View from Boston looking north, with Royal Irish camp, steeple of Old North Church (Christ Church) and rooftops of North Boston in the foreground, HMS Symmetry sailing on Charles River beyond, and rebel redoubts, enemy lines and camps, Charlestown, Bunker Hill, General Howe’s camp and Mystic River seen across the river in the background. Map reproduction courtesy of the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library

Hello everyone! First, we hope you are staying safe and healthy. It has been very difficult to have our historic properties closed to the public, but rest assured that we are all working diligently to keep them cared for and secure and to bring you some great content both in this time away and especially when we are able to reopen our doors. To that end, we hope you will enjoy the launch of the Revere House Blog. We have long planned on starting this, and now, given the current global shutdown, we find ourselves with a bit of time on our hands! We aim to bring you interesting stories, factoids, and tidbits about all things Revere House, Revere family, North End, and Boston. Namely, these will be shorter pieces that can cover more ground quickly than our longer-form Gazette articles. However, you can be confident everything here will be the same high quality you have come to expect from us!

For the coming weeks, we have posts lined up on the health and quarantine aspects of Revere family life, as well as the family’s life and experience during the siege of Boston, amongst many other topics. While there are no shortage of Revere and North End-related stories to go around, do let us know if there is something you are curious about or would like to know more about. Our staff members are available to use their expertise to field questions and answer them the best we can. If possible, we would love to research and write about the things that you want to know more about!

Our present time of physical and social distancing would have been equally difficult yet very familiar to Paul Revere and his family. Paul Revere was, of course, quite the social animal, given his life-long associations with various clubs and local activities, from the Freemasons, to the Sons of Liberty, to the Charitable Mechanic Association, amongst others. He enjoyed being in the mix at large gatherings like the August 14, 1769, Sons of Liberty dinner at the Liberty Tree in Dorchester, when he was among the crowd with John Adams, James Otis, Samuel Adams, and some 350 others, or as a central figure on the mechanics sleigh in Boston’s parade to tout their support and efforts in the Constitution’s 1788 ratification.

At the same time, we know he knew how to socially distance himself from large groups when needed. For instance, watch this space for more information on how he, Sarah, and his children were forced into quarantine during Boston’s 1763-64 smallpox outbreak. The smallpox distancing was not the only time Revere purposefully kept himself away from large crowds. While the majority of his non-riding actions for the Sons of Liberty likely involved a pint or two at the Green Dragon Tavern, by 1775, his actions took him ‘out-of-doors’ and into Boston’s streets. Specifically, as tensions grew between Bostonians and the British soldiers, who had been re-stationed in the town as a result of the British government’s response to the Boston Tea Party, Revere and his fellow Sons of Liberty put into motion their spy system to gather intelligence on the soldiers’ intentions during their unwelcome stay. To do so, the Sons of Liberty needed to strip down their large operation into the smallest units possible. In Revere’s words: “In the Winter, towards the Spring, we frequently took Turns, two and two, to Watch the Soldiers, By patrolling the Streets all night.”

Through these roving two-person patrols, Revere and his associates were able to accomplish a degree of stealth and learn valuable information that they would not have been able to in larger groups. Aside from learning the intimate habits of the soldiers’ nightly activities, they were able to leverage the two-person teams to pick up on significant movements on Saturday, April 15, 1775. That evening, three nights before his midnight ride, these patrols tipped off the Sons of Liberty to an imminent major action by the British. Armed with this information, these patrols functioned as part of the larger communication network that the Sons of Liberty had established in Boston, with Paul Revere as a central cog and his friend Dr. Joseph Warren as the ring leader. In this critical moment, both realized success would be more effective by eliminating large groups in public and working through smaller and smaller gatherings to accomplish a larger goal. This work paid off, of course, and Revere and Warren were primed to spring into action on April 18^th and set into motion the events that would immortalize Revere and alter the trajectory of American and British history.

I’d like to close this inaugural post with a few final notes of thanks- to all of the health professionals in Boston and around the world, to our partners in Boston that help us keep eyes on our historic houses 24/7. Thank you to donors who have already pledged their support- we are exceedingly grateful. While the Paul Revere Memorial Association is financially strong, we will feel the loss of admissions revenue over the months to come.

For now, please keep in touch via email and social media- we will respond as soon as we can, and we look forward to welcoming you all back to the Revere House in the near future!

– Robert