Paul Revere (1735-1818)
The son of a silversmith who immigrated to Boston from France, Paul Revere learned the trade and became one of the finest silversmiths in America. He also made copper engravings from which he produced seals, coats of arms and bookplates, and by the 1760s, anti-British engravings. The prints from his engravings depicting the events leading up to and during the Revolution are highly prized. He was a reliable messenger for the Massachusetts Committee of Safety and recognized the threat the British troops posed to the military stores in Concord. His attempt to signal colonists about the movement of the British using lanterns from the spire of the North Church was immortalized in the poem "Paul Revere's Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Many of Revere's surviving silver pieces are works of art, done in either the rococo style or the neoclassical style popular after the Revolution.
Additional Information Can Be Found At...
Revere, Paul - Encarta Online Deluxe
Paul Revere and the true story of his Ride