by Marc Stockwell-Moniz
ChandlersWatch.com

Paul Revere was an American patriot and silversmith, Paul Revere was born in Boston, Jan. 1, 1735, and died May 10, 1818. Revere became a legendary hero at the start of the American Revolution, when he rode from Charlestown to Lexington, Mass., on the night of Apr. 18, 1775, to warn the countryside of approaching British troops.

An official courier for the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence, Revere arrived in Lexington shortly before another rider, William Dawes, and warned John Hancock and Samuel Adams to escape. Revere then started for Concord accompanied by Dawes and Samuel Prescott but was halted by a British patrol. Only Prescott reached Concord. Revere’s exploit was celebrated in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous (but generally inaccurate) poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride” (1863).

In the above portrait, Paul Revere holds an unfinished silver teapot painted by John Singleton Copley around 1765. The energetic, colorful Revere organized a network of more than 60 fellow artisans that formed the secret heart of Boston’s Revolutionary movement.

His father, Apollos Rivoire (or De Rivoire), was a Huguenot who had gone to Boston while still a boy as a refugee from religious persecution in France. Apprenticed to the silversmith John Coney, Apollos had married Deborah Hitchbourn (Hitchborn), and he gradually Anglicized his name as Paul Revere. As an independent silversmith, the elder Revere had become a man of substance by the time his son Paul was born, in Boston, Mass., on Jan. 1, 1735.

Young Paul learned the trade of silversmith in his father’s shop, and probably attended the North Writing (or Grammar) School while serving his apprenticeship. In 1756 he enlisted for the unsuccessful expedition against the French post at Crown Point, serving as second lieutenant. A few months after his return, in the summer of 1757, he married Sarah (“Sary”) Orne, by whom he was to have eight children.

Revere is remembered as much as a craftsman as he is as a patriot. His anti-British engravings of episodes such as the Boston Massacre were effective propaganda. He cast musket balls and cannon during the war and designed and printed the first Continental currency. After the war he became one of New England’s leading silversmiths and a pioneer in the production of copper plating in America.

Paul Revere Was An Ardent Anti-British Activist

When tension developed between the colonies and the mother country after the end of the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), Paul Revere emerged as one of the leaders of the group of artisans who identified themselves with the critics of the policies of the mother country. As a Mason he had already come to be associated with James Otis, Joseph Warren, and other libertarians. He now became a member of various Whig groups, organized and unorganized, such as the Sons of Liberty, the North End Caucus, and the Long Room Club. He was probably a witness of, although not certainly a participant in, the Stamp Act riots and the looting of Gov. Thomas Hutchinson’s house.

Meanwhile, although his fame as a silversmith steadily mounted, business fell off for several years, and Revere turned to other trades to supplement his income. He did copper engraving, although his skill as a draftsman was woefully inadequate, drew political cartoons for the Whig polemicists, published music, and even went in for dentistry, a craft that he soon dropped. He was not only one of the most versatile and outstanding artisans of Boston; he was also an active political leader.

He observed the coming of the customs commissioners and the British troops to Boston in 1768, and published a series of engravings that commemorated the latter event. When the so-called Boston Massacre took place in 1770, he published a famous drawing of the scene that doubtless aroused as much resentment against the British troops as the event itself.

In the years between 1770 and 1773, Revere became an express (mounted messenger) for the Whig patriots of Boston. At the time of the arrival of the tea ships in the autumn of 1773, he rode out to warn the committees of correspondence of the other ports along the coast not to permit the ships to land their cargoes. A little later, after he himself had been one of the “Indians” in the Boston Tea Party, he rode to Pennsylvania for the Boston committee to carry the news of the party to the committees of New York and Philadelphia.

Colonel Paul Revere’s Wartime Services

It was in the spring of 1775 that Revere made the famous ride described by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that placed him among the immortals of the American national tradition. Gen. Thomas Gage, the British military governor of Massachusetts, had decided to arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were at Lexington, and to confiscate the military supplies stored by the Whigs at Concord.

On Sunday, April 16, four days before the projected Gage expedition, Revere rode out to Lexington to warn Hancock and Adams, and sent word to the Whigs at Concord to hide the stores. At this time he arranged to signal the patriots by showing two lanterns in Boston’s North Church steeple if the British moved by sea or one if by land.

On the night of Tuesday, April 18, Revere and William Dawes rode out, Dawes by way of Boston Neck and Revere by way of Charlestown, to alert the countryside that the British troops would move the next morning. Revere arrived in Lexington about half an hour before Dawes, and Hancock and Adams fled to Woburn. Revere, Dawes, and Dr. Samuel Prescott started for Concord, but Dawes and Revere were stopped by a British patrol; Prescott got through. Revere was released by the British and returned to Lexington to help in saving John Hancock’s trunk and papers.

During the first years of the war, Revere served as a messenger for the Committee of Safety, with headquarters at Cambridge. He was then commissioned by the Provincial Congress to manufacture gunpowder. He also designed and printed the first issue of Continental money, and made the first official seal for the colonies and the state seal for Massachusetts. After the reoccupation of Boston in 1776, he again took up his old trade. He reached the rank of lieutenant colonel and was placed in command of Castle William (Castle Island) in Boston Harbor. Meanwhile he had begun to cast cannon for the American Army.

Paul Revere’s Postwar Years

“Sary” Revere died on May 3, 1773, and Revere married Rachel Walker on October 10. They had eight children. After the war he went into merchandising and, later, bell casting, but silversmithing, with the assistance of his son, continued to be his most dependable and rewarding business. Presently, at the age of 65, he learned how to roll sheet copper and furnished the new sheeting for the dome of the Massachusetts State House and other public buildings, as well as for the hulls of ships in the young American Navy, including the Constitution, for which he had earlier furnished bolts, spikes, braces, and other fittings.

Paul Revere’s outstanding characteristic was the versatility of his craftsmanship; his reputation as an artist in the working of silver is hardly less great or enduring than his fame as a patriot. For him, that famous ride to Lexington was hardly more than an exciting incident that was, in fact, shared by William Dawes. Because of its dramatic nature, however, it is for the ride that he is most popularly remembered by succeeding generations.

by Eric Rauch
American Vision Week In Review
Dec 10, 2009

It could be argued that how you view George Washington is a very good indicator of how you view America as a whole. Washington, like Jefferson and Franklin, is a towering figure (literally in Washington’s case, he was well over six feet tall) of American history, and his very likeness is as symbolic for America as the flag. It seems that every group wants to claim Washington as one of their own—whether they are on the left, the right or somewhere in between. The real question is: which Washington is the real Washington? The staunch patriot, ready to put everything on the line for his country; or the pragmatic politician, the consummate deal-maker? The committed evangelical Christian, approaching every situation humbly on his knees before Almighty God; or the dedicated Mason, loyal only to the ways and patterns of powerful men and prestigious positions? Was Washington the saint that most Christian biographers want us to believe, or was he ever the statesman, keeping up appearances for the sake of the job?

The truth, as is usually the case, is probably somewhere in between the two caricatured extremes. A new reprint of a mid-19th century work, while tending more to the “saintly” view of Washington, should prove to be a valuable resource in the ongoing battle for the historical Washington. The mere fact that it was written within 50 years of his death is enough to set it apart from modern biographies. Anna C. Reed, a niece of one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence, wrote The Life of Washington for the American Sunday School Union in 1842. The book quickly became popular and was subsequently translated into more than 20 languages, making it one of the most widely-read biographies of the time. And since it was originally written for Sunday school children, most modern American adults—hindered as they are by a public school education—should have no trouble reading and understanding Reed’s book.

What I found particularly interesting as I read through The Life of Washington, was not so much the exaltation of Washington himself, but the stories of the supporting characters that surrounded him. Reed spends a fair bit of time developing and discussing several English generals, most notably Generals Howe and Cornwallis. While most pro-Washington works will demonize the English armies to such a degree that the colonials look innocent as doves by comparison, Reed’s account doesn’t take such a simplistic approach. Since she assumes that her readers will understand that Washington is the hero of her tale, she doesn’t feel the need to portray the English as blood-thirsty heathen or describe the colonials as the victims. Because of this, the personalities of the opposing armies become more human, and the difficulties they face in their impossible task of conquering a determined people in an unfamiliar land receives more sympathy. The definitive historical interpretation of the bad guys wearing the redcoats and the good guys wearing the torn coats (or no coats at all), doesn’t get an easy pass in Reed’s book. She presents Washington as a mediator between his own men as much as she presents him as a warrior and commander on the battlefield. The apocryphal story of the “swear jar” is a case in point where the reality is far more instructive:

It was in the summer of this year [1779], that General Washington took measures to suppress the habit of profane swearing which prevailed in the army. The following general order is sufficiently illustrative of his views of that most vulgar and impious practice.

“Many and pointed orders have been issued against that unmeaning and abominable custom, SWEARING. Notwithstanding which, with much regret the general observes that it prevails, if possible, more than ever—his feelings are continually wounded by the oaths and imprecations of the soldiers; whenever he is in hearing of them, the name of that Being from whose bountiful goodness we are permitted to enjoy the comforts of life, is incessantly imprecated and profaned in a manner as wanton as it is shocking: for the sake therefore of religion, decency, and order, the general hopes and trusts, that officers of every rank would use their influence and authority to check a vice which is as unprofitable as it is wicked and shameful. If officers would make it an invariable rule to reprimand, and if that does not do, to punish soldiers for offences of this kind, it could not fail of having its intended effect.” (p. 129-130)

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From this general order to his officers, Washington reveals far more than his distaste for swearing. At a deeper level, it shows what he expected and required of the men serving under him, not only the soldiers, but the officers as well. It would have been easy enough for Washington to address the men himself, giving this general order verbally, with the power of the general rank to back it up. But he delegates the responsibility to his officers, expecting that they will be ready and willing to see it through. Washington trusts the chain of command and this makes his men trust it too.

But there is something else behind this general order that the observant reader should notice. Many of the soldiers in Washington’s army were mere boys, probably away from home for the first time. As the scourge of swearing galloping through the camps, we should recognize a mass of frightened young boys trying to be men. In this general order that Anna Reed uses to exemplify Washington’s piety, it also reveals the fragile humanity of a new nation’s youth, being thrust into a life and death struggle for their futures. Their idle swearing and careless language is a mask that they wear to hide their fear. Washington knows this, and he takes the opportunity to encourage his officers to disciple his soldiers, rather than inflicting yet more fear on his already terrified men. It’s these “stories behind the story” that make The Life of Washington such a fascinating read.

It is also interesting to note that Reed begins her book, not with Washington’s birth, but with the childhood of another famed historical figure: Christopher Columbus. She follows on at a breakneck pace giving the shortest history lesson of the years between 1492 and 1682: 13 pages. But the point is made clear—Washington’s life history is meaningless without all of the events that preceded it. The life story of George Washington is not an isolated 67 years. Washington, in the providence and sovereignty of God, was born at just the right time. Reed understands this and wants her readers to understand it as well. Although she can at times make Washington seem to be more than a mere man, she knows that the where and the when of the man was no accident, but the working of an ordaining and sustaining Creator God. In fact, after praising many of Washington’s admirable qualities, she closes her book with this reminder:

But, remember, Washington directed his countrymen to a higher example than his; he said that he earnestly prayed that they might follow that of “THE DIVINE AUTHOR OF OUR BLESSED RELIGION;” and the Bible, the sacred book which makes known that example, you should value as the crown of all your blessings; for in it, you may learn how to secure their continuance through this short life, and how to obtain that blissful gift of God, “Eternal life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”

Abigail Adams stood on a hilltop near her farm in Braintree, Massachusetts. It was June 17,1775. Abigail Adams, along with her seven-year-old son John Quincy, watched the epic Battle of Bunker Hill unfold several miles away on the Charlestown peninsula. That evening she wrote a letter to her husband John Adams. John was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, serving as a representative from Massachusetts in the First Continental Congress. She wrote to lament the facts of the day to John. It would be one of the many letters she would write to him during the revolution. She wrote that the Americans had inflicted heavy casualties on the British and that she feared total warfare was now imminent. Her words were prophetic; the war had already begun.
Abigail Adams had no formal schooling. However, she eagerly gathered knowledge from her extensive reading of literature and history. She always spoke her mind and gave her opinion on public issues to John and the other revolutionary leaders.
Abigail Adams had learned to cope with her absent politician husband. For many years, John had been serving as a diplomat both at home and abroad. Abigail Adams, therefore, became a successful merchant and farmer. Self taught and self reliant she learned how to farm and manage a business. She was a prominent woman of her era. When John returned home he would consult with her on the pressing issues of the day. He often referred to his wife as “my top advisor. Probably John didn’t always agree with Abigail, but he knew she had many valid and heartfelt suggestions. Unlike most woman of her day, Abigail Adams supported women’s rights. John however, was reluctant to support women’s rights. He thought the new nation was not ready for women’s rights. Abigail Adams pushed for better education for females. One of her famous suggestions to her husband was, “Remember the Ladies.” She was one of America’s first abolitionists. She spoke out against slavery. She understood that the institution of slavery was contrary to everything that the United States stood for.
In the summer of 1784, after the United States secured independence from Britain, Abigail Adams rejoined John in France. He was on a diplomatic mission and had just recently signed the Treaty of Paris.
Abigail Adams continued to advise her husband. Although not an official diplomat of the United States, she promoted the new American nation to her French friends. Abigail Adams became good friends with Martha Washington when John was serving as Vice-President. John was in the first and second administrations of President George Washington. In 1796, after Washington’s term ended, John Adams was elected as the second president of the United States. When John Quincy Adams became the sixth president of the United States, in 1824, Abigail Adams became the first woman to be both wife and mother to a president of the United States.
Abigail Adams rests with her husband John in the United First Parish Church in Quincy, Massachusetts. She died in Massachusetts of typhoid fever, in 1818, at age 73.

Baron Friedrick Wilhelm von Steuben-Prussian Drill Master

In 1747, Baron Friedrick Wilhelm von Steuben, was a seventeen year old Prussian officer. He served in the Prussian Army until he was thirty three. In 1763, he was discharged for unknown reasons. von Steuben retired into private life and worked as a chamberlain at the court of Hohenzollern-Hechingen. von Steuben gained the title of Baron at this court. (1) He then immigrated to France in 1771 and attempted unsuccessfully to gain an officer’s commission in several European armies.

By 1777, von Steuben’s military reputation had led him to the attention of Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was then in Paris as America’s representative to the French crown. On Franklin’s recommendation, the former Prussian officer eventually made his way to the United States that year. von Steuben carried with him documents that promised him a Continental Army officer’s commission. Franklin had written a letter to General George Washington introducing von Steuben as a former lt. general in the King of Prussia’s army. Actually, von Steuben was no more than a captain in Frederick the Great’s army; however, von Steuben knew how to train military troops and this is what the American Army needed in the winter of 1777-1778. Congress commissioned him a major general and appointed him Inspector General of the army on the recommendation of General Washington. (2)

When von Steuben joined the American Army, he immediately ordered that the men be trained by officers and not sergeants. He knew that this was the quickest and easiest way to build discipline and professionalism in the American camp at Valley Forge. von Steuben believed that the men needed to have more direct contact with their officers and that the officers needed to work on their commands to the troops. The Prussian initially trained a small core of about one hundred men. Soon, all the soldiers were striving to be like the chosen one hundred. During the pitiful winter encampment at Valley Forge, the Baron managed to mold the whole American Army into a viable fighting force. von Steuben wrote the American Army’s first training manual called, “Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States”. This manual was commonly known as the “Blue Book”. von Steuben spoke no English, the book’s translation was written by Lt. Colonel Alexander Hamilton, then an aide-de-camp to General Washington. At times, von Steuben must have seemed comical to the troops. When the troops did not perform up to his standards, he would curse them in German, then French, and if that did not work, he would have an aide curse them in English.

Major General von Steuben’s experience and leadership changed the American Army from a “rag-tag” mix of regulars and colonial militiamen into a professional army capable of resisting the most powerful army on earth. Without von Steuben’s training, the American Army surely would have suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Barren Hill. But because von Steuben trained them well; the American Army narrowly escaped a crushing defeat and made an orderly retreat. von Steuben’s transformation of the American Army was an extraordinary achievement.

Shortly after the Battle of Barren Hill, the Americans fought the British to a draw at the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey. von Steuben was first to realize that the British were heading for Monmouth, and his leadership helped steady the American Army during the battle. General Washington and Lt. Colonel Alexander Hamilton also fought at that battle.

General Washington had the full confidence of von Steuben, as von Steuben became the Commander-in-Chief’s representative to Congress in 1779.

When the Southern campaigns of the war were underway, in the Carolinas, Georgia and Virginia, von Steuben was still fighting along side of General Washington. At the last great battle of the American Revolutionary War, the Battle of Yorktown, Virginia, von Steuben was appointed a division commander. He witnessed the surrender of British Commander Lord Charles Cornwallis and the grand British Army, in October, of 1781.
Major General Baron von Steuben helped in the demobilization of the American Army after the war. He then retired to New York State. A grateful New York gave von Steuben, 16,000 acres of land. This land was secured with the help of his good friend, Alexander Hamilton. (3)

Major General Baron von Steuben was the first professional “drill master” and teacher of the young American Army. He is the man most responsible for it’s inception into professionalism. Von Steuben died in 1794 an American citizen and Revolutionary War hero.

The unwary pedestrian who is lured into using Hamilton Place as a possible short cut from Tremont to Washington Street is likely to find himself wandering into a department store or theater without any very clear idea of how he got there, for the street ends unexpectedly in the entrances to Gilchrist’s and the Orpheum.

Hamilton Place was the site of Boston’s first large manufacturing project and it was also the locale of a battle in which a British regiment was put to rout by an army of one lone man.

A long time ago, about 1718, a group of emigrants arrived from Londonderry bringing with them the tools and skills necessary for the manufacture of linen. Very welcome they were. The Boston women had gotten along with coarse homespun, but they had never liked it. The thought of linen was to them as is catnip to a kitten. They all wanted to learn the new craft. The men were in favor of the idea, especially as the women would do all the work, so the legislature voted to establish a spinning school. An excise tax was laid on carriages and other luxuries to finance the plan, and the Manufactory House, 140 feet long, was built. A female figure, distaff in hand, ornamented the facade.

Spinning became the rage. The Manufactory House was crowded to the doors, and those who could not be accommodated there took their wheels to the Common and spun, like spiders, in the open air.

Like all fads the “spinning craze” wore itself out in two or three years, and, the Manufactory House was rented by the Province to private families.

This brings us to the amazing story of Boston’s one-man army. In 1769, when the British troops held possession of the town, a Mr. Elisha Brown was living at the Manufactory House.

Colonel Dalrymple was expected to arrive at any moment with his regiment, the Fourteenth Royal Regulars, and it was Governor Bernard’s duty to find a barracks where they could be quartered. The huge Manufactory House seemed to be ideal for the purpose, so the governor sent a formal and official notice to Mr. Brown that he was to vacate the premises forthwith.

Elisha, feeling that his home was his castle, refused to leave. The enraged governor wrote an order of eviction which was served by Sheriff Greenleaf. Brown tore it up. The sheriff and his deputies forced an entrance into the cellar. Brown locked them in. A file of soldiers from the Common rescued them but could not force an entrance into the house.

Meanwhile Colonel Dalrymple and his regiment arrived, encamped on the Common, and kept the Manufactory House surrounded by soldiers day and night. For seventeen days Mr. Brown endured the state of siege and kept possession of his house. He barred the windows and doors and was living comfortably on the family supplies. In those days one did not run to the store every day or so. Each family kept enough staples on hand to last for weeks, so Elisha had no food problem. Finally, completely out-maneuvered, Colonel Dalrymple withdrew and quartered his soldiers in Faneuil Hall.

Elisha Brown died in August, 1785, at the age of sixty-five years and was buried in the Old Granary Burying Ground where on his gravestone we may still read of his valiant deeds.

ELISHA BROWN

of BOSTON

who in Octr 1769, during 17 days

Inspired with

a generous Zeal for the laws

bravely and successfully

opposed a whole British Regt

in their violent attempt

to FORCE him from his

legal Habitation

Happy Citizen when call’d singly

to be a Barrier to the Liberties

of a Continent

Salem Poor – Recognized Courage

At least three-dozen African-Americans are known to have fought at the legendary Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. But the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony recognized the courage of only one African-American during that battle: a patriot named Salem Poor. Unfortunately, not much is known about Salem Poor. We do know that he was born into slavery at Andover, Massachusetts, in the late 1740’s. The General Court issued a proclamation in honor of Salem Poor in December of 1775, only six months after the battle. The document said; “Salem Poor behaved like an experienced officer, and in this man centers a brave and gallant soldier”. Fourteen officers signed the document, including the Massachusetts commanding officer, Colonel William Prescott. Prescott had fought along side Poor in the small earthen redoubt.

During the night of June16, 1775, Salem Poor’s regiment under the command of Colonel William Prescott, was sent to Bunker Hill to build fortifications in Charlestown. Poor is said to have slain the popular British officer, Major John Pitcairn, as well as many other British redcoats. Pitcairn led third and final fatal charge of British marines on the American redoubt. Pitcairn was the same British officer who, only two months earlier, had marched the regulars to Lexington and Concord in the failed attempt to capture Sam Adams and John Hancock.

In 1776, Salem Poor and the newly formed Continental Army marched to New York. Poor saw action again at the Battle of Saratoga. This important American victory convinced the French to become militarily involved on behalf of the Americans. Poor also endured the hardships of the cold winter camp at Valley Forge in 1777-1778.

The professionalism and bravery of Salem Poor and other African-American soldiers unfortunately did not persuade the Continental Congress to enlist more African-American patriots. Southern representatives to the Continental Congress opposed this measure. Their states feared that if many African-Americans enlisted, slaves would revolt and fight for the British. The Northern delegates, anxious for unity, joined with the Southern delegates. The Continental Congress ordered General Washington to stop recruiting African-Americans.

By 1777-1778, the war was going badly for the American Army. General Washington’s manpower crisis continued to grow. By early 1778, General Washington was desperate for American soldiers. General Washington decided to defy Congress. General Washington continued to enlist African-Americans. Congress had little choice but to approve General Washington’s decision. The American states subsequently began to offer freedom to slaves in return for their military service.

Salem Poor was an American fighting for the liberties that he was denied at birth. There is no record of his death. His courage at the Battle of Bunker Hill made him an American Revolutionary War hero, and his patriotism will forever stand as an example to all Americans who cherish freedom.