Revere House Radio

4.1: A Re-Introduction to the Midnight Ride

• Season 4 • Episode 1

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In the kickoff to season 4, we are re-airing excerpts from a five-part series that previous host Robert released in 2020, all about the Midnight Ride. The 250th anniversary of the Midnight Ride is this April 18, so more Ride content is coming soon! In addition, Paul Revere House interpreters Derek and Hann kick off this season’s Our Favorite Questions segment, discussing disease and death in the colonial era, Rachel Revere, and more.

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4.1: A Reintroduction to the Midnight Ride

Tegan  00:11

Welcome to season four of Revere House Radio. This is the podcast that brings you all things Paul Revere House -- and that includes interviews related to Paul Revere his contemporaries, Boston and the American Revolution, and our unique and historic neighborhood. This is going to be a shorter season, just four episodes, because we're recording in the winter of 2024 to 2025 and right now it is all hands on deck at the Paul Revere House. We're preparing for the 250th anniversary of the Midnight Ride, and the moment when the political American Revolution turned into the Revolutionary War. We have programming coming up both in April and throughout the year, some in person and some hybrid, so be sure to check our website and subscribe to email updates if you want to learn more. Today, we are re-airing excerpts from a series that previous podcast host Robert Shimp presented in April 2020, for the 245th anniversary of the Midnight Ride. These were all aired in one week, and the short episodes answer common questions about the Midnight Ride. They include "Did Paul Revere do other rides?" -- and for a deeper dive on that, there are several episodes in season three about his other rides -- "What did Paul Revere actually say", and why people say it was "the British are coming," "What actually happened on the Midnight Ride?", "Were there other riders," and "Was Paul Revere ride important?" So without further ado, here's the revisit the ride series.


Robert  01:37

So to kick things off today, and to give a little bit of context to the build up of the ride itself -- and what we'll be talking about over the next few days -- today, we're going to answer the question of: if Revere's famous ride was his first one, or if he'd actually made previous rides leading up to April 18. Was he a known writer to the Sons of Liberty? Or did Dr Joseph Warren, and the leadership for the Sons of Liberty, simply pull out a trusted member for that moment of emergency on the famous evening. To answer the question directly: No, April 18, 1775 was not Revere's first ride for the Sons of Liberty. He's certainly most famous for his ride that we'll talk about and certainly commemorate this week. But the very reason that he actually rode out on April 18, 1775, was because -- to that point -- he'd established himself not only as a central figure for the Sons of Liberty in Boston, but as a key messenger for the organization writ large. While he became more political in the 1760s, he really became essential to the Boston operation in the early 1770s. In terms of riding, Paul Revere is actually... his first major ride was the day after the Boston Tea Party -- this being on the night of December 16, and the ride itself then on the morning of December 17, 1773. In many ways, the revolution, especially this early stage -- 1773 -- was really an information and propaganda battle between British authorities and the Sons of Liberty. So it was vital that the organization of Boston got their story out to the other colonies as soon as possible. Paul Revere set out for New York the next morning on December 17, and made great time on the trip, arriving by the night of December 21. So, four days to reach New York City. After resting a bit, he returned to Boston on Monday, December 27 for a full round trip of 10 days and an arrival that allowed for a New Year's celebration -- or at least commemoration in the Revere household -- as the calendar turned to 1774. In response to the Tea Party, Parliament of course passed a series of measures in 1774, the Coersive Acts and Quebec Act amongst others. And the Coercive Acts essentially were to close off Boston and the port of Boston from the rest of the colonial seaboard in the Atlantic for the colonies. During that tumultuous year of 1774, Revere made trips to Philadelphia, including one in which he carried the famous Suffolk Resolves, through which local leaders in Boston vociferously objected to the measures coming out of London that year. And he brought the Suffolk Resolves to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. In fact, he became so known for his rides along the eastern seaboard that year, and in general, that he was reported in London newspapers, including one in which Paul Revere was referenced as "an ambassador from the Committee of Correspondence of Boston to the Congress of Philadelphia." In the winter of 1774, Revere famously made a trip through a blizzard to alert Portsmouth, New Hampshire, of potential British actions in the area, as word was spreading that regulars were being sent to take possession of Fort William and Mary. Revere braved terrible conditions to bring the word, and though the initial reports turned out to be somewhat overblown, his actions set the Granite State patriots into motion and certainly further solidified his trustworthiness and commitment to the cause. Finally, Revere actually made a trip to Lexington only a few days before his more famous return visit. On Sunday, April 16, Dr Joseph Warren sent Revere to Lexington to tip off John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were already staying out in that area to impending actions from the British regulars. On the way back, Revere stopped in Charlestown as he was returning to his house in the North End of Boston. Realizing the forthcoming operation, in whatever form it took, would certainly need multiple fail-safes -- should he be captured or detained to some extent -- Revere set into motion, and really conceived of, the lantern signal system that would make him famous in the poem, and conveyed that information to Colonel William Conant and fellow trusted Sons of Liberty in Charlestown, leading into, of course, the history that we know and will talk more about this week, on the night of April 18. So while one ride made Revere famous, it was clear that he was already an indispensable part of the Sons of Liberty communication system, both in Boston and throughout the colonies, long before April 1775. Today, we'll be discussing perhaps one of the most iconic phrases in American history, "The British are coming." The phrase has been interwoven into American lore as a key part of Paul Revere as a lone writer shouting the phrase through the countryside as his voice alerted village after village at the British soldiers were indeed on their way. Just because something's lore, however, doesn't mean that we need to take it as truth. And in this case, the phrase is almost certainly one of those curious bits of history that became skewed and twisted through the years. In short, Revere almost certainly did not shout "The British are coming" on his ride for a few reasons, and the iconic phrase really doesn't emerge in the historical record until after Revere's death, nearly 50 years after the rite itself. To understand what Revere actually said -- and why shouting "The British are coming" would not have made sense at the time -- we need to first understand a few of the underlying principles for both the American Revolution and for theMidnight Ride itself. Regarding the phrase, "The British are coming" really wouldn't have made a lot of sense at the time, or at least it would have been somewhat confusing, as in many cases, the colonists that Revere would have been contacting and interacting with that evening really considered themselves to be British. At a conceptual level, one of the prime reasons, if not *the* prime reason, for the revolution itself -- we can have that debate until kingdom come -- but one of the reasons was to uphold the unwritten British constitution. Many colonists saw themselves as the true heirs, and through their actions, upholders of the ancient constitution, and therefore true Britons. Through Parliament's taxation policies, measures like the Quebec Act of 1774, the entire Intolerable Acts of the same year, and their perception that King George III had abandoned them in the process, the colonists saw a betrayal and break with the unwritten constitution in London. They pushed back against the idea of virtual representation --or the view that every member of the British Empire was represented indirectly, at least by every member of Parliament -- arguing that tax acts in particular did not hold water without direct physical representation in London. For those reasons, shouting that "The British were coming" to his fellow Massachusetts neighbors would have been a confusing phrasing at best, for Revere. To the point of Revere shouting along the way, that's also somewhat of a misrepresentation of the ride. On the night of his ride, British Regulars were out in patrols looking for Revere, and other riders like him, and Revere, in fact, was nearly captured by a two-man patrol just as his ride began. His mission was supposed to be a secret one, so it wouldn't have made sense to be drawing excess attention to himself. So along the route, he stopped at individual houses, alerting trusted associates and households what was happening that evening. In the contemporaneous words of William Monroe of Lexington, Sergeant command for the town, his deposition to the Massachusetts provincial Congress said that Revere used the phrase, "the regulars are coming out," shorthand for the regular professional soldiers of the British army. This phrasing would have made sense at the time, and is the most likely of really all the possibilities for Revere's wording -- though, of course, there could have been some deviations (Redcoats, things of that nature) along the way. So with this likely wording established, where does the phrase "The British are coming" come into play? Well, the first time that the phrase seems to pop up in the historical record is actually from an 1822 dinner party that included Dorothy Scott -- previously, Dorothy Hancock -- who was John Hancock's fiance at the time of the Midnight Ride and on scene for the actions in Lexington. According to William Sumner, dinner party attendee at this 1822 soiree, Scott recounted: on that evening, a man from Lexington came running by the Hancock Clark House and shouted, "The British are coming" as soon as he saw "the British bayonets glistening." The important note is here that this recollection came long after the fact -- but more importantly, I think, that it came after two wars (the American Revolution and the war of 1812) that drew clear lines demarcating "American" and the United States from "British" and Great Britain. Terminology greatly shifted between 1775 and 1822, and especially after the war of 1812, clear and permanent lines were drawn between the nations. The phrase then popped up sporadically in other historical texts through the 19th century, and then by the 20th century, it seems Revere's hushed "the regulars are coming out" was completely swamped by the more iconic shout of "The British are coming." So while the phrase most associated with Revere is something he almost certainly didn't say in his life, the story of its origins allows us to return to the context for both the ride and the revolution and piece together some of its key features.  How did the night actually unfold for Paul Revere? As we discussed on Thursday, Paul Revere and Dr Joseph Warren had known for some time that a major action from the British Regulars was in the offing at some point in April 1775. And on April 18th, Revere and Warren's surveillance system of the British Regulars paid off. Knowing an action was imminent, Warren called Revere to his house that night to give him his orders, which (in Paul Revere recollections) were to alert John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the soldiers would be marching to the Lexington area in a likely attempt to seize them. While this bit of information was faulty, the primary goal for the regulars was to gather and take back the munitions in Concord and the area that the colonists had been storing up. The need for the ride was indeed real. Revere left Warren's house around 10pm, alerted his friend Robert Newman at Christ Church -- now known as Old North Church -- to put their lantern signal system into motion. That evening, two lanterns were needed to alert Charlestown Patriots that the British soldiers be crossing the river by boats, not by land at Boston Neck. The famous system, of course, was: one, if by land, two, if by sea. And the soldiers were going by sea -- the water route. Revere then retrieved his riding necessities, including his overcoat, from his now famous house at 19 North square (we hope to see you there soon) and set out to the water in Boston's North End. Revere had wisely stashed a row boat on the Boston side of the river, and Joshua Bentley and Thomas Richardson rode him across the river to Charlestown. There, he met up with ColonelConant and a few Sons of Liberty who confirmed to Revere that they had seen the lanterns; So the system worked. Upon receiving Deacon John Larkin's horse -- as an aside, the horse's name has been lost to the historical record, though all sorts of crazy names through history abound, with Brown Beauty being the most likely of all names. But I digress -- Revere was alerted to British patrols in the area, and he set off by moonlight around 11. Though he had avoided detection by the HMS Somerset, which was positioned in Boston Harbor, Revere was not able to avoid being seen by one of the roving British patrols. Shortly into his ride, Revere ran into two British regulars, but avoided capture in what sounds like a scene straight from Hollywood. Revere was able to outpace one rider, while the other British regular became stuck in a clay pit and could not continue his pursuit. Avoiding capture, Revere stopped in Medford to alert the captain there of the situation, and then, "alarmed almost every house until he reached Lexington." Upon arriving in the town, Revere made his way to Reverend Clark's house, where Hancock and Adams were staying. Since he'd accomplished his primary mission, Revere decided to throw caution to the wind at this point, and made quite a commotion upon arrival, so much so that the sentry of the house told him to keep quiet, for the residents had just turned in for the evening. According to William Monroe's testimony, Revere responded by shouting, "Noise? You'll have noise enough before long. The regulars are coming out."Revere then convened with Adams and Hancock for a time, and the second rider from Boston, William Dawes -- more on him tomorrow-- arrived about a half hour later. Revere noted that they "refreshed themselves": likely took a little bit of a break, maybe some drink and food, and then decided to press their luck and carry on the alarm to Concord. Along the route, they ran into Dr Samuel Prescott, who Revere, defined as a "high Son of Liberty." Prescott was out quite late for a weeknight, returning to his house after visiting with his girlfriend, Prescott decided to assist in the alarm. At this stage, Revere evasive luck ran out as the three men ran into a large British patrol. Prescott was able to escape, and of the three, he was the only one to make it to Concord to raise the alarm there. Dawes was also able to avoid capture, but Revere was detained by the patrol. Revere was held for some time, but after the soldiers threatened him several times, he was able to talk his way out of the situation. In short, his information proved to the soldiers that Revere knew more about the impending action than they did, and they decided not to trifle with Revere and the few other riders they'd collected that evening. They ultimately let Revere go, but took his horse meaning he was forced to return to Lexington on foot,. Revere arrived back to find Hancock and Adam still on site, which must have been incredibly frustrating for him, but the two political leaders left with their families soon after. Revere's final action for the evening -- now early morning -- was to assist Hancock's Secretary John Lowell to remove a trunk of very sensitive papers from The Buckman Tavern to the woods, which they accomplished just as the first shots rang out at Lexington Green. Revere's work was done for the evening, but his story and his legend, of course, had just begun.  In yesterday's episode, I discussed two other riders that evening with Revere: William Dawes coming from Boston, just like Paul, and Dr Samuel Prescott, who joined the two Sons of Liberty as they attempted to extend the alarm to Concord. Dawes had taken the longer land route out of Boston, proceeding via Boston Neck out to Lexington, and arrived about a half hour after Revere. With their inclusions, it's clear that Revere was not the only rider that night. So the image of a lone rider crying out in the countryside is obviously overstated. It does beg the question of how many riders were there? And since there were other riders, how did Paul Revere become so famous? First, by April 1775, the Sons of Liberty had a robust communication network already in place. The Committees of Correspondence had been able to efficiently and effectively move messages through their networks from 1772 and the whole concept of Minutemen, turning out was based on the idea of communication spreading like wildfire through communities. Long before cell phones or Zoom calls, this, of course, meant physical messaging through trusted writers. The whole reason Revere had conceived of and realized the necessity for the lantern signals from Old North Church was that such a mission could not be entrusted to one man. Many individuals needed to be involved and fail-safes needed to be built in. There are at least several dozen other known riders that evening through all of New England, and likely many more, whose names have been lost to history. Ebenezer Dorr brought the alarm to Roxbury, just south of Boston. Richard Devens informed Committee of Safety members and meeting in Monotony (present day Arlington), which then sent out more riders. Solomon Brown of Lexington brought news into the town of soldiers being on the march as well. There are also stories of female riders too, like Sybil Ludington of Connecticut. With a lot of these stories, though, many were made post facto and therefore are hard to confirm with full accuracy --  though it is possible, if not likely, that there were several women in the mix to spread the news as well. With all the riders going out that evening, then, how did Revere become so famous? First, it's important to remember that Paul Revere made three transcriptions of his ride; two as depositions for the Provincial Congress very soon after his ride, and a third for Jeremy Belknap, one of the founders of the Massachusetts Historical Society, as that organization got off the ground in 1798. If you're interested in doing a little reading from the 18th century, I would highly encourage you to check out the ride in Revere's own words, and you can find a link to the Revere report for Belknap on our website. The clear answer for Revere's fame, however, is not with his own transcriptions, which certainly do help to round out this story, but rather with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1860 poem. In 1860 Longfellow did what so many of you have done before, and we hope to see many of you doing in the not too distant future. He took a walking tour through Boston's North End. As the nation was about to tear itself apart in the Civil War, Longfellow reflected on the history around him in the neighborhood, and was inspired to begin what would become a nationally renowned poem with the lines: "Listen my children and you shall hear of the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." But Longfellow has a few mistakes on the historical record here and there. It is, of course, a gripping poem that sent Revere into American lore from that day forward. So thanks to Longfellow, we all know Revere's name. But the poem, in a sense, has also encouraged work on the other riders who, in many cases, may have been totally forgotten, were it not for Longfellows poem in the first place.  If there were other riders, was Revere's ride actually important? Now this is a slight modification on the question we tackled yesterday of: "If there were other riders, why is Revere famous?" Clearly, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has a lot to do with the fame part, but this importance question is little bit trickier and more nuanced to tackle. Though I absolutely realize my potentialbias here, I argue that though there were other riders, yes, Revere's ride was important. His role was important for a few reasons. First, though Dr Joseph Warren's specific intelligence that the British Regulars would attempt to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock may have been a bit off the mark, the notion that a major action was coming towards Lexington and Concord was spot on in a sense. Then Revere and Dawes were the most proximally significant riders since they were going to be going from Boston, the very location where the soldiers were stationed. It was important that confirmation of the intelligence made its way from Boston, which is obviously a point to both Dawes and Revere for doing so, but a double point for Revere on coming up with the lantern system and setting it into motion. Revere's importance that night is bolstered by the fact that he ensured, were he to be detained in the North End, that the message would arrive in Charlestown and could spread from there. Revere's quick thinking and ingenuity traits that would serve him well over his long and successful business career, mark him as both a central planner in that communication web that emanated from the Sons of Liberty in Boston. Further, on the ride itself, it's incredibly difficult to remove Revere from the thread of communication. He set off on the ride. As he said, he stopped at almost every house along the way to Lexington, meaning he set into motion an incalculable chain of communication that Minuteman thrived on. Every rider had an outsized importance with perhaps exponential significance on that night. Further, Revere's deep contacts in the community area meant he was likely making pointed contacts. He knew who would be the leaders and most effective persons to alert on his way to Lexington so as not to waste time, and give the overall mission its greatest chance of success. I think it's also important to note the contact Revere made with Adams and Hancock. Though it's clear they weren't the specific target that evening. General Gage was under great pressure from London to arrest the primary leaders of the revolution. It would have been a bold move, but were Hancock and Adams still around in Lexington or the area through the day of April 19 it's possible something could have happened to them in a way that would have derailed their important roles at the Continental Congress at that vital period leadingup to the Declaration of Independence about 14 months after the events on April 1775. As a final word on Hancock and Adams, Revere'ss actions in removing Hancock's trunk with sensitive papers from Buckman tavern is one of those events where we don't know if things would have been different had he not taken his actions. But it seems -- though, it seems like an afterthought in most recountings of the ride -- the fact remains that he transported important materials to a safer place mere moments before the first battle of the American Revolution commenced. Now it is possible in revisionist history that things would still have turned out the same, or at least very close to how they did, if Revere did not make his ride or was at least detained in the North End before Richardson and Bentley rode him across the Charles.William Dawes did arrive in Lexington as well, after all, though some bias does require me to note that it was a half hour after Revere. It is possible, if not likely, that the information would have reached a countryside to most important players in time, if a bit delayed. We'll never know the answer to that counterfactual, but I argue we can confirm Revere's role was important and central that night to not just the overall message, but importantly, the timeliness with which the alarm was raised. Longfellow, in that sense, got Revere's importance right.


Tegan  26:19

And that was "Revisit the Ride"; a series from when this podcast was brand new, hosted by former Research Director Robert Shimp. If you'd like to hear more of our older episodes, they're on our website at www.paulreverehouse.org and you can find them on your favorite podcast app. Now we'll return to the present day for the Our Favorite Questions segment, in which one of our museum interpreters, Derek, interviews other staff about questions we get asked in the Revere House. If you'll follow me, we'll virtually step into the Paul Revere House for that segment.


Derek  26:55

Hello everybody. Welcome back to our favorite question segment. Can my illustrious guests tell me who they are and how long they've been here, you know, at the museum?


Hann  27:05

Hi! Thank you for having me. My name is Hann. I'm an interpreter. I've been here for three years now.


Derek  27:12

How'd you wind up here at the Paul Revere House?


Hann  27:15

I did my undergrad senior thesis project on the American Revolution versus the French Revolution, and I really wanted to get back into studying colonial history, so I applied for this job, and on the job, learned all I could about Paul Revere.


Derek  27:34

Yeah. I mean, it's a great gateway into that subject. There's so many things to go off on about the house. But today we're going to talk about a lot of the questions that we get asked here at the house, because that's basically our main job is to just answer people's questions. And so what is a favorite question or a regular topic that you have visitors ask you a lot about?


Hann  27:56

It's really funny, because all the kids want to ask questions about death.


Derek  28:01

Yes.


Hann  28:02

They're so morbid. 


Derek  28:03

It feels like their medical knowledge was, like, based on vibes and magical thinking. They're so bold.


Hann  28:03

And I love it. I love it. They're so bold. The kids ask, "Did anybody ever die in this house?" Or they asked, like, "Why did Sarah Revere (his first wife) die so young?" But I try to use, for example, Sarah's death, or, like, a question about,"Why did so many of Revere's children die in infancy?", but I try to use those as like, child appropriate jumping off points to talk about the morbid reality of that time period in terms of...we don't know what exactly Sarah died from, but based on the fact that she died five months after giving birth to her last child, it could have been an infection after childbirth. And from there, talking about how dangerous that was for so many people who gave birth, and the fact that infant mortality rates were so high. And that's a great segue into giving thanks for things like vaccines and just taking stock of like, it was so high because we didn't have things like vaccines for preventable diseases that we now have. Exactly! Basically, basically, yes. But like, a lot of kids are...I think, at an appropriate age to learn that since they're, they're growing up in the middle of a pandemic.


Derek  29:19

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's gotta be on the mind. And I think it's a tough topic, but it is something that people ask about the most. And I think you're right that children are usually the ones for me that ask that question too. And I just think that there's something really, really fascinating to them, because I think it's something about Paul Revere's world that we don't have anymore: People dying that frequently, dying all the time of disease or whatever, that is so different. And I think kids are just like, "What was going on back then?How is that so different from today?" 


Hann  29:48

Right!


Derek  29:49

I think it gives them an appreciation of where we are today. You know, so long after Revere's time, because honestly, we are lucky that we don't have to go through, you know, what Revere's family did. I mean, by the time he died at the age of 83 -- which was lucky he even got there --


Hann  30:03

Yeah.


Derek  30:04

--only five of his kids were still alive, which is...I mean to us today, that's like shocking that a dad would outlive almost all his kids. But okay, so my next question is, what is, like, a particular favorite question you've been asked before?


Hann  30:18

One of the questions, a favorite question that I use as a jumping off point is on one of our plaques that says Rachel Revere was responsible for acquiring a pass for the Revere family to get out of British-occupied Boston.


Derek  30:31

One of the most fascinating stories, I feel.


Hann  30:34

Right. And so I was talking to a Rachel Revere Historical Interpreter -- someone who dresses up in costume to act as Rachel Revere. And I asked her, in her opinion, how does she think that Rachel acquired that pass? In her opinion, she thinks that Rachel probably bribed the officials with money. So that's kind of showing Rachel's ingenuity.


Derek  30:52

Mmhmm, yeah.


Hann  30:52

And it also brings up all the work that she did in order...that Paul Revere could do his work. So it brings up the fact that no revolution is possible without so called "women's work," such as, like camp followers. Like cooking, cleaning, sewing, everything like that.


Derek  31:11

Yeah, no, I think something I love to bring up is just to talk about how Paul Revere wouldn't have been the revolutionary guy that we know him for without having, you know, some stability back at home. And Rachel was clearly a giant part of his stability during the war. I mean, look at people like John Adams and his wife, Abigail.


Hann  31:27

Right, right, right.


Derek  31:28

Like she was instrumental, I think, in him forming his opinions. And I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that Rachel was probably a huge part of, you know, Paul, being able to do something like the Midnight Ride.


Hann  31:40

Oh yes, it's about women during the Revolution? One of my favorite facts that I still remember from, like, my senior thesis days is that George Washington originally did not want camp followers because he was like, "Oh, these women are all prostitutes following the men into war." But it turned out that at one point, or at a certain point, more soldiers were dying of infection and preventable disease, and they were dying of bullet wounds because they did not know how to bathe themselves or keep clean or do laundry. So at that point, he was like, "Okay, I give up. Send the women in." And there's also a- there's also this great book I just read that we we sell in our gift shop. It was, um, the... It's about women spies during the revolution. But a lot of these women were able to become spies because of men in power absolutely underestimating them, being like, "Oh, she's just sitting and doing her knitting. There's no way she's carrying information directly to George Washington."


Derek  32:30

Right.


Hann  32:31

Yep.


Derek  32:31

Yeah! For my last question, what is a question or a topic that you wish visitors would ask you more frequently?


Hann  32:39

So, I do try not to be preachy about this subject, but I do get preachy about this. I...so people notice on one of the signs that only five months after Sarah passed, Revere married Rachel. And they kind of, like, get kind of shocked about that, because they're like, "oh, that seems very cold," and I don't know. So I use that as a way to bring up the gender division of labor, because that's directly related to the gender division. So I explained that it does seem cold by today's standards, yes, that Revere would get married so soon after his first wife's death. But what we have to remember is, because of the gender division of labor, he probably wouldn't have known how to do a lot of the w"omen's work" of taking care of the house and the children. He had eight or fewer children at this point? How many kids did he have?


Derek  33:25

I think when Sarah died, six were alive, including the newborn.


Hann  33:30

Yeah, so he had a newborn. So he was going to work full time. And this was also the year leading up to the Boston Tea Party, which he may or may not have taken part in.


Derek  33:39

Tumultuous year for Paul Revere.


Hann  33:41

Yes. So he was probably going to secret committee meetings at night and probably stressed out of his mind and kind of drowning in it. But this is when his friend Rachel from church, steps in and is kind of like, "I got this."  So even though it was a marriage of convenience, it also turned into a love match? And I really want people to realize that. I love telling people about, like the silly poems they wrote for each other, like-


Derek  33:53

Yeah. They're so funny, and cute!


Hann  34:07

They're so funny and cute! And I feel so happy for them that they got several decades to spend their lives together.


Derek  34:13

I mean, their connection did really seem genuinely true. Like they really did love each other. I think when people bring that up, their usual intention in asking is, "Oh, he clearly didn't have any feelings for Sarah", or, like, he hated her.


Hann  34:27

Yeah.


Derek  34:27

But like, how do we know that? Like, we- 


Hann  34:30

There's no way of knowing that. 


Derek  34:31

Yeah, it is a kind of a callous way to look at history, where, I think...what you said about him maybe not knowing how to take care of the kids, or, like, what is he gonna do now that Sarah's not there, right?


Hann  34:41

Yeah.


Derek  34:41

You kind of have to put the emotion back into these historical figures to really get a feel of them. And I think we kind of back-project maybe some of our more current ideas of how people in the past were getting married, or when they were getting married, or why, onto, you know, people really a long time ago who, you know, had complete different standards of what love or what marriage is. Okay, guys! Well, thank you so much for listening to the favorite questions segment. We will see you next week for some more wonderful topics about Paul Revere. See you later.


Tegan  35:14

Thank you for tuning in to Revere House Radio. I'm your host, Tegan Kehoe, and I am the Research and Adult Program Director here at the Paul Revere House our production team for this season includes Derek Hunter, Mehitabel Glenhaber, Cadee Stefani, and Adrian Turnbull-Riley. If you're listening online, we encourage you to subscribe in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. Revere House Radio is a production of the Paul Revere Memorial Association, the nonprofit which operates the Paul Revere House Museum. You can find more information, subscribe to our mailing list or social media, or become a member on our website at www.paulreverehouse.org. Or come visit us in Boston!