Samuel Hitchborn (b. 1752) was apprenticed to Paul Revere and became a prosperous silversmith. In 1817 President Monroe visited his home while in Boston. Isannah Hitchborn (b. 1754), married Stephen Bruce.
NOTE: The family name was variously spelled Hitchbourn, Hichborn, Hitchbon, etc.
SOURCE: Patrick M. Leehey, “Reconstructing Paul Revere: An Overview of His Life, Ancestry and Work,” in Nina Zannieri, Patrick M. Leehey, et al., Paul Revere—Artisan, Businessman, and Patriot; The Man Behind the Myth (Boston, 1988), 15—39.
APPENDIX C
Paul Revere’s Revolutionary Rides: Research by Michael Kalin
SOURCES: On Revere’s ride after the Tea Party, Boston diarist John Boyle noted, “Mr. Paul Revere was immediately dispatched express to New-York and Philadelphia with the glorious intelligence,” (“Boyle’s Journal of Occurrences in Boston,” Dec. 16, 1773, NEHGR 84 (1930): 371). He did not actually depart until Dec. 17. Ten days later, Boyle wrote, “Mr. Paul Revere returned from New-York and Philadelphia, performing his journey in a much shorter time than could be expected at this season of the year” (Dec. 27, 1773, ibid., 372). Other documentation is in the diary of Thomas Newell, MHS; and the papers of Samuel Adams, NYPL.
The ride with news of the Boston Port Act is documented in Thomas Young to John Lamb, 1774, Lamb Papers, NYHS; Boston Committee of Correspondence to Philadelphia Committee, May 13, 1774, Cushing ed., Writings of Samuel Adams, II, 109-11; the Essex Gazette, May 30, 1774, noted Revere’s return “on Saturday last [May 28].” Paul Revere’s receipt for reimbursement, dated May 28, 1774, “for a journey to King’s Bridge, New York, 234 miles,” is in the Revere Family Papers, MHS.
The journey to New York in the Summer of 1774 “for calling a Congress is referred to in Paul Revere’s letter to Jeremy Belknap, 1798. He appears to have traveled by sulky; see Paul Revere to John Lamb, Sept. 4, 1774, thanking “Capt. Sears, for his kind care of my horse and sulky,” in Lamb Papers, NYHS.
The trip to the Continental Congress on Sept. 11, 1774, with the Suffolk Resolves is noted in Samuel Adams to Charles Chauncy, Sept. 19, 1774: “last Friday [Sept. 16] Mr. Revere brought us the spirited and patriotick resolves of your county of Suffolk.” Cushing (ed), Writing of Samuel Adams, III, 155. He left Philadelphia on Sept. 18, when Adams noted in his diary, “Wrote many letters to go by Mr. Revere.” William Tudor in Boston noted that Revere was back in Boston “late on Friday evening [Sept. 23]. William Tudor to John Adams, Sept. 17, 26, 1774, Taylor (ed.), Papers of John Adams, II, 166, 174.
Revere departed again for Philadelphia on Sept. 29, 1774. John Adams wrote to his wife on Oct. 7, 1774, “Mr Revere will bring you the doings of the Congress, who are now all around me…” and to William Tudor, on the same day, “I have just time to thank you for your letters by Mr. Revere” (ibid., 187). Revere left Philadelphia about Oct. 11, and was back in Boston before Oct. 19, with the resolves of the Congress (John Andrews to William Barrell, Oct. 19, 1774, Goss, Revere, I, 169).
On the ride to the New Hampshire Congress, see John Wentworth to T. W. Waldron, Jan. 27, 1775, MHSC IV (1891). The journey to Portsmouth, N.H., is documented on p. 381 below; the three trips to Concord and Lexington, on pp. 385 and 386, above.
The “out of doors work” for the Committee of Safety is documented in Revere’s letter to Belknap (1798), and in a bill and receipt for expenses in the Massachusetts Archives, Boston. See also p. 268 above.
The munitions mission is in Robert Morris and John Dickinson to Oswell Eve, Nov. 21, 1775, Smith (ed.), Letters of Delegates to Congress. Revere’s pass, signed by James Otis and dated November 12, 1775, is in the PRMA, and reproduced in Zannieri, Leehey, et al., Paul Revere, 178.
Forbes mistakenly asserts (and Weisberger and others repeat after her) that Revere made his first ride on Nov. 30, 1773. “It was decided that neighboring seaports should be warned that the tea ships might try to unload at their wharves. Paul Revere and five other men were chosen to ride express (Forbes, Revere, 190). In this she is inaccurate. A meeting at Old South voted that six persons “who are used to horses be in readiness to give an alarm in the country towns, where necessary.” They were William Rogers, Jeremiah Belknap, Stephen Hall, Nathaniel Cobbett and Thomas Gooding of Boston, and Benjamin Wood of Charlestown. See Drake, Tea Leaves, xlv.
Forbes also has Revere riding back to Boston after the battle of April 19, 1775. This too is unsupported by evidence.
APPENDIX D
Paul Revere’s Role in the Revolutionary Movement
The structure of Boston’s revolutionary movement, and Paul Revere’s place within it, were very different from recent secondary accounts. Many historians have suggested that this movement was a tightly organized, hierarchical organization, controlled by Samuel Adams and a few other dominant figures. These same interpretations commonly represent Revere as a minor figure who served his social superiors mainly as a messenger.
A very different pattern emerges from the following comparison of seven groups: the Masonic lodge that met at the Green Dragon Tavern; the Loyal Nine, which was the nucleus of the Sons of Liberty; the North Caucus that met at the Salutation Tavern; the Long Room Club in Dassett Alley; the Boston Commitee of Correspondence; the men who are known to have participated in the Boston Tea Party; and Whig leaders on a Tory Enemies List.
A total of 255 men were in one or more of these seven groups. Nobody appeared on all seven lists, or even as many as six. Two men, and only two, were in five groups; they were Joseph Warren and Paul Revere, who were unique in the breadth of their associations.
Other multiple memberships were as follows. Five men (2.0%) appeared in four groups each: Samuel Adams, Nathaniel Barber, Henry Bass, Thomas Chase, and Benjamin Church. Seven men (2.7%) turned up on three lists (James Condy, Moses Grant, Joseph Greenleaf, William Molineux, Edward Proctor, Thomas Urann, and Thomas Young). Twenty-seven individuals (10.6%) were on two lists (John Adams, Nathaniel Appleton, John Avery, Samuel Barrett, Richard Boynton, John Bradford, Ezekiel Cheever, Adam Collson, Samuel Cooper, Thomas Crafts, Caleb Davis, William Dennie, Joseph Eayrs, William Greenleaf, John Hancock, James Otis, Elias Parkman, Samuel Peck, William Powell, John Pulling, Josiah Quincy, Abiel Ruddock, Elisha Story, James Swan, Henry Welles, Oliver Wendell, and John Winthrop). The great majority, 211 of 255 (82.7%), appeared only on a single list. Altogether, 94.1% were in only one or two groups.
This evidence strongly indicates that the revolutionary movement in Boston was more open and pluralist than scholars have believed. It was not a unitary organization, but a loose alliance of many overlapping groups. That structure gave Paul Revere and Joseph Warren a special importance, which came from the multiplicity and range of their alliances.
None of this is meant to deny the preeminence of other men in different roles. Samuel Adams was specially important in managing the Town Meeting, and the machinery of local government, and was much in the public eye. Otis was among its most impassioned orators. John Adams was the penman of the Revolution. John Hancock was its “milch cow,” as a Tory described him. But Revere and Warren moved in more circles than any others. This gave them their special roles as the linchpins of the revolutionary movement—its communicators, coordinators, and organizers of collective effort in the cause of freedom.
The following table does not include all the many associations in Boston that were part of the revolutionary movement. Another list (too long to be included here) survives of 355 Sons of Liberty who met at the Liberty Tree in Dorchester in 1769. Once again, Paul Revere appears on it. There were at least two other Masonic lodges in Boston at various periods before and during the Revolution; Paul Revere is known to have belonged to at least one of them. In addition to the North Caucus, there was also a South Caucus and a Middle Caucus. Paul Revere may or may not have belonged to them as well; some men joined more than one. No definitive lists of members have been found. But it is known that Revere was a member of a committee of five appointed “to wait on the South End caucus and the Caucus in the
middle part of town,” and that he met with them (Goss, Revere, II, 639). Several Boston taverns were also centers of Whig activity. Revere had connections with at least two of them—Cromwell’s Head, and the Bunch of Grapes. The printing office of Benjamin Edes was another favorite rendezvous. In the most graphic description of a gathering there by John Adams, once again Paul Revere was recorded as being present.
In sum, the more we learn about the range and variety of political associations in Boston, the more open, complex and pluralist the revolutionary movement appears, and the more important (and significant) Paul Revere’s role becomes. He was not the dominant or controlling figure. Nobody was in that position. The openness and diversity of the movement were the source of his importance.
APPENDIX E
The British Army in Boston: Order of Battle, April 18, 1775
Commander in Chief and Staff
Lieutenant General the Hon. Thomas Gage (Colonel, 22nd Foot), commander in chief Major General Frederic Haldimand (Colonel commandant, 2nd Battalion, 60th, or Royal
American Regiment), second in command
Col. James Robertson, Barrack Master General
Major Stephen Kemble, Deputy Adjutant General
Major William Shirreff, Deputy Quartermaster General
Lieut. Harry Rooke, 4th foot, Aide de Camp
Capt. Brehm, Aide de Camp
Capt. Oliver De Lancey, 17th Light Dragoons, Aide de Camp
Samuel Kemble, Esqr., Confidential Secretary
1st Brigade
Brigadier: the Rt. Hon. Hugh, Earl Percy (Colonel, 5th Foot)
Brigade Major: Captain Thomas Moncrieffe (59th Foot)
4th Regiment of Foot, or the King’s Own (Lt. Col. George Maddison)
23rd Regiment of Foot, or the Royal Welch Fusiliers (Lt. Col. Benjamin Bernard)
47th Regiment of Foot (Lt. Col. William Nesbitt)
1st Battalion, British Marines (Major John Pitcairn)
2nd Brigade
Brigadier: Robert Pigot (Lt. Col., 38th Foot)
Brigade Major: Captain John Small (21st Foot)
5th Regiment of Foot (Col. the Hon. Hugh Earl Percy)
38th Regiment of Foot (Lt. Col. Robert Pigot)
52nd Regiment of Foot (Lt. Col. Valentine Jones)
3rd Brigade
Brigadier: Valentine Jones (Lt. Col., 52nd Foot)
Brigade Major: Captain Francis Hutchinson (60th, or Royal American Regiment)
10th Regiment of Foot (Lt. Col. Francis Smith)
43rd Regiment of Foot (Lt. Col. George Clerk)
59th Regiment of Foot (Lt. Col. Ortho Hamilton)
18th Regiment of Foot, 3 companies (Capt. John Shea)
65th Regiment of Foot, 2 companies (senior officer unknown)
Troops not brigaded
64th Regiment of Foot (Lt. Col. the Hon, Alexander Leslie)
in garrison, Castle William, Boston harbor
4th Battalion, Royal Regiment of Artillery (Col. Samuel Cleveland)
35 Battery (Capt. William Martin)
38 Battery (Capt. Lt. W. Orcher Huddlestone)
39 Battery (Capt. Anthony Farrington)
42 Battery (Capt. Lt. Robert Fenwick)
British Marines, shipboard detachments (Adm. Samuel Graves)
Royal Engineers (Capt. John Montresor)
SOURCES: Thomas Gage, Distribution of His Majesty’s Forces in America,” July 19, 1775, Gage Correspondence, II, 690; Gage to Richard Rigby, July 8, 1775, with enclosure, “List of General and Staff Officers on the Establishment in North America, from 25th December 1774 to 24th June, 1775,” ibid., II, 687-89; Vincent J.-R. Kehoe, “We Were There!” April 19, 1775 (mimeographed typescript, 1974), vol. I,
11-27; Barker, British in Boston, 9, 11; Mackenzie, Diary, I, 8; Regimental Rosters, Muster Books and Pay Lists, W012/2194-7377, PRO.
APPENDIX F
The British Army in Boston: Returns of Strength, 1775
These returns do not include commissioned officers, sergeants and musicians. The normal complement for an infantry regiment was 1 lieutenant colonel, 1 major, 8 captains, 20 lieutenants, 1 adjutant, 1 quartermaster, 1 surgeon, 1 surgeon’s mate, 1 chaplain (4th and 10th regiment only), 20 sergeants, and 12 fifes and drums. Only corporals and privates were counted in these estimates of “rank and file.” The normal complement of corporals was three to a company at full strength.
APPENDIX G
The Royal Navy in America, January 1, 1775
Admiral Samuel Graves’s “List of the North American Squadron, on the 1st of January 1775”
APPENDIX H
Weather Patterns, April 17-20, 1775
The weather on the day of the battle has been described by historians in contradictory ways. Hudson writes, “All accounts agree that the day was unusually warm for that season of the year” (Lexington, 197). Murdock disagrees. “Contrary to general belief,” he writes, “the 19th of April seems to have been a cold, windy day, with a bright sun … evidently the wind was east” (The Nineteenth of April, 1775, 55). Both of these statements are incorrect.
The New England weather was typically volatile in this period. The 18th of April was wet through the day, followed by rapid clearing at night. Winds were variable, veering from the northeast to the south. The following diary entries were recorded for this day: “rain” by Nathaniel Ames, Dedham; a “fine rain” by Jonas Clarke in Lexington; “rainy most of the day” by Joseph Andrews; “rain a.m. fair towards night by Ebenezer Gay of Suffield, Conn. An anonymous Concord weather diary records “rain” in the morning and “showers” in the afternoon, with a south wind. Jeremy Belknap in Dover, N.H., described the 17th of April as “fair” and “warm,” with small showers in the afternoon and rain with a northeasterly wind at night, and the 18th as “warm rain pm cloudy.”
In the evening and night of April 18 (when the British expedition set off for Concord, and Paul Revere made his midnight ride) clearing followed rapidly. Revere remembered in his letter to Jeremy Belknap that the night was “very pleasant.” Sanderson described it as “a pleasant evening” (Phinney, Lexington 23).
For the 19th of April, the primary evidence of twelve diaries is highly consistent. In Cambridge, Harvard professor John Winthrop took two readings of his thermometer that day. At six o’clock in the morning, he noted that the temperature was 46 degrees, the barometer 29.56 inches and rising, the sky fair, and light winds from the west. At one o’clock in the afternoon, the temperature had risen to 52 degrees, the sky was fair with clouds, and the west wind had freshened. At that point he noted, “battle of Concord will put a stop to observing.” He and his wife Hannah fled for their lives.
Other diarists described the weather that day in the same way. Lexington’s minister Jonas Clarke found a moment to note that the day was “clear.” In Boston, Dr. John Jeffries wrote, “clear and fair, fresh wind at W.” The Rev. William Marrett in Burlington thought the day was “fair, windy and cold.” Paul Litchfield of Scituate described it as “somewhat blustery and cool.” Elizabeth Stiles in Newport, R. L., recorded a temperature of 53 degrees at 11 am, fair skies and the wind from west. Jeremy Belknap, in Dover, N. H., called it “fair, windy, cool, w[est wind].” Ebenezer Gay, in Suffield, Conn., thought the day was “fair, cold.” Dr. Nathaniel Ames, in Dedham described it as “clear.” William Clark in the same town described the day as “fair” with a “strong chilly west wind.” An anonymous weather diary, now in the Concord Free Public Library, described the 19th as “fair with a westerly wind.”
The best secondary account is David Ludlum, “The Weather of Independence,” in The Country Journal New England Weather Book (Boston, 1976), 126-28. Ludlum, editor of the American Meteorological Society’s journal Weatherwise, concludes that “these records indicate that a cold front passed through eastern Massachusetts about noon on April 18, bringing an end to the showery conditions, a shift of wind to the west, a rising barometer, and a rather rapid postfrontal clearing. Visibility was good late in the evening when the signal
lamps were hung.” This is by far the most accurate judgment, but requires amendment in one detail. Some diaries reported showers persisting into the late afternoon of the 18th. After two days of rain, the ground, normally wet in mid-April, was very soft—as one of Paul Revere’s pursuers discovered by experience. The streams were high, as Smith’s British infantry learned the hard way. By all accounts, the day of the battle was crisp, cool, and fair, with a rising westerly wind and fluffy cumulus clouds scudding across bright blue skies.
Late in the day, another storm system moved rapidly through the area, with a red sunset, and later a cold rain that made a miserable night for both the American militia who were “lying on their arms” at Cambridge, and the British Regulars who were sleeping in the open on Bunker Hill.
SOURCES: The Nathaniel Ames Diary and William Clark Diary, Dedham Historical Society; an anonymous weather diary, CFPL; the Winthrop weather diary, Harvard Archives; Jonas Clarke Diary, MHS; diaries of Jeremy Belknap, Ebenezer Gay, Joseph Andrews, and Paul Litchfield, all in MHS. The Marrett Diary is quoted in Frothingham, Siege of Boston, 59, 84n; the Stiles Diary and Jeffries Diary, in Ludlum, The Country Journal New England Weather Book, 127.
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