The Midnight Ride in Paul Revere’s Own Words

Portrait of Paul Revere by St. Memin, 1800.

Paul Revere provided three accounts of his April 18, 1775 ride. His first two accounts, a draft of a deposition and its subsequent corrected version, both dated 1775, were made at the request of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. In an attempt to prove the British fired first, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress requested depositions from eyewitnesses to the event.

Twenty-three years later, Paul Revere wrote his third account of the events of April 18 and 19, 1775. In a letter to Jeremy Belknap, Corresponding Secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society, dated January 1, 1798, Paul Revere gives a similar telling of the events. This letter is digitized, transcribed, and available to view online. The MHS owns the largest collection of Revere manuscripts, most held as the Revere Family Papers.