Paul Revere: Networker and Businessman
Revere reaped great profits during his colonial silver years. He recorded income between 11 and 294 pounds in the years between 1761 and 1775, with an average yearly income throughout this period of 85 pounds.81 In comparison, successful colonial journeymen might earn up to 45 pounds a year, full-time manual laborers rarely earned more than 30 pounds a year, and the median free white income throughout the 1770s hovered around 12 pounds. Many of Revere’s income fluctuations reflect external conditions, such as occasional recessions that slowed spending throughout the economy, as well as distractions minimizing his shop time. For example, his shop output and income took a dramatic plunge between 1767 and 1770, largely due to his political activities such as his many messenger rides on behalf of the Patriot cause, which could take him away from his shop for ten days or longer. This downturn did not have a major impact upon his confidence or his spending, as illustrated by his 1770 purchase of a house in the North Square area, about a block from his shop in Clark’s Wharf, for 213 pounds. Business took a turn for the better in 1773–1774 due to prewar speculation and business from British officers.82His financial success and strong reputation among craftsmen and community members resulted from more than technical aptitude. Revere distinguished himself as both a spectacular networker and a shrewd businessman in a period often characterized by interpersonal relationships and reciprocal exchanges of favors.
Figure 1.4. Untitled and undated Paul Revere sketch of an engraving pattern from Paul Revere Cashbook for Goldsmith’s Shop, volume 57, pages 41–42. From Revere Family Papers, 1746–1964, microfilm edition 15 reels (Boston Massachusetts Historical Society, 1979), reel 15. Paul Revere’s engraving abilities earned him a number of lucrative sub-contracting jobs and helped establish his reputation. This sketch of an ornate plate and its matching cover offers a detailed study of Revere’s application of rococo ornamentation. Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
In the midst of increasing financial security and prestige Revere lost his wife Sarah in May 1773, five months after she gave birth to little Isanna. Without a diary, without surviving letters, we can only imagine his thoughts at this trying time, as he faced the prospect of raising and supporting his seven children and elderly mother, alone. But Revere was no stranger to hardship or responsibility, and ever practical, he understood that life must go on. He returned to silverworking a week later, soon resumed his community activities, and even found love again. Within a few months he started courting 27-year-old Rachel Walker, whom he married in October 1773. This courtship process includes a love poem riddle that Paul wrote to Rachel, economically composed on the back of a bill. It reads:
Take three fourths of a Paine that makes Traitors confess (answer: “Rac”)
With three parts of a place which the Wicked don’t Bless (“Hel”)
Joyne four sevenths of an Exercise which shop-keepers use (“Walk”)
And what Bad men do, when they good actions refuse (“Err”)
These four added together with great care and Art
Will point out the Fair One nearest my Heart.83
Putting aside Rachel’s imagined response to pain, traitors, hell, and other romantic imagery, this poem is one of the two happiest items in all of Revere’s surviving records, confirming a genuine affection for his lively young bride. His marriage to Rachel undoubtedly benefited his entire family. Revere had six surviving children from his first marriage, not counting the infant Isanna, who died four months after Sarah. Rachel immediately took up the slack on the home front, in addition to giving birth to eight more children over the next fourteen years. For the next four decades she stood by her husband through tea parties, midnight rides, court-martials, and countless other adventures.
Revere recorded a huge number of transactions with many customers throughout his silverworking career. Combining the customers recorded in his record books with the names of other known purchasers of his work yields a total of 757 known patrons. His business productivity owed much to his ability to meet and form relationships with numerous individuals. A number of neighbors, lifelong friends, and Hitchborn relatives appear in his sales records with great frequency, clearly indicating that they sent him as much of their business and support as possible.84 Throughout his life Revere held important (often leadership) positions in many groups and associations, including the New Brick Church, activities in and around the North End, artisan groups, the St. Andrew’s Lodge Freemason organization, the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association, and various Patriot affiliations, including the Sons of Liberty, the North End Caucus, and the Long Room Club. Revere consistently converted approximately 20 percent of the members of each association into his customers. For example, of the 474 men commonly identified as prominent Revolutionaries and members of these Patriot groups, Revere enlisted 122 (22%) of them as clients. While no one group monopolized Revere’s sales or allowed Revere to dominate their own patronage, he succeeded because he belonged to a large number of groups and drew some support from each one.85
The Freemasons organization contributed the largest number of Revere’s customers, accounting for one-third of his total client list. Revere joined the St. Andrew’s Freemason lodge in 1760 and won his first election as lodge master by 1770. Early colonial Masonic organizations catered to the highest echelons of society and emphasized the elite privileges their members expected. Beginning in London and spreading first to Philadelphia in the 1750s, a new branch of Masons called “the Ancients” opened their doors to artisans, lesser merchants and shopkeepers, and other members of the middle classes seeking to improve their economic and societal position—an exact match with Paul Revere’s aspirations. Revere’s Freemason career at St. Andrew’s “Ancient” lodge brought him social entertainment, status in the eyes of the community, leadership responsibilities, business contacts, and lifelong friends. In particular, Revere became close friends with Masonic brother Dr. Joseph Warren, a doctor and extremely prominent Patriot who issued the marching orders for his Midnight Ride. More than a dozen of Revere’s fellow Masons produced transactions listed in Revere’s very first daybook, ordering Masonic medals, Masonic jewels, engraved notices of meetings or other business matters, personal items for lodge brothers and their families, and even items for neighboring lodges. Many of these friends loyally purchased goods and services from Revere for many years.86
Revere’s good standing and contacts throughout the artisan community offered another important support structure. Artisans comprised slightly more than half of the purchasers of his silver items, accounting for the majority of his flatware sales and also a few expensive teapots and lodge paraphernalia. Artisans, and silversmiths in particular, also added stability to Revere’s business by forming subcontracting partnerships with him, just as they had with his father. Some of his surviving silver pieces were stamped with his maker’s mark and then overstruck by the mark of other masters, indicating that he sold silver parts or entire pieces to other silversmiths who took the final credit. Revere’s pre-Revolutionary accounts record transactions with at least thirteen silversmiths as well as other craftsmen such as jewelers. Revere used these relationships to farm out work he preferred not to handle in his own shop: perhaps he lacked specialized equipment, felt others could do the work more efficiently, or faced time pressure for large orders. Other silversmiths often asked him to perform certain work for them in return. Revere’s reputation and skill are illustrated by the fact that the work they sent him, such as engraving, chasing, and repoussé ornamentation, required advanced design and implementation skills. Silversmiths also exchanged goods for services in an extensive barter system. For example, between 1760 and 1765, Revere received important shop supplies, such as gold foil, saltpeter, files, borax, pumice stone, and binding wire, from John Welsh in exchange for engraving work and producing objects such as spoons, buckles, and spectacles.87
Revere maintained excellent ties with the moneyed elements of his communit
y. Although he recorded many small sales to a wide range of clients, merchants and professionals purchased nearly all of his expensive hollowware and became valuable repeat customers. Only the wealthiest 5 percent of the population owned numerous pieces of silver, and these members of society also cared the most about their social standing.88 Revere’s records reveal a fairly consistent seasonal business pattern of peaks and lulls corresponding to spring and fall merchant shipments of new British goods, which completely dominated the colonial economy. New goods shipments provided Revere with raw materials and also increased the amount of specie in circulation, encouraging greater spending. Merchants also provided information about the latest British styles, which he quickly emulated, and close connections with merchants enabled him to import objects that he preferred not to make. For example, he made few silver forks or knives throughout his career, choosing instead to import them from Britain at relatively inexpensive prices. These merchant connections inspired him to serve as a retail seller of other goods in his shop, a practice he began before the war but greatly accelerated afterward.89
In addition to his networking ability, Revere possessed invaluable business and management skills. Despite the skilled labor scarcity, nearly half of artisan shops failed, usually due to some combination of the master’s inadequate business acumen and generally unstable economic conditions that required a flexible and creative approach to weather the dry spells. This set of business skills included facility with procuring and managing lines of credit, extension of credit to customers, recordkeeping, and financial planning.90
Credit relationships allude to the importance and scarcity of capital in early America, and capital shortages generally produced the greatest limitations upon craft practitioners in Europe, England, and America. Silversmiths in particular needed to purchase and upgrade the many tools required for their practice, buy property, and purchase raw silver from merchants. Many artisans either used family connections and funds or received capitalization from merchant investors. Artisans, and especially those who made expensive products, had to offer credit to customers if they wished to make sales in cash-poor America, and long creditor lists show that compensation rarely took place at the moment of exchange. Many payments occurred “in kind” via a barter exchange of goods and services that did not involve cash or coinage, and payments ceased altogether during hard times. Artisans often had trouble repaying their own debts due to nonpayment by their customers and depended upon additional loans from local merchants or “moneyed” men, further extending personal networks of credit. In early colonial America, these personal exchange networks dominated all economic transactions and also solidified social relationships. Revere’s records illustrate many cases of customers requiring extensions or special accommodations to enable them to pay for goods they previously received. Revere worked with customers to develop payment plans that might include a combination of paying via installments and compensation “in kind,” such as bushels of corn or sugar, “old” silver, or something as creative as Copley’s offer to paint Revere’s portrait.91
Rigorous recordkeeping practices helped master artisans manage credit and debt, adjust to an increasingly capitalist society, and plan for the future. Throughout the colonial period, farmers and rural shopkeepers often tracked debts through oral agreements or informal account books. These books illustrate the network of exchanges that connected members of a community to each other, and since many of these exchanges involved two-way transfers of goods and services, the concept of debtors and creditors often did not apply. Most accounts lacked detail or oversight, using one page for each individual and occasional tallies of totals motivated by major life events such as a death or loss of a business partner. By the end of the eighteenth century, New England merchants, artisans, and eventually farmers led the way toward more rigid accounting methods, converting all debts and credits into monetary values in the ledgers. But in colonial times many artisans still kept records in the most rudimentary fashion, using long, single-entry columns of numbers to track stock and assets on hand without attempting to compute profits or net worth.92
Revere maintained records of all his silver shop transactions beginning in 1761 using the most advanced techniques of his day. Revere’s earliest system consisted of two layers of recordkeeping: a wastebook and a ledger. The waste-book, also known as a daybook, allowed Revere to track shop activity as it happened: he recorded customer purchases and payments received in chronological order, with a “D” (for debit) next to purchases and a “C” (for credit, or “contra”) next to payments received. Each entry contained the name of the customer and the value of the transaction, initially using the British system of pounds, shillings, and pence, with a switch to dollars in the 1790s. Revere subdivided many customer purchases based on the different components of the item: for example, he listed the value of silver on one line, a charge for his labor on the next (titled “To the making”), and charges for special work such as engraving on a third line. He periodically transferred wastebook entries into ledgers, separate books that collected all purchases and payments made by each customer. His ledgers used the “double entry” accounting system, listing all debits for one customer on the left side of the page and all credits on the right, thereby facilitating an easy comparison of each customer’s indebtedness to Revere. This meticulous notation of all his activities shows that he affixed monetary values to all his items at the time of sale, which placed him slightly ahead of what soon became a widespread bookkeeping practice. At the same time, barter transactions, unexplained cash withdrawals, bizarre abbreviations, and incomplete entries create great confusion in these early ledgers. Revere’s recordkeeping practices improved greatly after the war and he added new techniques, including receipt books, invoices, and bank accounts.
Double entry bookkeeping is a hallmark of capitalism. On the surface it is a practical system because it facilitates error detection: by tracking assets in one column and liabilities in the other, Revere could quickly compute sums to determine if customers paid their bills and whether the bookkeeper recorded entries properly. But double entry accounting also carried a subtle deeper meaning. Separating assets and liabilities into distinct categories brought the concept of profit into the limelight and caused owners to think of the success of their business in the more abstract world of numbers and net worth, instead of relying upon tangible physical assets. By adopting this system, even in a rudimentary form, Revere took a major step into proto-industrial capitalism, and his quantifiable mindset only grew stronger in the years that followed.93
Revere’s recordkeeping techniques fail to shed light on an essential but opaque aspect of early American business, the unsung role of women in the workplace. Families served as the fundamental economic unit in American society, and all members of a family found ways to contribute to its economic and social success, for example, by endorsing each other’s debts or helping to find jobs for relatives. Rural women typically farmed alongside the men while also raising children, cooking, cleaning, and producing household manufactures. In urban settings women took ownership of household upkeep, child care, and food preparation, but might also help in the shop. Revere’s mother, first and second wives, and seven daughters who reached adulthood represented a potential labor force too promising to leave untapped. Although Revere’s records and correspondence failed to discuss the contributions of women, one can assume that his family may have helped with bookkeeping—which would explain occasional changes in handwriting, waited on customers, or even offered technical aid.94
In a surprisingly short time Revere transformed himself from a novice master craftsman struggling to pay his rent into one of the most prolific, versatile, skilled, and reputable silversmiths in Boston. In addition to the numerous clients from wide-ranging walks of life who purchased his silver, Revere’s own family bought some of his work, undoubtedly using the pieces as a conspicuous display of his skill and the family’s material success. Artisan life clearly suited him, but Revere als
o encountered the limitations of his trade as well. In the hierarchical society of colonial America, artisans had a specific and circumscribed role to fill whether they wanted to or not.
Revere’s entire career was in many ways a negotiation between his and society’s view of his work. He developed an intimate awareness of class and hierarchy through close contact with his well-off Hitchborn relatives, service in the militia under the supervision of the British military hierarchy, ongoing interactions with wealthy clients, and membership in organizations that included individuals from different walks of life. He fully understood society’s view of artisans and had frequent glimpses of the vistas that lay beyond his grasp. Even though his own position as a silversmith placed him comfortably above the median, this taste of success only made him wish for more, for the privileges and influence of the gentry. On the other hand, his devotion to his craft and pride in his skills reflects his love for the production process, a lifelong fascination with experimentation and fabrication that must have begun in his apprenticeship. Science, technology, and the discovery and implementation of new processes intrigued him and occupied much of his attention, particularly after the Revolution. He had the ability to succeed as a first-rate craftsman, but could never accept craftwork as the endpoint of his personal or professional journey. The artisan in Copley’s portrait is proud of his nearly finished masterpiece for the time being, but his next challenge is to help others appreciate it as well. Revere’s penetrating gaze transfixes the viewer, not his product.
Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn Page 8
