(1735–1818). A hero of the American Revolution, Paul Revere was an expert silversmith as well as a military officer. He became a hero when he rode his horse through the countryside near Boston to warn the colonists that the British were approaching the area.
Early life
Paul Revere was born on January 1, 1735, in Boston, now the capital of Massachusetts. He was the third child of Apollos De Revoire, a silversmith. Apollos later changed the family name De Revoire to the simpler Revere. Apollos taught Paul the craft of silverwork. Paul later became one of America's greatest silver artists.
Revolutionary activities
Revere was an early supporter of freedom for the American colonies. He joined the Sons of Liberty, an organization formed in the summer of 1765 to oppose the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act was a law by which the British Parliament attempted to raise money by taxing all commercial and legal papers in the colonies.
Revere was also one of the leaders of the protest known as the Boston Tea Party in 1773. In this incident American colonists, disguised as Native Americans, threw chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company into Boston Harbor.
On April 16, 1775, Revere rode to nearby Concord, a town in eastern Massachusetts. He met with the supporters of independence for the American colonies, known as patriots. He warned them to move their weapons and ammunition, which were in danger of being taken by the approaching British troops. He arranged to warn the patriots of the arrival of the troops by placing lanterns in Boston's Old North Church steeple: “One if by land and two if by sea.”
Famous ride
Two days later he set out from Boston on his most famous journey to alert his countrymen that British troops were on the march from Boston to Lexington, a town in eastern Massachusetts. The British troops were looking for the revolutionary leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were then in Lexington. Paul Revere and William Dawes reached Lexington and were able to warn Hancock and Adams, who fled to Philadelphia, now in the state of Pennsylvania.
Warned by Revere, 77 local minutemen prepared to meet the British force of 700 soldiers on Lexington Green for the historic clash that launched the American Revolution. The minutemen were a group of armed men who vowed that they would take up arms against the British at a minute's notice.
Wartime work
After the outbreak of the war Revere built a gunpowder mill to supply ammunition to the Americans. He also fought as a patriot during the war. In 1776 he was in command of Boston Harbor's most important point of defense at Castle William. He served as a lieutenant colonel.
Later years
After the war, Revere returned to his work as a silversmith. He learned to work with other metals as well, including copper. He set up a mill for the manufacture of sheet copper in Canton, Massachusetts. Paul Revere died on May 10, 1818, in Boston.