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/

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Paul Revere’s Ride at 250

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Reverend Jonas Clarke’s Diary
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This 1929 map takes some liberties with the details but gets the geography right
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Fortifications at Boston Neck
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Fortifications at Boston Neck
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Tales From a Wayside Inn
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The Landlord’s Tale
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• 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

• The first bridge over the Charles River in Boston


• General Gage’s spies


• Paul Revere’s less famous rides


• Paul Revere’s later military career… and court martial


• The life of Joseph Warren


• Two enslaved women burned at the stake in Boston


• The siege(s) of Louisbourg