Early years
Paul Revere was born in the North End of Boston on December 21, 1734, according to the Old Style calendar then in use, or January 1, 1735, in the modern calendar.[3] His father, a French Huguenot born Apollos Rivoire, came to Boston at the age of 13 and was apprenticed to the silversmith John Coney.[4] By the time he married Deborah Hitchborn, a member of a long-standing Boston family that owned a small shipping wharf, in 1729, Rivoire had anglicized his name to Paul Revere. Their son, Paul Revere, was the third of 12 children and eventually the eldest surviving son.[2] Revere grew up in the environment of the extended Hitchborn family, and never learned his father's native language.[5] At 13 he left school and became an apprentice to his father. The silversmith trade afforded him connections with a cross-section of Boston society, which would serve him well when he became active in the American Revolution.[6] As for religion, although his father attended Puritan services, Revere was drawn to the Church of England.[7] Revere eventually began attending the services of the political and provocative Jonathan Mayhew at the West Church.[7] His father did not approve, and as a result father and son came to blows on one occasion. Revere relented and returned to his father's church, although he did become friends with Mayhew, and returned to the West Church in the late 1760s.[8]
Revere's father died in 1754, when Paul was legally too young to officially be the master of the family silver shop.[9] In February 1756, during the French and Indian War (the North American theater of the Seven Years' War), he enlisted in the provincial army. Possibly he made this decision because of the weak economy, since army service promised consistent pay.[10] Commissioned a second lieutenant in a provincial artillery regiment, he spent the summer at Fort William Henry at the southern end of Lake George in New York as part of an abortive plan for the capture of Fort St. Frédéric. He did not stay long in the army, but returned to Boston and assumed control of the silver shop in his own name. On August 4, 1757, he married Sarah Orne (1736–1773); their first child was born eight months later.[11] He and Sarah had eight children, but two died young, and only one, Mary, survived her father.[12]
1765–1774: the gathering storm of revolution
Main article: Sons of Liberty
Revere's business began to suffer when the British economy entered a recession in the years following the Seven Years' War, and declined further when the Stamp Act of 1765 resulted in a further downturn in the Massachusetts economy.[13] Business was so poor that an attempt was made to attach his property in late 1765.[14] To help make ends meet he even took up dentistry, a skill set he was taught by a practicing surgeon who lodged at a friend's house.[15] One client was Doctor Joseph Warren, a local physician and political opposition leader with whom Revere formed a close friendship.[16][17] Revere and Warren, in addition to having common political views, were also both active in the same local Masonic lodges.[18]
Although Revere was not one of the "Loyal Nine"—organizers of the earliest protests against the Stamp Act—he was well connected with its members, who were laborers and artisans.[19] Revere did not participate in some of the more raucous protests, such as the attack on the home of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson.[20] In 1765, a group of militants who would become known as the "Sons of Liberty" formed, of which Revere was a member.[21][22] From 1765 on, in support of the dissident cause, he produced engravings and other artifacts with political themes. Among these engravings are a depiction of the arrival of British troops in 1768 (which he termed "an insolent parade") and a famous depiction of the March 1770 Boston Massacre(see illustration). Although the latter was engraved by Revere and he included the inscription, "Engraved, Printed, & Sold by Paul Revere Boston", it was modeled on a drawing by Henry Pelham, and Revere's engraving of the drawing was colored by a third man and printed by a fourth.[23] Revere also produced a bowl commemorating the Massachusetts assembly's refusal to retract the Massachusetts Circular Letter. (This letter, adopted in response to the 1767 Townshend Acts, called for united colonial action against the acts.King George III had issued a demand for its retraction.)[23]
In 1770 Revere purchased a house on North Square in Boston's North End. Now a museum, the house provided space for his growing family while he continued to maintain his shop at nearby Clark's Wharf.[25] Sarah died in 1773, and on October 10 of that year Revere married Rachel Walker (1745–1813). They had eight children, three of whom died young.[26]
In November 1773 the merchant ship Dartmouth arrived in Boston harbor carrying the first shipment of tea made under the terms of the Tea Act.[27] This act authorized the British East India Company to ship tea (of which it had huge surpluses due to colonial boycotts organized in response to the Townshend Acts) directly to the colonies, bypassing colonial merchants. Passage of the act prompted calls for renewed protests against the tea shipments, on which Townshend duties were still levied.[28] Revere and Warren, as members of the informal "North End Caucus", organized a watch over the Dartmouth to prevent the unloading of the tea. Revere took his turns on guard duty,[29] and was one of the ringleaders in the Boston Tea Party of December 16, when colonists (some disguised as Indians) dumped tea from the Dartmouth and two other ships into the harbor.[30]
From December 1773 to November 1775, Revere served as a courier for the Boston Committee of Public Safety, traveling to New York and Philadelphia to report on the political unrest in Boston. Research has documented 18 such rides. Notice of some of them was published in Massachusetts newspapers, and British authorities received further intelligence of them from Loyalist Americans.[31] In 1774, his cousin John on the island of Guernsey wrote to Paul that John had seen reports of Paul's role as an "express" (courier) in London newspapers.[32]
In 1774, the military governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, dissolved the provincial assembly on orders from Britain. Governor Gage also closed the port of Boston and all over the city forced private citizens to quarter (provide lodging for) soldiers in their homes.[N 2]
During this time, Revere and a group of 30 "mechanics" began meeting in secret at his favorite haunt, the Green Dragon, to coordinate the gathering and dissemination of intelligence by "watching the Movements of British Soldiers".[33] Around this time Revere regularly contributed politically charged engravings to the recently founded Patriot monthly, Royal American Magazine.[34]
He rode to Portsmouth, New Hampshire in December 1774 upon rumors of an impending landing of British troops there, a journey known in history as the Portsmouth Alarm. Although the rumors were false, his ride sparked a rebel success by provoking locals to raid Fort William and Mary, defended by just six soldiers, for its gunpowder supply.[35]
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