Paul Revere’s Ride at 250
04/06/25 • 55 min
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
This week marks the 250th anniversary of our American Revolution, with the first battles taking place in Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The night before, Paul Revere rode from Boston to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the British regulars were coming out that night. Most Americans have a mental image of a lone rider in the night carrying the fate of the nation and the future of independence with him. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Landlord’s Tale, or Paul Revere’s Ride” is largely responsible for that image, but is it accurate? This week, we retell the story of Paul Revere’s ride by looking at Longfellow’s poem alongside two versions of the night’s events that were told by Paul Revere in his own words.
Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/324/
Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/
Paul Revere’s Ride at 250
Reverend Jonas Clarke’s Diary This 1929 map takes some liberties with the details but gets the geography right Fortifications at Boston Neck Fortifications at Boston Neck Tales From a Wayside Inn The Landlord’s Tale- Celebrate the anniversary of Paul Revere’s Ride in Boston
- 1798 letter from Paul Revere to Jeremy Belknap
- Revere’s 1775 deposition (and a draft with a key footnote)
- The Landlord’s Tale, or Paul Revere’s Ride, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- See Paul Revere’s invoice for express riding at “Upon Such Ground: Massachusetts and the Birth of a Revolution” at the Commonwealth Museum
- A map and sketch of the fortifications at Boston Neck
- The Midnight Ride of William Dawes
- JL Bell on the Dawes poem
- Derek W Beck attempts to identify Joseph Warren’s informant and concludes that there may not have been one.
- Mural of Paul Revere’s Ride at the State House
- A colorful reprint of a 1775 map of British movements that night
Related episodes
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
This week marks the 250th anniversary of our American Revolution, with the first battles taking place in Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The night before, Paul Revere rode from Boston to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the British regulars were coming out that night. Most Americans have a mental image of a lone rider in the night carrying the fate of the nation and the future of independence with him. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Landlord’s Tale, or Paul Revere’s Ride” is largely responsible for that image, but is it accurate? This week, we retell the story of Paul Revere’s ride by looking at Longfellow’s poem alongside two versions of the night’s events that were told by Paul Revere in his own words.
Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/324/
Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/
Paul Revere’s Ride at 250
Reverend Jonas Clarke’s Diary This 1929 map takes some liberties with the details but gets the geography right Fortifications at Boston Neck Fortifications at Boston Neck Tales From a Wayside Inn The Landlord’s Tale- Celebrate the anniversary of Paul Revere’s Ride in Boston
- 1798 letter from Paul Revere to Jeremy Belknap
- Revere’s 1775 deposition (and a draft with a key footnote)
- The Landlord’s Tale, or Paul Revere’s Ride, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- See Paul Revere’s invoice for express riding at “Upon Such Ground: Massachusetts and the Birth of a Revolution” at the Commonwealth Museum
- A map and sketch of the fortifications at Boston Neck
- The Midnight Ride of William Dawes
- JL Bell on the Dawes poem
- Derek W Beck attempts to identify Joseph Warren’s informant and concludes that there may not have been one.
- Mural of Paul Revere’s Ride at the State House
- A colorful reprint of a 1775 map of British movements that night
Related episodes
Previous Episode
The Ship Boston from Boston and the Sailor from the Other Boston
222 years ago, on March 22, 1803, a teenaged sailor named John R Jewitt from Boston, Lincolnshire was onboard the ship Boston from Boston, Massachusetts when it was captured in Nootka Sound on the west coast of today’s Vancouver Island in Canada by a powerful king of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth people. For almost three years, Jewitt and one other survivor from the Boston were enslaved by the king Maquinna, during which time Jewitt kept a journal that has become an important ethnographic study of indigenous life on the northwest coast of North America. Besides life among the Nuu-Chah-Nulth, this incident helps reveal the importance of Boston’s maritime economy in the years between independence and the war of 1812. It also joins our episodes on the ship Columbia and the Park Street missionaries to Hawaii in illustrating how Boston merchants and whalers had an outsized influence on the culture of the west coast, even before America laid claim to the region. How did John Jewitt ingratiate himself to his captors well enough to survive his ordeal, and how did he manage to concoct an escape long after it seemed that all hope was lost? Listen now!
Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/323/
Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/
The Ship Boston from Boston and the Sailor from the Other Boston
The capture of the Boston Nuu-Chah-Nulth longhouses at Friendly Cove King Maquinna Heavily defended longhouses at Nootka Cove Inside a Nuu-Chah-Nulth longhouse John R. Jewitt of Boston, Lincolnshire- A Journal Kept at Nootka Sound (Jewitt’s original journal, with no co-author)
- The adventures and sufferings of John R. Jewitt, only survior of the ship Boston, during a captivity of nearly three years among the savages of Nootka Sound. With an account of the manners, mode of living, and religious opinions of the natives (The expanded narrative written with Alsop)
- 1896 reprint of the Narrative with an introduction and additional research by Robert Brown
- Howay, F. W. “An Early Account of the Loss of the Boston in 1803.” The Washington Historical Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 4, 1926
- Oakley, Eric Odell, Ph.D. “Columbia at Sea: America Enters the Pacific, 1787-
1793′′ (2017) - Review of Jewitt’s narrative, WILLIS, ELIZABETH. Western American Literature, vol. 23, no. 3, 1988
- Monks, Gregory G., et al. “Nuu-Chah-Nulth Whaling: Archaeological Insights into Antiquity, Species Preferences, and Cultural Importance.” Arctic Anthropology, vol. 38, no. 1, 2001
- Harkin, Michael. “Whales, Chiefs, and Giants: An Exploration into Nuu-Chah-Nulth Political Thought.” Ethnology, vol. 37, no. 4, 1998
- John R Jewitt in the Canadian Dictionary of Biography
- Newspapers (paywalled)
- The Charleston (SC) Daily Courier, Thu, May 10, 1804: Jewitt’s capture (reprinted from the Boston Gazette)
- The (Wilkes-Barre PA) Gleaner, Fri, Jun 19, 1807: Samuel Hill’s letter
- (Annapolis) Maryland Gazette, Thu, Apr 17, 1806: Two survivors from the Boston
- The (Greenfield MA) Recorder, Tue, Aug 22, 1815: Ad for John Jewitt’s narrative
- The (NY) Evening Post, Fri, Jan 12, 1821: Obituary of John Jewitt
- Map and
Next Episode
Boston Under Siege
From the moment the April 19, 1775 battle of Lexington and Concord ended until the British gave up and evacuated the city in March 1776, Boston was the epicenter of the American War for Independence. After eleven months of under siege, Boston was effectively independent after the British evacuation, never being under serious threat of re-invasion after March 17, 1776. Unfortunately, the Siege of Boston started and ended before independence was declared in Philadelphia, so it’s usually forgotten in our retelling of our national origin story. For this week’s show, let’s linger on the siege to see how it came together 250 years ago this week, how colonial Bostonians decided whether they should stay in their homes or flee to the countryside, and where the battle lines were drawn upon the map of modern Boston. Over the course of the coming year, we’ll return to the siege of Boston several times to talk about battles and skirmishes, heroes and traitors, and generals and everyday Bostonians, but for now I want to set the stage with an episode about the early days of the siege in April and May of 1775.
Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/325/
Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/
Boston Under Siege
A view of Boston from Beacon Hill A view of Downtown Boston British map of the American lines Map detail of American lines at Prospect Hill Sketch of American defensive lines in Cambridge Fortifications at Boston Neck New fortifications at Boston Neck Fortifications at Boston Neck British fortification on Beacon Hill Boston from Dorchester Boston from Dorchester- Sarah Winslow Deming’s diary/letter about the siege
- Welsch Fusilier Frederick Mackenzie’s diary
- Boston merchant John Andrews’ letters about trying to leave Boston
- Diary of Lieutenant John Barker of the King’s own regiment
- Boston merchant John Rowe’s diary about the siege
- May 7, 1775 letter from Abigail Adams about the distress of besieged Boston
- April 23 letter from Reverend Andrew Eliot
- April 25 letter from Reverend Andrew Eliot
- Minutes of the April 22 Boston town meeting
- Joseph Warren’s April 30 report on the artillery
- JL Bell’s analysis of how many arms were lodged at Faneuil Hall
- The orderly book of Colonel William Henshaw, recording the council of war on April 20
- Joseph Warren’s strangely affectionate April 20 letter to General Gage
- On April 20, the Committee of Safety calls for an army of 8000
- April 22 letter from the Committee of Safety to the inhabitants of Boston
- April 30 broadside explaining deal to...
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