Page 8 - Sojourner Newsletter-Fall 2024 Final1

8 THE SOJOURNER

HISTORIAN’S CORNER

By Edward W. Nolte, National: Historian

Paul Revere

Since Brother National Commander, MSgt Paul A. DeMerath, 33°, has chosen Paul Revere for his year,
Sojourners and Heroes need to know a little more about this famous man and Brother Mason.
Paul Revere was born on 21 Dec 1734 on the Gregorian calendar or 1 January 1735 on the Julian calendar
in Boston as the third of 12 children to Apollos and Deborah (Hitchborn) Rivoire. Born Paul Rivoire, the
son of a Huguenot, he later anglicized his name to Paul Revere. As a boy, Paul Revere worked as a
silversmith apprentice to his father, learned and mastered the trade, and became one of America’s greatest
silver artisans. He not only made beautiful silver pieces, but also crafted surgical instruments, spectacles,
teeth, and copper plates.

In the 1770s, Brother Revere was a strong supporter of the patriot cause and a leader of Boston’s mechanic
class, thus providing a link between artisans and intellectuals. On 16 December 1773, he and 50 other
colonial patriots in Indian garb threw tea from the merchant ship, Dartmouth, into Boston Harbor in protest
of taxation without representation. While known simply as colonial patriots, it is reported that Boston’s St.
John’s Lodge did not have a quorum to open that evening.
On 16 April 1775, RWB Paul Revere, then Grand Senior Warden of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts
during the term of MWB Joseph Warren, then Grand Master, urged the patriots to move their military stores
of powder, shot, and weapons. He arranged for Brother Robert Newman to signal the British approach by
having lanterns placed in Boston’s Old North Church, “One if by land, and two if by sea.” On the night of
18-19 April 1775, RWB Paul Revere warned the colonial patriots that the British were looking for them. He
particularly searched for John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Paul Revere and his partner, William Dawes,
arrived in Lexington and warned Hancock and Adams to flee. The two men together with Samuel Prescott
then started for Concord, but they were stopped by a British patrol, and only Prescott got through. Revere
was released by the British and returned on foot to Lexington. Because of Revere’s warning, the Minutemen
were ready the next morning on Lexington Green for the historic meeting with the British.
On 19 April 1775, CPT John Parker and 77 colonial patriots, a ragtag militia, met MAJ John Pitcairn and
700 British Grenadiers and Light Infantry, Britain’s finest, on Lexington Green. The confrontation resulted
in the “Shot Heard Round the World,” which is credited with starting the American Revolutionary War.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow memorialized the day’s events in a poem, “The Midnight Ride of Paul
Revere,” which begins, “Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,” and
goes on for 14 verses to tell the story. Although many question the historical liberties Longfellow took with
his 1861 poem, Brother Paul Revere was the principal rider for Boston’s Committee of Safety, journeying
from Boston to New York, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.

With the outbreak of hostilities, Revere turned industrialist and constructed a gunpowder mill to supply
colonial arms. In 1776, Revere commanded Boston Harbor’s principal defense at Castle William, but his war
record as a lieutenant colonel was largely undistinguished. He resumed his business as a successful
industrialist after the war and set up a rolling mill for the manufacture of sheet copper at Canton, MA. This
factory made sheathing for many U.S. ships, including the U.S.S. Constitution, and for the dome of the
Massachusetts State House. The foundry survived into the 21st century as Revere Copper Products,
Incorporated.
MWB Paul Revere laid down his working tools at the age of 83 on 10 May 1818.