45 Facts About Paul Revere

Paul Revere is best known for his midnight ride to alert the colonial militia in April 1775 to the approach of British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1861 poem, "Paul Revere's Ride".

At age 41, Revere was a prosperous, established and prominent Boston silversmith.

Paul Revere had helped organize an intelligence and alarm system to keep watch on the British military.

Paul Revere later served as a Massachusetts militia officer, though his service ended after the Penobscot Expedition, one of the most disastrous campaigns of the American Revolutionary War, for which he was absolved of blame.

Paul Revere used the profits from his expanding business to finance his work in iron casting, bronze bell and cannon casting, and the forging of copper bolts and spikes.

Paul Revere grew up in the environment of the extended Hitchborn family, and never learned his father's native language.

In 1750, aged 15, Paul Revere was part of the first group of change ringers to ring the new bells at Christ Church, in the north of Boston.

Paul Revere's father did not approve, and as a result father and son came to blows on one occasion.

Revere's father died in 1754, when Paul was legally too young to officially be the master of the family silver shop.

Paul Revere did not stay long in the army, but returned to Boston and assumed control of the silver shop in his own name.

Paul 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.

One client was Joseph Warren, a local physician and political opposition leader with whom Paul Revere formed a close friendship.

Paul Revere did not participate in some of the more raucous protests, such as the attack on the home of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson.

In 1765, a group of militants who would become known as the Sons of Liberty formed, of which Paul Revere was a member.

Paul Revere produced a bowl commemorating the Massachusetts assembly's refusal to retract the Massachusetts Circular Letter.

In 1770 Paul Revere purchased a house, now a museum on North Square in Boston's North End.

Around this time Paul Revere regularly contributed politically charged engravings to the recently founded Patriot monthly, Royal American Magazine.

Paul Revere was retained by the provincial congress as a courier, and he printed local currency which the congress used to pay the troops around Boston.

Paul Revere acquired, through the work of Samuel Adams, plans for another powder mill.

Paul Revere was generally second or third in the chain of command, and on several occasions he was given command of the fort.

Paul Revere applied his engineering skills to maintaining the fort's armaments, even designing and building a caliper to accurately measure cannonballs and cannon bore holes.

Paul Revere's regiment was responsible for erecting and maintaining artillery batteries on Aquidneck Island.

The attempt was abandoned by the French when their fleet was scattered in a storm, and Paul Revere's regiment returned to Boston before the British sortied from Newport to force the Battle of Rhode Island.

Paul Revere commanded the artillery units for the expedition, and was responsible for organizing the artillery train.

Paul Revere participated in the taking of Bank's Island, from which artillery batteries could reach the British ships anchored before Fort George.

Paul Revere next oversaw the transport of the guns from Bank's Island to a new position on the heights of the Bagaduce Peninsula that commanded the fort.

At one point Brigadier General Peleg Wadsworth ordered Paul Revere to send his barge in an attempt to recover a ship drifting toward the enemy position.

Paul Revere responded particularly well to this trend because his business was not solely manufacturing custom, high end purchases.

Paul Revere's increased efficiency left financial and human resources available for the exploration of other products, which was essential to overcoming the fluctuating post-war economic climate.

Paul Revere soon opened an iron foundry in Boston's North End that produced utilitarian cast iron items such as stove backs, fireplace tools, and sash-window weights, marketed to a broad segment of Boston's population.

Paul Revere was entering the field of iron casting in a time when New England cities were becoming centers of industry.

An artisan himself, Paul Revere managed to avoid many of these labor conflicts by adopting a system of employment that still held trappings of the craft system in the form of worker freedoms such as work hour flexibility, wages in line with skill levels, and liquor on the job.

In 1794, Paul Revere decided to take the next step in the evolution of his business, expanding his bronze casting work by learning to cast cannon for the federal government, state governments, and private clients.

In 1801, Paul Revere became a pioneer in the production of rolled copper, opening North America's first copper mill south of Boston in Canton.

Paul Revere's products were rarely identical, but his processes were well systematized.

Paul Revere was a member of Lodge St Andrews, No 81,.

Paul Revere continued to participate in local discussions of political issues even after his retirement in 1811, and in 1814 circulated a petition offering the government the services of Boston's artisans in protecting Boston during the War of 1812.

Paul Revere died on May 10,1818, at the age of 83, at his home on Charter Street in Boston.

Paul Revere is buried in the Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street.

The Paul Revere Bell, presented in 1843 to the Church of St Andrew in Singapore by his daughter, Mrs Maria Paul Revere Balestier, wife of American consul Joseph Balestier, is displayed in the National Museum of Singapore.

Paul Revere appears on the $5,000 Series EE US Savings Bond.

Paul Revere Mall is a corridor located in Boston's North End behind Old North Church.

In episode 8 of the 2nd season of the US TV show The West Wing, Paul Revere is named as the manufacturer of president Bartlet's knife-set he presents to Charlie, his personal aide.

Paul Revere appears in the 2012 video game Assassin's Creed III and is portrayed by Bruce Dinsmore.

Paul Revere is fictitiously depicted riding alongside the game's protagonist, Ratonhnake:ton, to alert the colonial militias.