New Year’s Day Birthday Celebration: Paul Revere (part 1)

Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry highlights an American hero born on New Year’s Day in 1735: Paul Revere. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

This year marks America’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and I am putting together a score of stories to commemorate and celebrate this most important milestone in our country’s history.

To kick off the New Year and America 250, my subjects are two popular Revolutionary War figures: Betsy Ross and Paul Revere, both born on New Year’s Day.

To recap: My last story covered Betsy Ross, and I will soon provide more on her story.

Paul Revere

Today my subject is Paul Revere, born in Boston’s North End on 1 January 1735 to Apollos Revere (who had anglicized his birth surname Rivoire), a French Huguenot (Protestant) immigrant, and Deborah (Hichborn) Revere.

Note: Paul’s birth is celebrated January 1 under the modern calendar (New Style), though his birth was recorded on 21 December 1734 under the old calendar (Old Style) used at the time in Boston.

He had two wives, each giving him eight children, and was survived by over fifty grandchildren. (More on that history coming soon.)

His Midnight Ride

Revere, an accomplished silversmith and industrialist, was a true patriot immortalized in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem describing his midnight ride to warn the colonists about an imminent British attack.

By joining forces with riders like William Dawes to spread the alarm on the night of 18 April 1775, Revere helped the local militia gain valuable time to prepare for the Battles of Lexington and Concord the next day, which ignited the Revolutionary War and ultimately led to American independence.

One four-legged friend (in addition to his horse) who assisted Revere that night did not make it into the chronicles. Revere’s dog is cited sparingly in the annals; however, the canine’s roll in assisting him was told and retold by his descendants.

I came across this newspaper clip from the Beaumont Journal which was very entertaining, and I leave it up to the reader to decide what they choose to believe.

This article reports:

The one anecdote of Paul Revere’s dog which I have been able to unearth is a tradition of the Lincoln family of Hingham, Mass. Jedediah Lincoln [son of Enoch and Rachel (Fearing) Lincoln] married Mary Revere, one of the daughters of Paul Revere. [Note: Two other daughters born to Paul Revere married Jedediah’s brother Captain Amos Lincoln: first, Deborah Revere; and after her death in 1797 he married 2nd Elizabeth Revere.]

Mary Lincoln told the story to her children and her grandchildren, not once, but many times. [That includes grandson William Otis Lincoln Jr., son of Adeline and William Otis Lincoln Sr.] She was at her father’s home in North Square when the episode developed and must have known all the facts. Her credibility cannot reasonably be doubted.

The story concerns that night when Revere was preparing for his famous warning ride to Lexington. The arrangement had been made for the lantern signals from North Church steeple which would tell whether the British troops would move by land or sea; Revere had gone to his home and obtained his boots and surtout [overcoat]; and thence he had set out for the north part of the city with Thomas Richardson and Joshua Bentley, who were to row him across the Charles River.

It was only human that in a situation so exciting and so momentous two things were overlooked.

The first came up on their way to the boat, when they remembered that they had nothing with which to muffle their oars. This was remedied by cautiously arousing the inmates of a house in the north end of town. One of those inside, a young lady, is said to have promptly thrown out of the window a white woolish undergarment “still warm from her body.” It abundantly served their purpose. [See Samuel Adams Drake’s version in History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts: Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County.]

The second mistake was not so easily adjusted. According to Mary Revere, afterwards Mrs. Jedediah Lincoln, when the trio reached Paul Revere’s boat, the courier discovered that he had forgotten to bring his spurs.

Anyone will understand that on a ride such as Revere was attempting, spurs were important. He had a reasonable distance to go, and he required considerable speed. There was, too, always the danger of pursuit which would require high speed.

What to do? Time was hurrying. The moon was rising. In this dilemma, according to Mary Revere, her father discovered that his dog had followed him.

A wise old dog he must have been. Lincoln says that Paul Revere wrote a note asking for his spurs, tied it to the canine’s collar, and dispatched him to the house in North Square. In due time, the faithful animal returned, bringing the spurs.

After he had passed Charleston Neck two British officers surprised Revere and tried to capture him. If he hadn’t had his spurs they might have succeeded. But he escaped, and so rode on to Lexington.

Literature has commemorated the steed which carried Revere on his epochal ride. Too bad it almost completely forgot his dog.

Stay tuned, I will be covering the story of that famous steed!

Happy Birthday Paul Revere and Happy New Year Peeps!

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Note on the header image: “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” by Edward Mason Eggleston, 1933. Credit: WorthPoint; Wikimedia Commons.