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Paul Revere
1735–1818 · 83 years Tier II
The silversmith who identified his dead friend by his own dental work
His father came from France at 13 as Apollos Rivoire, apprenticed to a Boston silversmith, and flattened his name into Paul Revere before he married. The son left school at 13 to learn the same trade and inherited the shop in 1754, at 19, legally too young to hold it in his own name. He enlisted in a provincial artillery regiment in February 1756 and spent a summer at Fort William Henry. He married Sarah Orne in 1757, and between two wives he eventually had 16 children. When the postwar slump and the Stamp Act nearly cost him his property in 1765, he took up dentistry to make the rent. One of the patients was a physician named Joseph Warren.
Between December 1773 and November 1775 he carried the Boston Committee of Safety's dispatches to New York and Philadelphia — 18 rides that researchers have since documented. In December 1774 he rode to Portsmouth on a rumor, and the town emptied Fort William and Mary of its powder. He copied Henry Pelham's drawing of the killings in King Street without asking and sold the print under his own name. One night in April 1775 he got as far as Lexington. BriefHistory has that night and what a poet did to it. This page is about the other 82 years.
On March 21, 1776, nine months after Bunker Hill, Revere went out to the battlefield with Warren's brothers and opened a grave holding two bodies. The face was gone. He knew his friend by the false tooth he had wired into that jaw himself. Three years later he commanded the artillery on the Penobscot Expedition, which lost the entire Massachusetts fleet and became the worst American naval defeat of the war. He came home to a set of charges pushed partly by officers who had resented his command at Castle William. Hearings in September 1779 settled nothing and he was asked to resign. He demanded a full court-martial and kept demanding it for more than two years, until one convened in February 1782 and acquitted him. He was 47 and finished as a soldier.
He died at 83 in the Charter Street house in 1818 and lies in the Granary Burying Ground. From 1792 the family firm cast hundreds of church bells, some still ringing. The rolling mill he opened at Canton in 1801 was the first in North America to turn out sheet copper, and its metal covered the wooden dome of the Massachusetts State House in 1802. It became Revere Copper and Brass, still running plants in Rome, New York, and New Bedford, Massachusetts. Cyrus Dallin's bronze rider stands behind the Old North Church, and the North Square house he bought in 1770 is a museum. The scholarship has spent 30 years putting the organizer back in front of the horse.
Lifespan
Paul Revere's life against the full span of the corpus.
Notable works
-
The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street
artwork
Engraved from Henry Pelham's drawing without permission and sold as his own 1770 -
North End iron foundry
company
Stove backs, fireplace tools and sash weights 1788 -
Paul Revere & Sons bell foundry
company
Cast the first bell made in Boston and hundreds after it 1792 -
Cannon foundry
company
Bronze ordnance for federal, state and private buyers 1794 -
Copper rolling mill at Canton
company
The first sheet copper made in North America — later Revere Copper and Brass 1801 -
Massachusetts State House dome sheathing
building
Revere copper over Bulfinch's original wooden dome 1802
Life in brief
with age at each point- 1754 aged ~19 His father dies and he takes over the silver shop At 19 he was legally too young to be recorded as its master.
- February 1756 aged 21 Enlists as a second lieutenant of provincial artillery A summer at Fort William Henry on Lake George, then back to Boston.
- 1765 aged ~30 Creditors move on his property and he takes up dentistry One of his dental clients was Joseph Warren.
- 1770 aged ~35 Publishes the King Street engraving copied from Henry Pelham Pelham wrote that he had been robbed as truly as if plundered on the highway.
- December 1774 aged 39 Rides to Portsmouth and the town raids Fort William and Mary
- March 21, 1776 aged 41 Identifies Joseph Warren's body by a false tooth he had fitted Warren had been buried unmarked for nine months after Bunker Hill.
- August 1779 aged 44 The Penobscot Expedition loses the entire Massachusetts fleet Revere commanded the artillery train and was asked to resign that September.
- February 1782 aged 47 A court-martial he had demanded for two years acquits him
- 1801 aged ~66 Opens the Canton mill and rolls the first American sheet copper
