Paul Revere

For the American musician and founder of Paul Revere & the Raiders, see Paul Revere (musician).

Paul Revere
John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Paul Revere. c. 1768–1770, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Born	(1735-01-01)January 1, 1735 (O.S.: December 21, 1734) North End, Boston, Massachusetts Bay, British America
Died	May 10, 1818(1818-05-10) (aged 83) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Silversmith, colonial militia officer
Political party	Federalist
Spouses	Sarah Orne ​ ​ (m. 1757; died 1773)​ Rachel Walker ​ ​ (m. 1773; died 1813)​
Children	8 with Sarah Orne 8 with Rachel Walker including Joseph
Parent	Apollos Rivoire (father)
Signature

Paul Revere (/rɪˈvɪər/; December 21, 1734 O.S. (January 1, 1735 N.S.) – May 10, 1818) was a courier, soldier, and leader in the Sons of Liberty during the American Revolution. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and worked there as a silversmith. He was married twice and was the father of 16 children. He died in Boston at the age of 83 and was buried in the Granary Burying Ground.

Revere is well known for his engraving of the Boston Massacre. It was distributed widely within the American colonies and made Americans even more angry with the British. However, he is most famous for alerting the colonial militia that British soldiers were coming before the Battles of Lexington and Concord. In 1860, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem about this called "Paul Revere's Ride."

After the Revolutionary War ended in 1801, he opened a metal foundry in Boston called the Revere Copper Company, which was the first copper rolling mill in North America. It is still in operation today.

Midnight Ride

Revere is most famous for his "Midnight Ride" on the night of April 18–19, 1775. British officials had learned that American Patriots (the leaders of the American Revolution) were storing guns in Concord, Massachusetts. They wanted to destroy the guns. The Patriots thought the British also wanted to capture Patriot leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were staying in Lexington, Massachusetts. Revere and a man named William Dawes rode on horseback from Boston to Lexington to warn Adams and Hancock that British soldiers were approaching. He also warned other Patriots along his route.

People commonly believe that Paul Revere arrived in Lexington and shouted his famous quote ("The British are coming!"), but this is false. When Revere arrived in Lexington, he quietly woke up the people and told them about the British to avoid drawing attention to himself. Revere was soon joined by Dawes, who also told the people that the British soldiers were coming.

In Concord, Samuel Prescott joined Revere and Dawes. All three were stopped by British soldiers in a field in the city of Lincoln, Massachusetts. Prescott and Dawes escaped quickly. However, the British soldiers held Revere for about an hour before letting him go. Because his horse was gone, Revere ran back to Lexington, where the fighting had already begun.

Almost a hundred years later, Paul Revere's Ride revived his fame.

References

Further reading

• Alexander, John (2002). Samuel Adams: America's Revolutionary Politician. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN 9780742521148.
• Boatner, Mark Mayo, III (1975) [1964]. Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Library of Military History. New York: David McKay. ISBN 978-0-618-00194-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Brooks, Victor (1999). The Boston Campaign: April 1775 – March 1776. Conshohocken, Pennsylvania: Combined Publishing. ISBN 978-0-585-23453-3.
• Drake, Samuel Adams (1899). Historic Mansions and Highways Around Boston. Boston: Little, Brown. p. 128. OCLC 1838072.
• Falino, Jeannine (2001). "The Pride Which Pervades thro every Class": The Customers of Paul Revere. Boston, Massachusetts: University Press of Virginia.
• Federhen, Deborah (1988). From Artisan to Entrepreneur: Paul Revere's Silver Shop Operation. Boston, Massachusetts: Paul Revere Memorial Association.
• Fischer, David Hackett (1994). Paul Revere's ride. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508847-6. This work is extensively footnoted, and contains a voluminous list of primary resources concerning all aspects of the Revere's ride and the battles at Lexington and Concord.
• Forbes, Esther (1999) [1942]. Paul Revere and the World He Lived in. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-618-00194-1.
• Gettemy, Charles (1905). The True Story of Paul Revere. Boston: Little, Brown. OCLC 1375230.
• Goss, Elbridge Henry (1891). The Life of Colonel Paul Revere. Boston: J. G. Cupples. OCLC 3589045. (Volume 2)
• Ketchum, Robert (1999) [1974]. Decisive Day: The Battle For Bunker Hill. New York: Henry Holt and Co. ISBN 9780805060997.
• Martello, Robert (2010). Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn: Paul Revere and the Growth of American Enterprise. Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
• McDonald, Forrest; McDonald, Ellen (April 1980). "The Ethnic Origins of the American People, 1790". The William and Mary Quarterly. Third. 37 (2): 179–199. doi:10.2307/1919495. JSTOR 1919495.
• McNamara, John (1978). History in Asphalt: The Origin of Bronx Street and Place Names, Borough of the Bronx, New York City. Fleischmanns, New York: Harbor Hill Books.
• Miller, Joel J. (2010). The Revolutionary Paul Revere. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson. ISBN 978-1-59555-074-3.
• Murrin, John M.; et al. (2002) [1996]. Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People, Volume I: To 1877. Florence, Kentucky: Wadsworth–Thomson Learning.
• Paul Revere, Artisan, Businessman and Patriot: The Man Behind the Myth. Boston: Paul Revere Memorial Association (PRMA). 1988.
• Revere, Paul (1961). Paul Revere's Three Accounts of His Famous Ride. Introduction by Edmund Morgan. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society. ISBN 978-0-9619999-0-2.
• Ruland, Richard; Bradbury, Malcolm (1991). From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature. New York: Viking.
• Schmidt, Leah A (2002). Revere Beach. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-1030-9.
• Steblecki, Edith J. (1985). Paul Revere and Freemasonry. Boston: Paul Revere Memorial Association (PRMA). OCLC 17485269.
• Triber, Jayne (1998). A True Republican: The Life of Paul Revere. Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 978-1-55849-139-7.
• United States, National Archives and Records Service. Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789. National Archives and Records Administration, General Services Administration.
• Upham, Warren (1920). Minnesota Geographic Names: Their Origin and Historic Significance. St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society. OCLC 34232868.
• Waters, Deborah Dependahl (2013). A Handsome Cupboard of Plate: Early American Silver in the Cahn Collection. Cambridge, England: John Adamson. ISBN 978-1-898565-11-6.

Other websites

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Revere, Paul" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Paul Revere Heritage Project
• The Paul Revere House
  • An interactive map showing the routes taken by Revere, Dawes, and Prescott
• Original copper engravings and other documents in collections of the Massachusetts State Archives
• Revere Rolling Mill – about the endangered original Revere copper works site in Canton, MA
• Booknotes interview with David Hackett Fischer on Paul Revere's Ride, July 17, 1994.
• Works by or about Paul Revere at Internet Archive
• Works by Paul Revere at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)