Paul Revere

(December 21, 1734 – May 10, 1818) 

As genealogist Donald M. Nielsen wrote, “The story of Paul Revere’s life has been told many times, and it is unnecessary to repeat it here.”    

Revere is one of the most infamous Sons of Liberty and the most famous of the Boston Tea Party participants. By 1773, Revere was a dentist, silversmith, and engraver.  

Revere used his artistic talents to create several illustrations which served as propaganda against the British oppression in Boston, including his famous 1770 “The Bloody Massacre“, which was plagiarized from Henry Pelham’s almost identical “Fruits of Arbitrary Power, or the Bloody Massacre”. 

In May of 1773, Revere participated in a mob that pelted Governor Thomas Hutchinson’s guests at the annual election day dinner. This is the same event in which would-be fellow Boston Tea Party participants Moses Grant and James Foster Condy were punished.  

Revere was a member of the Masonic Lodge of St. Andrew and a major player in Boston’s tea crisis of 1773. Revere, along with several others, volunteered to guard the vessel Dartmouth and prevent the unloading of the East India Company’s tea following its arrival. Weeks later, he joined scores of men for the “destruction of the tea” at Griffin’s Wharf on December 16, 1773. Following this event, he embarked on his first ‘ride’ as a courier for the Sons of Liberty, bringing news of the tea’s destruction to New York City in under a week before riding to Philadelphia. He continued his revolutionary behavior following the Boston Tea Party. Paul Revere’s more famous Midnight Ride on April 18 and 19, 1775, warned Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and the Lexington militia of the British marching toward Lexington and Concord. 

Paul Revere died on May 10, 1818, and is buried in Boston’s Granary Burying Ground.