From the East – April 2021
Greetings Brethren,
“Listen my children and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.”
Thus starts the famous poem written for the entertainment of his grandchildren by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1860 more than 100 years after the actual event. The poem continues with “Ready to ride and spread the alarm/ Through every Middlesex village and farm/ For the country folk to be up and to arm.” Although the poem made Brother Paul Revere famous, it has little connection with reality (fake poems?) and has been repeated in far too many history school books. Given that this April 18th makes it 251 years since that event with very heavy Masonic involvement, I thought it would be interesting to look at the real story.
For starters Brother Revere was only one of as many as ten different riders that night. We know some of the others included William Dawes, Dr. Samuel Prescott and Wentworth Cheswell a free African who held several elected positions including constable and justice of the peace who was to ride to Portsmouth.
Brother Paul Revere was 25 years old that night, the second man in North America to become knighted in the Masonic Order of Knights Templar. He would later become a Worshipful Master and also serve as lodge secretary. Although remembered for being a silversmith, he was also a dentist (significant later in the story), soldier, political cartoon engraver, revolutionist gun powder maker and later built his own foundry. Despite that they were all disguised that night; he is also credited with being a part of the Boston Tea Party along with numerous other Masons including Brothers Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Joseph Warren, and others. In fact there were so many Brothers raiding the ship that night that the regular communication meeting scheduled the same evening was adjourned “on account of the few members in attendance.”
With the local economy not doing very well the young silversmith-dentist supplemented his income carrying messages from Boston to New York which afforded him free passage through British troops. That spring General Gage had the British fleet in Boston harbor and was looking to take Brother John Hancock and Brother Samuel Adams prisoners and then seize rebel arms stored in Concord. To escape being taken prisoners Adams and Hancock hid away in a parsonage to the west in Lexington. The plan for their safely was directed by Brother Dr. Joseph Warren who assigned the various riders to their routes and objectives. Warren later became General Warren and was felled at the battle of Lexington. In Hiram Abif fashion he was buried anonymously in a shallow grave that was marked by a green sapling. When Paul Revere and other brothers went to locate his remains they found a mass grave of several other patriots, he was identified by the metal “jewels” of plates and wires that his friend and dentist Paul Revere had installed as his false teeth a few years ago. The body was raised and returned to Boston for a “proper burial” in Masonic tradition.
Paul Revere did devise the plan to use one light if by land two if by sea but he never saw the lights when they were displayed. Warren already had Revere being rowed undetected through the British fleet to a waiting horse on the other side of the Charles river. To ensure backup, William Dawson was given a longer and different route to Lexington. They never used the phrase the “British are coming” for the country side had both loyalist and revolutionist households. Both men had but one task, to alert John Hancock and Samuel Adams to flee before the British arrived. That task accomplished, they rested before running into Samuel Prescott coming home from his girlfriend’s house at 1 am. The three decided to spread the word on the way to Concord, but were soon intercepted by British soldiers thereby ending any chance for them to alert the “Country folk to be up and to arm.” As for Mr. Longfellow’s poem, in 1896 poet Helen Moore published a rebuttal; “ ‘Tis all well for the children to hear/ Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere/ But why should my name be quite forgot,/ Who rode as boldly and well, God wot?/ Why should I ask? The reason is clear-/ My name was Dawes and his Revere.” Too bad she did not add one more line; “For Revere was a Mason and Dawes was not”.
And now you know the rest of the story, and the significant Masonic patriotic involvement.
For further reading see Paul Revere’s Ride by David Fisher and Sir Knight Paul Revere by C. L. Rothwell
Fraternally,
Larry Vernamonti WM
“A good moral character is the first essential in a man. It is therefore highly important that you should Endeavour not only to be learned but virtuous.”
Bro. George Washington 1790
“A nation that forgets its past has no future.”
Bro. Winston Churchill