Happy 4th of July!

The other day I was about Paul Revere for some reason. I wanted to know to more about him. This is the reason I love having the interent at my finger tips. You can just type in anything you want to know about and something will be found.

We all know the poem about Paul Revere.

Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

But what did he do before this? Well here is what I found off of Wikipedia.

"Revere was likely born in very late December, 1734, in Boston's North End, the son of a French Huguenot father and a Boston mother." He became involved in his father business of silver work.

^{"Revere's silver work quickly gained attention in Boston; at the same time, he was befriending numerous political agitators, including most closely Dr. Joseph Warren. During the 1760s, Revere produced a number of political engravings and advertised as a dentist, and became increasingly involved in the actions of the Sons of Liberty. In 1770, he purchased, with his wife Sarah Orne, the house in North Square which is now open to the public. One of his most famous engravings was done in the wake of the Boston Massacre in March of 1770. It is not known whether Revere was present during the Massacre, though his detailed map of the bodies, meant to be used in the trial of the British soldiers held responsible, suggests that he had first-hand knowledge.[3] Sarah died in 1773, leaving behind six children, and Revere married Rachel Walker, with whom he would have five more surviving children.}

After the Boston Tea Party in 1773, at which Revere was also possibly present, Revere began work as a messenger for the Boston Committee of Public Safety, often riding messages to New York and Philadelphia about the political unrest in the city. In 1774, Britain closed the port of Boston and began to quarter soldiers in great numbers all around Boston. At this time, Revere's silver business was much less lucrative, and was largely in the hands of his son, Paul Revere, Jr. As 1775 began, revolution was in the air and Revere was more involved with the Sons of Liberty than ever."

Isn't this interesting!!! Paul Revere become a messenger and was getting more involved.

So what is the story behind the midnight ride???

"The role for which he is most remembered today was as a night-time messenger on horseback just before the battles of Lexington and Concord. His famous "Midnight Ride" occurred on the night ofApril 18/April 19, 1775, when he and William Dawes were instructed by Dr. Joseph Warren to ride from Boston to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams of the movements of theBritish Army, which was beginning a march from Boston to Lexington, ostensibly to arrest Hancock and Adams and seize the weapons stores in Concord.

The British army (the King's "regulars") had been stationed in Boston since the ports were closed in the wake of the Boston Tea Party, and was under constant surveillance by Revere and other patriots as word began to spread that they were planning a move. On the night of April 18, 1775, the army began its move across the Charles River toward Lexington, and the Sons of Libertyimmediately went into action. At about 11 pm, Revere was sent by Dr. Warren across the Charles River to Charlestown, on the opposite shore, where he could begin a ride to Lexington, while Dawes was sent the long way around, via the Boston Neck and the land route to Lexington.

In the days before April 18, Revere had instructed Robert Newman, the sexton of the Old North Church, to send a signal by lantern to colonists in Charlestown as to the movements of the troops when the information became known; one lantern in the steeple would signal the army's choice of the land route, while two lanterns would signal the route "by water" across the Charles River.^[4] This was done to get the message through to Charlestown in the event that both Revere and Dawes were captured. Newman and Captain John Pulling momentarily held two lanterns in the Old North Church as Revere himself set out on his ride, to indicate that the British soldiers were in fact crossing the Charles River that night. Revere rode a horse lent to him by John Larkin, Deacon of the Old North Church.

Paul Revere's ride.

Riding through present-day Somerville, Medford, and Arlington, Revere warned patriots along his route - many of whom set out on horseback to deliver warnings of their own. By the end of the night there were probably as many as 40 riders throughout Middlesex County carrying the news of the army's advancement. Revere did not shout the famous phrase later attributed to him ("The British are coming!"), largely because the mission depended on secrecy and the countryside was filled with British army patrols; also, most colonial residents at the time considered themselves British as they were all legally British subjects. Revere's warning, according to eyewitness accounts of the ride and Revere's own descriptions, was "The Regulars are coming out." Revere arrived in Lexington around midnight, with Dawes arriving about a half hour later. Samuel Adams and John Hancock were spending the night at the Hancock-Clarke House in Lexington, and they spent a great deal of time discussing plans of action upon receiving the news. Revere and Dawes, meanwhile, decided to ride on toward Concord, where the militia's arsenal was hidden. They were joined by Samuel Prescott, a doctor who happened to be in Lexington "returning from a lady friend's house at the awkward hour of 1 a.m."

Just a bit of USA history for ya.

Happy 4th of July.