated Boston (Evacuation Day: March 17th – 1776) Revere returned to the city and was also commissioned a Major in the Massachusetts militia. He saw little action except in the horrible mess that was the Penobscot Expedition (a story for another day), and he continued to work as a silversmith, among other things. But it was as a silversmith that he was most successful.
After the war he expanded into iron work and built a large foundry for iron and copper, and later cast bells and sold large quantities of copper plates and copper fittings to Boston Naval Yard, where the copper served as bottom sheeting for US Navy ships built or maintained at the yard, and in 1801, he opened the country’s first copper mill and produced the first rolled copper in the US.
Revere finally retired in 1811 and turned his business over to his son Jospeh Warren Revere. He died at home in 1818. The copper works he founded in 1801 remains active as the Revere Copper Company in Rome, NY.
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