Paul Revere House
Paul Revere set out from here on his midnight ride; it is the oldest house in downtown Boston
The story
Before you is the Paul Revere House, the oldest surviving house in downtown Boston. It was built no later than 1680, on the site of a house that burned in the great fire of 1676. Its first known owner was a wealthy merchant, Robert Howard. Paul Revere, a silversmith, was the son of a French immigrant. When he bought this house, he already had a wife, Sarah, five children and experience of war. Sarah died in 1773 after the birth of her eighth child. A few months later Revere married Rachel Walker, and they had eight more children. On the evening of the eighteenth of April 1775, Revere left this house to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British soldiers were coming to arrest them. Dozens of riders spread the alarm that night, but Revere became the legend, thanks to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1860 poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.” The Reveres lived here for about twenty years, with a break, and sold the house in 1800. Later it became a boarding house for sailors, then a tenement with shops on the ground floor. When it faced demolition, Revere’s great-grandson John Reynolds bought it. Money was raised to restore it, and in April 1908 it opened as a museum.
Visiting
19 North Square, North End. There is an entrance fee, tickets are sold on site; hours at paulreverehouse.org. The first floor is reached by ramps in the courtyard, the second by the elevator in the visitor center.
Photos
Sources
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