Paul Revere's Ride

Friday, July 30, 2010

Nearly 200 years after his death, Paul Revere, a man whose name was relatively unknown outside of Boston in his time, is widely celebrated for his patriotic ride.   

Born in 1734, Paul Revere was the son of Apollos Rivoire, a French immigrant, and Deborah Hichborn, the daughter of an artisan family in Boston.  Father Apollos, a goldsmith, changed his own name to Paul Revere.  Son Paul was the second of perhaps as many as 12 children and was the oldest surviving son.  Paul Revere's home, in the picture below, is Boston's oldest building. 

Paul apprenticed with his father from whom he learned gold- and silversmithing.  Silversmithing was his primary vocation and he operated a silver shop for more than 40 years, employing many journeyman apprentices.  He created copper plate engraving and silver pieces from spoons to tea sets that are considered outstanding examples of American decorative art.  Perhaps his most interesting work was as a dentist.  He cleaned teeth and wired in false teeth carved from walrus ivory or animal teeth.

Paul Revere was a commissioned second lieutenant in the colonial artillery.  As were many prominent men in American history, he was also a Mason.  He was politically active and gathered intelligence by watching movements of British soldiers.  He was also a courier, riding express messages to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia and news of the Boston Tea Party to New York and Philadelphia.

It was the night of April 18, 1775 for which he is perhaps most well known.  Having received directions to ride to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams of approaching British soldiers, his "midnight ride" was immortalized by Longfellow in the poem Paul Revere's Ride .  It is not often mentioned that it didn't happen quite that way. 

Paul Revere Statue in Front of Old North Church

 
 

...But mostly he watched with eager search

The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,

As it rose above the graves on the hill,

Lonely and spectral and somber and still.

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height

A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!

He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,

But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight

A second lamp in the belfry burns!

Although Longfellow's poem is not historically accurate (read the actual accounting in the writings of Revere here), it does present a patriotic tale of the times.  Paul Revere is credited with the IDEA of displaying one or two lanterns in the church bellfry but it is unlikely that he, in fact, saw them displayed in Old North Church.  And, he most certainly did not cry "the British are coming!" as it was "the British" who lived in Boston at the time.  More likely his message was "The Regulars are coming out!"  And, although he did provide many patriotic gratuitous journeys, he fully intended to, and did, submit a bill for his messenger services. 

It still makes a great story, doesn't it?