PAUL REVERE:
A Life Honorable and Useful
by Randall Decoteau
Paul Revere’s home is the oldest house in downtown
Boston. It lies on Boston’s Freedom Trail and attracts approximately
200,000 people per year. It is the headquarters of the Paul Revere Memorial
Association, which is engaged in an active and extensive educational program
and support research. Photo: Paul Revere Memorial Association.
Often obscured by both legend and mystery, the historical figure Paul
Revere is remarkable for far more than his famous ride to Lexington on
April 18-19, 1775. He was an accomplished silversmith/goldsmith, an engraver,
a dentist, messenger rider, and hardware store proprietor. He was also
an industrialist who produced spikes and nails, made cannons, and cast
bells. His copper sheeting business was the first in North America and
provided sheathing for the hull of the U.S.S. Constitution.
Humble origins
Born in 1734 in Boston’s North End, of French immigrant parents,
Paul Revere was pretty much a self-made man. He had a typical silversmith’s
education at the North Writing School followed by an apprenticeship with
his father, Paul Revere, Sr. When Paul was only 19 years old, his father
died leaving him as the sole source of support for his family. He fought
the French in Upstate New York in 1756 and distinguished himself as a
second lieutenant in the colonial artillery. The following year he married
Sarah Orne, who was to bear him eight children.
Paul Revere’s craftsmanship as a silver and goldsmith was the cornerstone
of his professional life for more that 40 years. The silver made in his
shop is highly regarded as some of the finest produced in America. It
ranges from simple teaspoons to magnificent tea, coffee, and communion
services. The two largest surviving selections of his silver are on display
at The Boston Museum of Fine Arts and The Worcester Art Museum.
Preserved home
The house on North Square that bears his name today was purchased in 1770,
just after he had his famous portrait painted by Copley in 1768. Built
in about 1680, Paul Revere owned the house until 1800 and was living here
at the time of his famous midnight ride. Shortly after the family upgraded
to better quarters, it became a rooming house with the ground floor converted
to shops.
In the early 20th century the dwelling was bought by a Revere descendent
and it opened to the public in 1908. The most original parts of the house
include the timber frame post and beam construction, some of the interior
wall construction, part of the foundation, and most of the sub flooring
and rafters. The house was originally a home for a wealthy man, which
accounts for its high ceilings and commodious rooms. It was certainly
not a typical house of a silversmith —a tradesman with no classical
education. As the result of restoration, the house today has a combination
of 17th and 18th century features, but the outside of the structure looks
much as it did when Paul Revere lived there during the last quarter of
the 18th century.
Other trades
Throughout the 1760s and 1770s Revere also worked as an engraver, producing
illustrations for books, political cartoons, bookplates, currency, a songbook,
and bills of fare for taverns. His best-known engraving is of ‘The
Boston Massacre’ on March 5, 1770, which served as early propaganda
for the patriots’ cause. He was also known to have advertised as
a dentist wiring animal teeth and false teeth carved from walrus ivory
into his patients’ mouths.
Patriotic activity
He was a member of the Masonic Lodge of St. Andrew and knew activists
such as James Otis and Dr. Joseph Warren. Revere was involved with secret
patriot organizations such as the Committees of Correspondence, the Massachusetts
Committee for Safety, and the Sons of Liberty. He made many rides as courier
including one to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia and another
to New York and Philadelphia to announce the closing of Boston Harbor
after the Boston Tea Party in 1773. Sarah Revere died during that same
year and shortly thereafter he married Rachel Walker, with whom he had
eight more children.
On the night of April 18, 1775, Dr. Warren instructed him to warn John
Hancock and Samuel Adams of the British troop movements toward Lexington
and Concord. He borrowed a saddle horse by the name of Brown Beauty from
Charlestown Deacon John Larkin and set off towards Lexington shortly after
ten that evening with William Dawes. After warning Hancock, Revere and
Dawes, in the company of Dr. Samuel Prescott, set off for Concord where
arms and supplies were cached. En route, they were apprehended by a British
patrol. Prescott and Dawes escaped, but Revere was held for a short time
and released without his borrowed horse. He made his way back to Lexington
in time to witness the battle on Lexington green and to hide the famous
trunk of documents belonging to John Hancock.
Paul Revere went on to serve as lieutenant colonel in the Massachusetts
Train of Artillery and as commander of Castle Island in Boston Harbor.
Historian Patrick Leehey reports that his troops saw little action at
this post, but they did participate in minor expeditions to Newport, Rhode
Island and Worcester, Massachusetts.
More businesses
After the war, Revere opened a hardware store, importing goods from England
and also sold his silver from the same site. He closed the store in 1789
and went on to establish a foundry which produced bolts, spikes, and nails
for the North End shipyards. He is also known to have made brass fittings
for the U.S.S. Constitution. He also manufactured cannons, and after 1792,
he cast bells, one of the largest of which still rings in Boston’s
King’s Chapel.
In 1801, he opened North America’s first copper rolling mill, which
provided copper sheeting for the hull of the U.S.S. Constitution and the
dome of the new Massachusetts State House in 1803. Revere Copper and Brass,
Inc. was left to his sons and grandsons when he retired in 1811 at the
age of 76. The company still exists today and is now owned by Corning.
It produces copper-bottomed pots and pans under the name of Revereware.
Paul Revere died of natural causes on May 10, 1818 at the age of 83 and
was buried in Boston’s Granary Burying Ground. He died a successful
businessman and a popular local figure. He was a moderately wealthy man
who was enormously resourceful and continually on an upward track, particularly
with his later businesses. He was an accomplished man who was self-made.
He didn’t have a strong educational background and generally had
to learn his businesses himself, yet his success enabled his youngest
son to go to Harvard.
His legacy to us is his life, which was long and productive, as well as
his accomplishments in industry, politics, and community service that
underscore his fame as an American folk hero.
The author wishes to acknowledge assistance in the preparation of this
article to:
David Hackett Fischer, Historian and author, Paul Revere’s Ride,
Oxford University Press, 1994.
Patrick M. Leehey, Research Director, Paul Revere Memorial Association,
and author, What was the Name of Paul Revere’s Horse – 20 Questions
about Paul Revere Asked and Answered.
Danielle Kane, Public Relations, Worcester Art Museum, 55 Salisbury Street,
Worcester, MA 01609, (508) 799-4406, www.worcesterart.org.
Paul Revere Memorial Association, 19 North Square, Boston, MA 02113, (617)
523-2338, www.paulreverehouse.org.
Edith J. Steblecki, Curator, Paul Revere Memorial Association.
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