The 250th or Quarter Millennial of Paul Revere’s famous ride – which marked beginning of the American Revolution – is now almost upon us. It’s one that occurred in the overnight hours from April 18 to April 19 in 1775 though since the early 1970s observed as the third Monday of the month, which this year falls on the 21st. It’s been most recently commemorated by a captivating new book by Kostya Kennedy, The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night that Saved America.

Kennedy until now has been known as a Sports Illustrated editor and the author of books on Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson and Pete Rose. Thus Kennedy’s treatment understandably points up the athletic rigors Revere had to endure during the 20 hours of sleepless endeavors while repeatedly mounting and dismounting Brown Beauty in the course of some 40 house calls in the twelve mile journey as he exhorted his comrades with the eternal “British are Coming.”

Much more than physical stamina was required in the high risk venture, however, and Kennedy gives tributes to his courage. For at the end of the ride Revere was arrested by a group of redcoat officers who put a pistol to his head, threatening a summary execution. Though Revere acknowledged the purpose of his mission, his life was spared only after it became apparent that the British detaining him might themselves be imperiled by a surge of advancing Patriots.

Only then did the Royalists release Revere and fled back towards Boston.Kennedy also gives recognition to the role that Portland native Henry Longfellow played in putting Revere in the pantheon of patriotic heroes. For only in the 1860s publication of the the poet’s Midnight Ride did Revere become a household name. Up until its publication near the outset of the Civil War, none of the several biographical anthologies that had appeared included an entry for Revere. All since then have done so.

The instances by which his name has suffused American culture are everywhere. A Paul Revere Pizza chain in Iowa was so identified to point up its swift and reliable means of distributing its products, not to mention the town and beach outside Boston along with schools and academies throughout the country. Kennedy’s book, however, is not a hagiography, Revere’s flaws are also exposed.

Chief among them, especially in the aftermath of the ride, was hubris. For it’s to Revere’s vanity that Kennedy attributes his role in the disastrous Penobscot Naval Expedition at Castine two years later. The defeat there was attributed to unnecessary delay by the Revolutionary forces in attacking the British when an early assault would have vanquished their forces before enemy reinforcements could arrive.

American Major William Todd, according to Kennedy, wrote of Revere, that “His absolute harangue…always overpowered those more mildly disposed. His blustering rhetoric, which ever arose from his absolute arbitrary notions and false conceit of his superior genius was one of the causes of delay.”

As a result Revere was relieved of his command and ordered out of further military service for the duration of the War. He was, however, afforded the consolation of having the court marshal charges leveled against him in 1777 finally dismissed five years later.

The attention lavished on Revere has overshadowed the unheralded Revolutionary War heroism of others including William Dawes. Among the others: sixteen year old Sybil Ludington. She is credited with having mounted her own horse for a forty mile trip through parts of New York and Connecticut in 1777.

Her objective of seeking to secure Continental army supplies from being taken by the British in Danbury, Connecticut was not successful and Royalist troops soon wreaked havoc on the town. However, her alert is credited by some with helping to arouse hundreds of soldiers under her father Colonel Henry Ludington’s leadership in forcing the redcoats to retreat the next day.

Kennedy’s book also draws attention to Revere’s more obscure but nevertheless significant day jobs. As early as 1766 he had tried his hand at being a political cartoonist. He also had talents as a dentist, as an engraver, and was one of the country’s better known gold and silversmiths. Moreover, rolling copper for the nation to fight the War of 1812 was perhaps as crucial to that war as his 1775 crusade had been to another.

Manufacturing bells was also one of his professional callings. His challenges in this was illustrated by a Maine based episode near the end of his life not included in Kennedy’s new book. This began in 1808 when Revere delivered a 500 pound bell in Boston to an agent for the newly chartered Farmington Academy, a forerunner of the present University of Maine at Farmington. The bill remained unpaid for three years so Revere and his son Joseph brought suit in 1811 against the Academy for the $216.64 unpaid balance.

This gave rise to a sheriff’s levy on half of the school’s location near the center of Farmington Village. Because the bill remained unpaid, title to this was awarded to the Reveres. They held their title for nearly a year until the Academy was able to repurchase for $265.66 the property it had earlier forfeited to the Reveres. A dozen years after the poem that made Revere famous – and also helped secure his own immortality – was the April 1875 centennial of “the Ride.”

On that occasion Longfellow wrote, “For the next few years we shall have centennial celebrations all over the country. I hope they will do some good and I think they may, in holding up the noble lives of other days as examples.”

Now, in April of 2025, this month of the Bisesquicentennial or 250th anniversary, Longfellow’s aspirations will hopefully also be fulfilled.

Paul Mills is a Farmington attorney well known for his analyses and Historical understanding of public affairs in Maine. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].