Most Americans are familiar with Paul Revere from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s iconic poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” but they do not know other particulars about his life or even the truth about the midnight mission.
Revere was born to French immigrant Apollos Rivoire (who changed it to Revere after he arrived in the colonies when he was 13 years old) and Boston native Deborah Hichborn on January 1st, 1735. Paul received a rudimentary education but soon apprenticed with his father in his shop in the North End of Boston. Apollos died when Paul was 19, and Paul took over the shop and care of his mother and siblings. In 1756 he volunteered to fight the French at Lake George, New York. He served as second lieutenant in the colonial artillery.
He married Sarah Orne in 1757; the couple had eight children. Sarah died in 1773 and Paul married Rachel Walker; they also had eight children.
By the 1760s Paul Revere was a well-known and skilled goldsmith and was popular amongst the upper class in Boston. Right before the Revolution he also worked as a copper plate engraver, an illustrator of books and cartoons, and a dentist. He befriended Freemasons James Otis and Dr. Joseph Warren and began to observe how British economic actions were hurting his community. He became a spy, reporting on the British soldiers’ movements; he also worked as a courier for the Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. It was his (inaccurate) drawing of the Boston Massacre that inflamed tensions in 1770, and he participated in the Boston Tea Party of 1773.
Revere was tasked with riding to Lexington on the night of April 18th, 1775 to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock of the British troops’ approach. Two men rowed him across the Charles and he borrowed a horse from a friend. The lanterns in the belfry had been arranged in advance. He and two other men were captured, never having made it all the way to Concord.
During the war itself Revere manufactured gunpowder and cannons, printed money, and commanded Castle William in Boston Harbor.
After the Revolution he imported goods from England and ran a hardware store. He opened the first copper rolling mill in North America in 1801, providing sheeting for the hull of the U.S.S. Constitution and the dome of the Massachusetts State House.
He retired in 1811 and died of natural causes in 1818. He is buried in the Granary Burying Ground in Boston.
