The Paul Revere House is a historic house museum at 19 North Square in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was once the residence of Paul Revere, an American Patriot and Founding Father, during the American Revolution and late 18th century. The house is operated as a museum by the Paul Revere Memorial Association (PRMA), which owns the property. The Revere House is part of Boston National Historical Park and is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
The house occupies the former site of the Second Church of Boston's parsonage, destroyed by fire in 1676. The Revere House was built no later than 1680; its first owner was Robert Howard, a wealthy slave merchant. His L-shaped house contained exterior features such as a second-floor overhang and casement windows. Revere owned the house between 1770 and 1800. After Revere sold the house, it became a tenement, with its ground floor remodeled for use as shops, and was sold repeatedly in the 19th century. The Revere House was sold in 1902 to one of Revere's descendants, who resold it to the PRMA in 1907. Following a renovation, the house opened in 1908. A visitor center was opened within a nearby pair of houses in 2016.
The main block of the three-story dwelling consists of four structural bays. The second floor of the house protrudes above the street, while the roof contains a gable. The Revere House has a rear extension, typical of houses of the era; this extension also has a second-floor overhang. A third floor was added in the 18th century before being removed in the 1900s renovation. There are two rooms on each floor, which include plasterwork and woodwork decorations, along with architectural details such as fireplaces. The rooms contain several pieces of furniture that belonged to the Revere family.
Site The Paul Revere House is located at 19 North Square in the North End neighborhood of Boston in Massachusetts, United States. Situated on Shawmut Peninsula, the Revere House occupies a landmass that existed prior to the peninsula's expansion via land reclamation. The site was originally about from the waterfront, but land reclamation has since pushed the shoreline to about from the house. The Revere House is on the northwest side of North Square. The land lot includes the Revere House, a courtyard just south of the building (originally the John Barnard House), and the Pierce–Hichborn House. The lot is significantly reduced from its original extent, covering about . Mariners House (11 North Square) is further south on the same block. The Paul Revere House site is a stop on the Freedom Trail, a path connecting historic sites in Boston,; and is the trail's only house. Sequentially, it is between Faneuil Hall and Old North Church.
The house's courtyard is paved in brick with some small plots of greenery. It has a bronze bell manufactured by American Patriot and silversmith Paul Revere, who once lived in the house. When Revere lived there in the late 18th century, the yard had a well, and a path in the rear led to Hanover Street. By the 1980s, period plantings from between the late 17th and late 18th centuries had also been placed in the yard. These included lungwort, pear trees, and johnny jump ups.
The Pierce–Hichborn House is a brick edifice built 1711; it is one of the earliest brick houses in the city. Built by Moses Pierce, it was the onetime residence of Revere's cousin Nathaniel Hichborn and is part of the Paul Revere House museum complex. The Sumner Tunnel runs directly under the lot, passing under the Pierce–Hichborn House. A third house once existed between the Revere and Pierce–Hichborn houses, but was later replaced by a tenement, which itself was demolished. There is also a visitor and education center connected to the house by an elevated walkway; this facility occupies two row houses. These rowhouses, dating from and rising two stories high, carry the address 5–6 Lathrop Place and are alternatively known as the Perkins-Robinson Double Rowhouse. In the late 18th century, the site of these rowhouses had a barn, which sat partially on the lot line.
History Shawmut Peninsula was first settled soon after the town of Boston was established by colonists in 1630. The first recorded owner of the Revere House's site was Bartholomew Bernard, a carpenter. The merchant Anthony Chickly acquired part of the front portion of Bernard's lot in 1663 and constructed a new house there, and Chickly subsequently acquired an adjacent lot in the rear. Chickly sold his property in 1670 to the Second Church in Boston, whose minister Increase Mather lived in the Chickly House until at least 1674. Other family members, including Mather's son Cotton Mather, also lived there. When the Chickly House burned down in the Boston fire on November 27, 1676, Mather moved to a house owned by Captain Thomas Bredon.
Residential use Early owners
The house that is now known as the Paul Revere House was built on the site of Mather's house at some point between 1676 and 1681. The house is sometimes described as being built shortly after the 1676 fire, and several sources give a specific date of 1680. The merchant Robert Howard is the earliest known owner of the house. On November 2, 1681, Howard purchased the property and an existing dwelling from brickmaker Thomas Walker and anchor manufacturer Daniel Turell. Researcher Stephen J. Roper wrote that Walker and Turell became involved in the sale because they were members of the Second Church. As originally configured, the house had an irregular layout because, like many buildings in Boston's North End at the time, the lot line ran at an oblique angle to the street. The second story overhung the sidewalk, and the building had a steep pitched roof and a chimney. The building was relatively large for its time.
The house was becoming outdated by the early 18th century, when brick houses were built elsewhere in the city. Howard bought two adjoining parcels in the 1680s and took three mortgages on the properties between 1714 and 1716. Early in the house's history, a rear ell was added to the house, giving the house an L-shaped floor plan; the ell ran along the oblique lot line. Howard died in 1717, but ownership remained in the Howard family for over two decades. He bequeathed the house to Elizabeth, his widow, who seems to have passed ownership to their daughter Sarah Wyborn. In 1741, Wyborn sold the house to a sailor, Andrew Knox. Knox lived there until his death in 1752, after which his son Andrew Jr. took ownership. John Erving then placed a mortgage loan on the house. When Andrew Jr. was unable to pay the mortgage in 1763, Erving took ownership and rented out the house to Andrew. At some point in the 1760s, the oak beams in the house were covered with a molding designed in the American colonial style.
Revere family
Paul Revere acquired the house at 21 North Square on January 13, 1770, obtaining the deed from John Erving. The property cost just over 213 Massachusetts pounds, a significant expense for Revere. At the time, he was a lower-middle-income craftsman who earned £85 annually and had £20 in savings. Revere took a mortgage on the house, which he later repaid in full. By then, the house had been expanded to three stories, and the rear ell had been extended with the addition of a kitchen. Also, wood-frame buildings such as 21 North Square had fallen out of favor as Bostonians preferred brick houses. Revere was a silversmith and hardware manufacturer. Although he was later known for his involvement in events preceding the American Revolution, Revere could not afford to devote significant time to the Revolution, and his involvement in the Revolution did not become widely publicized until Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "Paul Revere's Ride" was published in 1860.
Revere moved there with his five children and his first wife Sarah, along with his mother. Revere moved his own and his mother's belongings into the house. Most of Revere's remaining children were born there, and as such, many of his new furniture purchases may have included bedroom furnishings. Paul and Sarah Revere had two more children after moving to North Square. When Sarah died in 1773, the family had eight children. Paul married his second wife, Rachel, that year. Paul and Rachel Revere had another seven or eight children while residing at the Revere House. Because the family had to support so many children, they had little disposable income. No more than seven of the Revere children lived at the house simultaneously. Some of Revere's offspring died in childhood, while others moved out. The former third floor, and a lean-to next to the house, helped Revere accommodate his large family. A contemporary deed indicates that Revere also built a barn behind his house, which partially protruded into a neighboring lawn.
On March 6, 1771, for the first anniversary of the Boston Massacre of 1770, Revere hung pictures of the incident from his window. He repeated this for the next several anniversaries of the incident. Revere also participated in the Boston Tea Party protest while living in the house. In 1775, amid the American Revolution, Revere started his midnight ride from the house. The same year, the family evacuated the town during the British Siege of Boston, taking their belongings; the rear barn may have been destroyed at this time. From 1778 onward, five of Revere's daughters and three sons reached adulthood and moved out of the house; this increased Revere's disposable income, since he no longer had to pay their expenses. Revere moved out of the building in May 1780, taking a residence on Charter Street. He first rented the North Square house to the tailor George Defrance, then to the painter Joseph Dunkerly. Revere gave a mortgage on the house to Samuel Hichborn in 1787 or 1788, around the same time that he established a successful foundry.
Revere may have moved back into the North Square house by 1790, but his family's whereabouts during the early 1790s are not well-recorded, and he may have lived elsewhere prior to 1786. Revere finally bought the Charter Street house in 1799 and subsequently moved there. The next year, he sold the North Square house to the trader John Hunting, who owned it for one day. Retrospectively, one observer called the house "the most obvious reminder of Revere in Boston", and another called Revere the house's "greatest claim to fame".
Commercial use Early and mid-19th century The next owner after Hunting was Jonathan Merry, possibly a relative of one of the area's very first settlers, who owned it for about three years. The house and the surrounding of land, including the passageway leading back to Middle Street, were placed for sale in 1803. The merchant John Loring obtained the Revere House that year. Loring likely rented out the house, as indicated by records in 1821, which indicate that someone named James Cawley lived there. By then, the North End was increasingly populated by recent immigrants, and houses in the North End were being converted for tenement use; the neighborhood had also become known as a red-light district. Sailors began using the house as lodging for about three decades beginning in the 1820s.
When Loring died, he bequeathed the house to his daughter Lydia in 1833. Documents show that Lydia also did not live at the house and that she used it purely for real estate investment, renting out the Revere House and splitting up the parcel. In December 1835, two of the rear parcels at 5–6 Lathrop Place were sold to two housewrights: Jonathan Robinson and John Perkins. They built two attached structures there as part of a group of four rowhouses.
Late 19th century