Paul Revere's Ride (51 page)

Elizabeth Revere, born July 10, 1743; died July 20, 1743.

Elizabeth Revere, born Jan. 19, 1745; died Jan. 8, 1811; she married David Moseley.

Paul Revere married (1) Sarah Orne, Aug. 17, 1757. She was born in Boston on April 7, 1736, and died there on May 3, 1773, aged 37. They had eight children:

Deborah Revere, born April 8, 1758; died Jan. 8, 1797. She married Amos Lincoln, a carpenter and mason, and master workman in charge of construction for the Massachusetts State House. They had nine children.

Paul Revere, born Jan. 6, 1760; died Jan. 16, 1813. He became a silversmith and bell founder; he married Sally Edwards; they had twelve children.

Sarah Revere, born Jan. 3, 1762; died July 5, 1791. She married John Bradford.

Mary Revere, born March 31, 1764; died April 30 1765.

Frances Revere, born Feb. 19, 1766; died June 19, 1799.

She married Thomas Stevens Eayres, a silversmith; they had five children.

Mary Revere, born March 19, 1768; died Aug. 12, 1853.

She married Jedidiah Lincoln, a “wood-wharfinger” and “housewright”; they had seven children.

Elizabeth Revere, born Dec. 5, 1770; died April 1805.

She married her brother-in-law Amos Lincoln, a carpenter and mason, after the death of her sister Deborah; they had five children.

Isanna Revere, born Dec. 15, 1772; died Sept. 19, 1773.

Paul Revere’s second marriage, Oct. 10, 1773, was to Rachel Walker. She was born in Boston, Dec. 27, 1745, and died there June 26, 1813. They had eight children:

Joshua Revere, born Dec. 7, 1774; died Aug. 14, 1801. He was a “merchant,” in business with his father.

John Revere, born June 13, 1776, died June 27, 1776.

Joseph Warren Revere, born April 30, 1777; died Oct. 12, 1868.

He took over the copper business from his father in 1810, and married Mary Robbins; they had eight children.

Lucy Revere, born May 15, 1780; died July 9, 1780.

Harriet Revere, born July 20, 1782, died June 28, 1860. She never married, and lived with her brothers Joseph and John.

John Revere, born Dec. 25, 1783; died March 13, 1786.

Maria Revere, born July 14, 1785, died at Singapore, Aug. 22, 1847. She married Joseph Balestier, U.S. Consul in Singapore, and a planter in Malaya; they had one child.

John Revere, born March 27, 1787, died in New York April 29 or 30, 1847. He graduated from Harvard in 1807, studied medicine at Edinburgh, and became a professor of medicine at Jefferson Medical College and the University of the City of New York. He married Lydia Lebaron Goodwin; they had four children.

Paul Revere had at least 51 grandchildren (as enumerated above). Among them were John Revere, who became president of the Revere Copper Company; Grace Revere, who married in succession Dr. Samuel Gross and Sir William Osier, two of the leading surgeons in the Western world; Edward Hutchinson Revere, who joined the 20th Massachusetts Regiment in the Civil War and was killed at Antietam; Paul Joseph Revere, who also served in the 20th Massachusetts and died of wounds at Gettysburg; and Joseph Warren Revere, a brigadier general of Union troops.

SOURCE: Donald M. Nielsen, “The Revere Family,”
NEHGR 145
(1991): 291-316; Patrick M. Leehey, “Reconstructing Paul Revere: An Overview of His Life, Ancestry and Work,” in Nina Zannieri, Patrick M. Leehey,
et al., Paul Revere—Artisan, Businessman, and Patriot; The Man Behind the Myth
(Boston, 1988), 15-39.

APPENDIX B

The Hitchborn Family

The first of this line in America was David Hitchborn, who migrated in 1641 from Boston, Lincolnshire, to Boston, Massachusetts, with his wife Catherine and infant son Thomas.

This son, Thomas Hitchborn I (b. 1640), was a man of humble but independent rank. He makes a fleeting appearance as “Hitchborn, Drummer” in the diary of Samuel Sewall (I, 138, April 25, 1687). He and his wife Ruth married before 1673, and had several children. Sewall recorded on June 22, 1691, that “Tom Hitchborn’s son died this day” (I, 279).

A surviving son, Thomas Hitchborn II (1673-1731), was a joiner and boatbuilder. He prospered in his calling, became proprietor of Hitchborn’s wharf, and was given a license for the sale of spiritous liquors. He married Frances Pattishall (1679-1749), who inherited the wharf and liquor license from her husband. They had at least six children:

Thomas Hitchborn III (1703—77) became a boatbuilder and inherited the wharf. He married Isannah Fadree; they had at least ten children.

Deborah Hitchborn (1704-77) married the goldsmith Apollos Rivoire and became the mother of the Patriot Paul Revere.

Frances Hitchborn (born 1706) married Joseph Douglass.

Nathaniel Hitchborn died “young.”

Richard Hitchborn died “young.”

Mary Hitchborn (1713-1778) married Captain Phillip Marrett. They had at least one son, Phillip Marrett, who later served under Paul Revere’s command in the War of Independence.

Thomas Hitchborn III (1703-77), the only surviving son of that union, and his wife Isannah Fadree had at least ten children, of whom nine lived past infancy. These were Paul Revere’s Hitchborn cousins, with whom he played as a child:

Thomas Hitchborn IV (b. 1733) became a boatbuilder like his father, and proprietor of Hitchborn wharf.

Nathaniel Hitchborn (1734-96), also a boatbuilder, married Elizabeth King, prospered in his trade, and bought a three-story brick home in the North End, two doors from his cousin Paul Revere on North Square.

Frances Hitchborn (b. 1737) married (1) Thomas Fosdick, the hatter with whom Paul Revere had fisticuffs; and (2) John Glover, a rich merchant and Whig leader in Marblehead, who became the colonel of a famous fighting regiment of Marblehead mariners and later a general in the Continental army.

William Hitchborn (b. 1739), a hatter.

Robert Hitchborn (b. 1740), a sailmaker, who fell on hard times and borrowed money from Paul Revere for his children’s schooling.

Mary Hitchborn (b. 1742) married a Captain Greeley.

Phillip Hitchborn (b. 1744) was apprenticed to a master tailor and died in his youth.

Benjamin Hitchborn (1746-1817) graduated from Harvard College in 1768, became an eminent lawyer, state senator and an associate of Paul Revere in many civic activities. He was the principal figure in a great Boston scandal. In 1779, Hitchborn was with his friend Benjamin Andrews. Hitchborn testified that he was handing Andrews a pistol to take on a trip when it went off, mortally wounding the latter. A year later Benjamin Hitchborn married Andrews’ beautiful widow Hannah.

Samuel Hitchborn (b. 1752) was apprenticed to Paul Revere and became a prosperous silversmith. In 1817 President Monroe visited his home while in Boston. Isannah Hitchborn (b. 1754), married Stephen Bruce.

NOTE: The family name was variously spelled Hitchbourn, Hichborn, Hitchbon, etc.

SOURCE: Patrick M. Leehey, “Reconstructing Paul Revere: An Overview of His Life, Ancestry and Work,” in Nina Zannieri, Patrick M. Leehey,
et al., Paul Revere—Artisan, Businessman, and Patriot; The Man Behind the Myth
(Boston, 1988), 15—39.

APPENDIX C

Paul Revere’s Revolutionary Rides: Research by Michael Kalin

SOURCES: On Revere’s ride after the Tea Party, Boston diarist John Boyle noted, “Mr. Paul Revere was immediately dispatched express to New-York and Philadelphia with the glorious intelligence,” (“Boyle’s Journal of Occurrences in Boston,” Dec. 16, 1773,
NEHGR
84 (1930): 371). He did not actually depart until Dec. 17. Ten days later, Boyle wrote, “Mr. Paul Revere returned from New-York and Philadelphia, performing his journey in a much shorter time than could be expected at this season of the year” (Dec. 27, 1773,
ibid.,
372). Other documentation is in the diary of Thomas Newell, MHS; and the papers of Samuel Adams, NYPL.

The ride with news of the Boston Port Act is documented in Thomas Young to John Lamb, 1774, Lamb Papers, NYHS; Boston Committee of Correspondence to Philadelphia Committee, May 13, 1774, Cushing ed.,
Writings of Samuel Adams,
II, 109-11; the
Essex Gazette,
May 30, 1774, noted Revere’s return “on Saturday last [May 28].” Paul Revere’s receipt for reimbursement, dated May 28, 1774, “for a journey to King’s Bridge, New York, 234 miles,” is in the Revere Family Papers, MHS.

The journey to New York in the Summer of 1774 “for calling a Congress is referred to in Paul Revere’s letter to Jeremy Belknap, 1798. He appears to have traveled by sulky; see Paul Revere to John Lamb, Sept. 4, 1774, thanking “Capt. Sears, for his kind care of my horse and sulky,” in Lamb Papers, NYHS.

The trip to the Continental Congress on Sept. 11, 1774, with the Suffolk Resolves is noted in Samuel Adams to Charles Chauncy, Sept. 19, 1774: “last Friday [Sept. 16] Mr. Revere brought us the spirited and patriotick resolves of your county of Suffolk.” Cushing (ed),
Writing of Samuel Adams,
III, 155. He left Philadelphia on Sept. 18, when Adams noted in his diary, “Wrote many letters to go by Mr. Revere.” William Tudor in Boston noted that Revere was back in Boston “late on Friday evening [Sept. 23]. William Tudor to John Adams, Sept. 17, 26, 1774, Taylor (ed.),
Papers of John Adams,
II, 166, 174.

Revere departed again for Philadelphia on Sept. 29, 1774. John Adams wrote to his wife on Oct. 7, 1774, “Mr Revere will bring you the doings of the Congress, who are now all around me…” and to William Tudor, on the same day, “I have just time to thank you for your letters by Mr. Revere”
(ibid.,
187). Revere left Philadelphia about Oct. 11, and was back in Boston before Oct. 19, with the resolves of the Congress (John Andrews to William Barrell, Oct. 19, 1774, Goss,
Revere,
I, 169).

On the ride to the New Hampshire Congress, see John Wentworth to T. W. Waldron, Jan. 27, 1775,
MHSC
IV (1891). The journey to Portsmouth, N.H., is documented on p. 381 below; the three trips to Concord and Lexington, on pp. 385 and 386, above.

The “out of doors work” for the Committee of Safety is documented in Revere’s letter to Belknap (1798), and in a bill and receipt for expenses in the Massachusetts Archives, Boston. See also p. 268 above.

The munitions mission is in Robert Morris and John Dickinson to Oswell Eve, Nov. 21, 1775, Smith (ed.),
Letters of Delegates to Congress.
Revere’s pass, signed by James Otis and dated November 12, 1775, is in the PRMA, and reproduced in Zannieri, Leehey,
et al., Paul Revere,
178.