"Listen my children,
and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul
Revere- "
These opening lines of Longfellow's poem, and the
thrilling story which follows, have fascinated us for
many years. History has recorded the details
of the famous ride, and the incidents connected with
it; but Masons know little about Paul Revere that
arouses enthusiasm. It is my purpose tonight
to bring out the important facts regarding him and
to show the setting which brings our patriot brother
closer to us.
The forefathers of Paul Revere were Huguenots, that
brave sect of
French Protestants who for many years defied Rome
and the King of France. The Huguenots maintained
their identity and churches in spite of edicts and
persecutions.
In 1540, six of their villages were completely destroyed
and the inhabitants driven out, ravaged and murdered
at the behest of
the King.
On August 24, 1572, the Huguenots were the victims
of one of the
most despicable massacres that ever took place - the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew - in which more than six
thousand of them were sought out in Paris and
murdered in a human hunt lasting three days.
The waters of the seine ran red with blood; the bodies of
the victims were so numerous that the current was unable
to carry them away; and for many miles the banks of
the river were covered with their remains.
When the news of the massacre reached Rome, a three
day's celebration was ordered by the ecclesiastical
authorities.
King Charles of France, who, together with his
mother, had been influenced by Church leaders to order
the massacre, was congratulated on the service thus
performed for the Holy Roman Church.
The persecutions to which the Huguenots were
subjected caused more than four hundred thousand
French to leave the country and settle elsewhere. Among
those who fled was Simon de Revoire, who moved to
the Island of Guernsey in the English
Channel.
Simon's brother Isaac, being a man with a large
family, stayed on in a remote part of France, later
sending one of his sons, Apollo de Revoire, to his
Uncle Simon, at the age of thirteen. After a
time his uncle sent the Nephew to Boston, where he
was apprenticed to a Goldsmith. Here he
learned the secrets of the trade, and after a visit to
Guernsey, he returned to America with the intention of
making this country his home. His first step
was to change his name to be
more easily pronounced by his english speaking
neighbors, and he was henceforth known as Mr. Paul
Revere.
Establishing himself in business as a gold and
silversmith, Revere
married Miss Deborah Hitchborn in 1729. Twelve
children were born of this union.
The Paul Revere we are discussing tonight was the
third of these, born January 8, 1735. We learn that Revere
received his education at the famous old "North
Grammar School" kept by Master John Tileson,
who taught school in Boston for eighty years.
He was especially famed for his skill in penmanship.
Doubtless we have here the foundation for one of
Revere's later activities - engraved lettering.
Young Paul Revere followed in his father's footsteps as a
Gold and
Silversmith. Specimens of his work are still
treasured to this day in
some old New England families, and give ample evidence of
his artistic skill. Inspired by long
experience in embellishing the articles
manufactured by him, Revere undertook the art of
engraving on copper, with marked success.
Books of the 17th and 18th centuries show that this
was a popular form of illustrating. Many of Revere's
pictures were political caricatures and cartoons; and
among the best of his works is an engraving
depicting the Boston Massacre, which was extensively
copied in Europe.
He also designed bookplates, and in later years furnished
the engravings from which Masonic certificates were made.
The outbreak of the French and Indian Wars in 1756
prompted him to
enlist in the British Colonial service.
Commissioned a second lieutenant of artillery by
Governor Sterling, he participated in the expedition
against Crown Point under the command of General
John Winslow. Here he received the military training
which enabled him to give excellent service in later
years as major, lieutenant- colonel, and colonel of
artillery in the armed forces of Massachusetts.
Upon his return from military service, Revere was
married in 1757 to
Miss Sarah Orne of Boston. Seven children were
born of this union.
After sixteen years of wedded life, the faithful
wife died, leaving Revere a widower at 38 with a large
family on his hands, a business to look after and
political events engrossing his attention.
To quote Revere, he found his household "In sore need
of a Mother," and within a short time after the
death of his first wife and infant child, he married Miss
Rachel Walker, ten years his junior. Eight
children were added to the six of his first marriage.
The Stamp Act of 1765 was one of the causes of the
American Revolution. This act provided for a tax on
certain articles imported by the colonies. The
imposition of this tax was not so objectionable in
itself to the colonists as the fact that they had no
voice in the matter. This right, they felt, belonged
to them under the Magna Charta, the foundation of
English Liberty.
The opponents of the act formed themselves into
bands known as the Sons of Liberty. Meetings
were conducted with great secrecy,
those in Boston being ultimately held at the Green
Dragon tavern.
It is of more than passing interest to note that St.
Andrew's Lodge, many of whose members participated
in the stirring events of the Revolution, purchased
this tavern March 31, 1864.
Among the Massachusetts leaders of the Sons of
Liberty were Samuel Adams and John Hancock, to whom
Revere attached himself.
Not gifted with speech
as were his associates, he nevertheless reached the
public through his clever cartoons on political
events of the day. He also carried secret dispatches
to the leaders of the Sons of Liberty in New York and
Philadelphia; and his unquestioned integrity and
excellent memory served the Colonists well when written
word could not be safely conveyed.
In 1766 the Stamp Act was repealed, except as to tea, and
this served to quiet matters somewhat for a time; but the
determination of King George III to force the tea tax upon
his colonists made them all the more determined to resist
the measure.
Cargoes of tea were shipped and landed under
protest. Merchants throughout the colonies agreed
not to handle the commodity, and very little was
sold, such as did trickle into the channels of trade being
handled by Troy shopkeepers.
The arrival of the Dartmouth on November 28, 1773,
caused the Sons of Liberty to call a mass meeting which
was attended by over seven thousand people.
Resolutions were passed urging that the tea not be
landed, and that it be sent back to England in the same
ships. Guards were placed to make sure that the tea
was not brought in surreptitiously.
Another meeting was called on the 30th, at which the
officers of two additional ships which had arrived in the
meantime were made to promise that they would leave the
harbor without unloading their tea cargoes.
Governor Hutchinson, however, interfered with this
solution of the problem by forbidding the issuance
of clearance papers until the cargoes should be
discharged. The rest of the story has been
recorded in history's pages.
A group of patriots, disguised as Mohawk Indians,
boarded the vessels, and destroyed three hundred and
forty-two chests of tea valued at $90,000.
It has been asserted by many writers that the
Freemasons of the colony had a large part in the
destruction of the tea cargoes. Definite
information is not available, but contemporaneous
records of unimpeachable character lead us to
believe that there is some truth in the
assertions.
The records of Saint Andrew's Lodge, of which Paul
Revere was a member, show that on the night of
November 30th, 1773 - the night for the annual
election of officers - only seven members were
present. No election was held, and the
presence of only seven members given as the reason
according to the entries in the lodge minutes.
As a result of the Tea Party, laws were passed in
Parliament closing
the port of Boston. These measures only served to
inflame the people. Revere was soon in the saddle
again, carrying messages to enlist the support of the
southern provinces in behalf of Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts House of Representatives
reorganized under the name of the "The
Provincial Congress" and voted to enroll twelve
thousand Minute Men.
Revere made further trips south, and in December,
1773, carried news north to Portsmouth, N.H., that the
importation of military stores had been forbidden by
Parliament, and that a large garrison was coming to
occupy Fort William and Mary at the entrance to the
harbor.
The Sons of Liberty thereupon surprised the fort and
removed upwards of one hundred barrels of powder and
fifteen cannon.
Governor Gage of Massachusetts became alarmed at these
aggressive acts of the colonists. Outlying stores of
gunpowder and arms were called in, and every precaution
taken to guard against further surprises.
The Sons of Liberty soon learned that the British were
preparing for action. On April 18, 1775, Dr.
Joseph Warren, Grand Master of Massachusetts, who
was to give his life for his country two months
later at the battle of Bunker Hill, learned that
troops were gathering on Boston Common.
Fearing for the safety of Samuel Adams and John
Hancock, Warren sent for Revere and begged him to go
to Lexington to warn these men. Revere had been to
Lexington a few days before, and gravely doubted the
possibility of getting through the lines in event the
enemy should form, had arranged, by a show of
lanterns, to indicate the route taken by the British.
Revere then made the ride which has preserved his name to
posterity, as graphically told with certain poetic
license by Longfellow.
Paul Revere's ride, however, was not the end of his
activities in the
patriot cause. After the British had vacated Boston,
being harassed by Washington's troops, it was found that
the cannon had been disabled by the removal of the
carriages.
Revere invented a new type, and the guns were again placed
in commission.
In July, 1776, Revere was commissioned an officer in
a new regiment raised for the defense of the town and
harbor of Boston. His important duties and services
ultimately won him the rank of colonel of artillery.
Adverse conditions made his position a difficult
one, but he steadfastly fulfilled his duties and made the
best of a bad situation.
In 1779, he participated in a expedition against the
British in what is now Maine. Through mismanagement on the
part of some military and naval commanders, the expedition
was a failure, and the soldiers made their way back
to Boston in scattered groups.
In addition to his military service, Revere was
called upon in 1775 to
engrave the currency of the Colony of
Massachusetts.
In 1776, he engaged in the manufacture of gunpowder,
sorely needed by the American Forces, and was
employed to oversee the casting of cannon.
The war services of Paul Revere did not conclude his
service to the new nation. He contributed to the
economic welfare of his community by establishing an iron
foundry, and in 1792 began casting church bells,
many of which are still in existence. A
"Hardware" store - as jeweler's shops were
called in those days - established by him in 1783,
enabled him to dispose of the silverware which he
continued to manufacture. He invented a
process for treating copper which enabled him to hammer
and roll it
while hot, a process of great value in shipbuilding.
In 1800, he
established a foundry for rolling copper in large
sheets. This was
such an important industry that the government of the
United States loaned him $10,000, to be repaid in
the form of sheet copper.
This was the first copper rolling mill in the country, and
dispensed with the necessity which had existed before of
importing this commodity from England.
Robert Fulton's steam engines were equipped with copper
boilers made from Revere's plates. Revere also
covered the bottom of the Frigate "Constitution"
- better known as "Old Ironsides" - with
sheet copper.
The business was incorporated in 1828 as the Revere
Copper Company, and is still conducted in Canton, Mass.
Revere's life, and the services he rendered to the
country, are
sufficient in themselves to endear him to every
patriotic American. Yet, we, as Masons, can claim a
still closer tie. Paul Revere was made a Mason in
Saint Andrew's Lodge on September 4, 1760, being the first
Entered Apprentice to receive that work in this
body.
In 1770 he became its Master; in 1783, when St,
Andrew's Lodge was divided on the question of remaining
under the Grand Lodge of Scotland, from which body it had
received its Charter dated November 30, 1756; or
affiliating with the new Grand Lodge of
Massachusetts, he was one of the twenty-three who voted to
withdraw from the old relationship.
A new lodge was formed in September, 1784, under the name
of Rising States Lodge, and Revere was elected its
Master. He made the jewels for this lodge, and
engraved and printed certificates of membership and
notices. He served as Grand Master of
Massachusetts from 1795 to 1797, inclusive, assisting
Governor Samuel Adams in laying the corner stone of the
Massachusetts State House, July 4, 1795, on which occasion
he delivered a stirring address.
His charities were quiet and unostentatious. He
founded the
Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association in 1795,
and served as its president from its founding until 1799,
when declined any further office, although continuing his
interest.
His domestic life was peaceable and happy. The
decease of his second wife in 1815 left him a lonely
old man. Revere himself "Passed Out With the
Tide" on May 10, 1818, and was buried in
Granary Burial Ground where his old friends, Hancock
and Adams, had preceded him.
Quiet, unassuming, without great gifts as an orator or
statesman, he
nevertheless engraved his name on that which is far more
enduring than the metals of his Craft - the pages of
his country's history and the hearts of his
country's citizens.
Behind him was the martyrdom of his Huguenot
ancestors; around him was the inspiration of
Freemasonry's ideals; within his vision of the future was
a great representative government of a free people
wherein religious liberty should be both a fundamental
principle and an inalienable right. And so he
served with the talent that he
had in the humbler spheres of everyday life as well as in
the greater and more spectacular crisis in the life of his
commonwealth.
Unselfish service was his ambition and his watchword, his
biography and his epitaph. Freemasonry and America
honor most the Paul reveres of the nation, who from day to
day, in every time of history and walk of life,
thoughtfully and patriotically serve mankind.
If, however, we are to come to the fullest possible
realization of what
the life of a man like Paul Revere means to his country
and to his
Fraternity, we must go further than a mere personal
estimate. No
matter how effective his life may be in arousing our pride
and stimulating our efforts, we must still take one more
step. It will not do merely to judge a life
like his according to the standards of this
day. We must realize the results of his work in the
light of the conditions which he faced.
I wonder if we can visualize the Colonial period of
this country's
history? The scattered settlements, the log cabins
grouped about
stockades out in the wilderness, the wide distances
separating the
towns and villages, and the uninhabited, waste districts
between; the bridle paths over the mountains, the narrow
almost impassable roads with the lumbering stage coaches
passing up and down at irregular and infrequent intervals;
a time when it cost a shilling and more to carry a
letter; a country without telegraph, without typewriter,
without railroad - and a people who could not even dream
of such things as these.
Even so the picture is not complete. We must picture
a country
possessed of very few schools, and what schools that were
open, were open only to the sons of the rich.
Intelligence and idealism were impossible for the poor
boy, except as he learned them at the family
altar.
The minds of the common people were on the same low,
deadly level which prevailed among the lower classes of
Europe. Under such circumstances can we not see how
the superior mind would revolt against these sordid
conditions?
First, would come the passion for liberty, and
following that, an intense determination that these
conditions must be bettered. Then we are able to recreate
the influence of the ancestry of a man like
Revere? Many a long evening was spent around an open
fireplace, with perhaps a tallow dip candle or two burning
dimly on the mantle, while the head of the household told
of the tragedy of his flight from the persecutions
inflicted upon his people. What would the
effect of such a recital be upon a youth like Paul
Revere? Can we realize how these traditions
would influence his mind, how his boyish imagination would
be kindled and how his appreciation of the liberty which
the Colonists were trying to work out for themselves in
the new world would grow into a veritable passion for
freedom?
As he grew older he would see the stalwart pioneers around
him trying to plant here a new type of civilization, an
institution which would insure to every man the
utmost of personal liberty which he could expect without
infringing upon the rights of others.
Can we not see how a youth raised in this atmosphere would
be inspired with a desire to promote and further the
development of these institutions?
With stories of murder and oppression of his people firing
his youthful imagination, can we not see that as he grew
into manhood his mind would be quickened? Can we not
understand how any example of oppression, however
slight, would arouse the fighting instincts, and
tyrannical injustice become as it were a baptism of
patriotism, dedicated to the new home which his troubled
soul was finding in company with his fellow
refugees?
We must also realize that an atmosphere very like this
existed all
through the colonies. It was justified, my brothers;
these hardy pioneers had fled the Old World where free
thought, free speech and free Conscience did not
exist. They had come away with hideous memories of
their friends and neighbors tortured and hung for the most
trivial crimes. Years of tragedy had taught them the
sacrifices that men make who stand up for what they
believe, for opinion's sake. It is only when we come to
appreciate all of this background that we can
understand the fierce resentment in the hearts of
the colonial leaders when tea profiteers sought to impose
their burdens of taxation, or religious bigots tried to
fasten upon the minds of the people narrow ideas the trend
of which would be to bring about a union of Church and
State.
We must picture Paul Revere as one of the central figures
in a great drama like this, staged in a wilderness, with
enemies both within
and without; if we could appreciate what the service of
the colonial
pioneer really was.
To us in our modern day the accomplishment of these
fearless men may not loom so large, but in their day and
time they performed wonders when they gave their passion
for liberty and brotherhood
free reign and started in to establish a government by,
for and of the
people.
Well may we ask, how could they do it? What gave
them their breadth of vision? And it is in this
primitive setting that we find the answer. The
forces of necessity drove them, persecution was behind
them and if they did not build their new Temple of
Liberty aright, persecution and failure lay before
them.
In the face of a need like this, they won; they
accomplished great things for humanity. They
planted the seeds of brotherhood in the fallow ground of a
new homeland and we, who are their posterity are reaping
the reward. This it is which places upon us the
responsibility for doing in our day what they did in
theirs. The conditions which we have to meet are
different from theirs. The problems which we
have to solve under the complex conditions of modern
civilization would look hopeless to them.
My Brethren, they would be hopeless to us did we not have
their examples before us and were we not familiar
with the principles which they applied to their problems
in those tempestuous days. We have the same
principle, we have the same Masonic atmosphere of
brotherhood and we have an even greater opportunity than
they had to put these principles into practice and make
them live among men today.
Ours is the task to maintain the freedom of speech
and conscience which they established for us and to
see to it that Freemasonry, grown now to a
fraternity of men far greater in number than all the
people who lived in the thirteen colonies, shall stand
foursquare for law and order, for the right to think
and worship as we please, and for the perpetuation of
those priceless privileges which the Paul Reveres of
early America wrought out of their needs and the
conditions which faced them, because they had the Masonic
vision, the Masonic fervency and the Masonic zeal to build
after the Masonic pattern.
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