Born in the North End of Boston, Revere eventually became a prosperous and prominent Bostonian, deriving his income from silversmithing and engraving.

[4] By the time he married Deborah Hitchborn, a member of a long-standing Boston family that owned a small shipping wharf, in 1729, Rivoire had anglicized his name to Paul Revere.

[18] To help make ends meet he even took up dentistry, a skill set he was taught by a practicing surgeon who lodged at a friend's house.

[32] Revere and Warren, as members of the informal North End Caucus, organized a watch over the Dartmouth to prevent the unloading of the tea.

Governor Gage also closed the port of Boston and all over the city forced private citizens to quarter (provide lodging for) soldiers in their homes.

[N 2] During this time, Revere and a group of 30 "mechanics" began meeting in secret at his favorite haunt, the Green Dragon, to coordinate the gathering and dissemination of intelligence by "watching the Movements of British Soldiers".

[37] Around this time Revere regularly contributed politically charged engravings to the recently founded Patriot monthly, Royal American Magazine.

[39] Although the rumors were false, his ride sparked a rebel success by provoking locals to raid Fort William and Mary, defended by just six soldiers, for its gunpowder supply.

[40] Paul Revere's midnight ride was an alert given to minutemen in the Province of Massachusetts Bay by local Patriots on the night of April 18, 1775, warning them of the approach of British Army troops prior to the battles of Lexington and Concord.

In the preceding weeks, Patriots in the region gained wind of a planned crackdown on the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, then based in Concord, by the British occupational authorities in the colony.

Sons of Liberty members Paul Revere and William Dawes prepared the alert, which began when Robert Newman, the sexton of Boston's Old North Church, used a lantern signal to warn colonists in Charlestown of the British Army's advance by way of the Charles River.

Revere and Dawes then rode to meet John Hancock and Samuel Adams in Lexington, ten miles away, alerting up to 40 other Patriot riders along the way.

[43] Since there was a desperate shortage of gunpowder, the provincial congress decided in November 1775 to send him to Philadelphia to study the working of the only powder mill in the colonies, in the hopes that he might be able to build a second one in Massachusetts.

On March 21, 1776, several days after the British army left Boston, Revere, Warren's brothers, and a few friends went to the battlefield and found a grave containing two bodies.

[53] He applied his engineering skills to maintaining the fort's armaments, even designing and building a caliper to accurately measure cannonballs and cannon bore holes.

[57] In August 1778 Revere's regiment served in a combined Franco-American expedition whose objective was to capture the British base at Newport, Rhode Island.

[59] The attempt was abandoned by the French when their fleet was scattered in a storm, and Revere's regiment returned to Boston before the British sortied from Newport to force the Battle of Rhode Island.

At one point Brigadier General Peleg Wadsworth ordered Revere to send his barge in an attempt to recover a ship drifting toward the enemy position.

[71] While Revere struggled as a merchant, his success as a silversmith enabled him to pursue and leverage more advanced technological developments for the purposes of mass production.

[74] Revere's increased efficiency left financial and human resources available for the exploration of other products, which was essential to overcoming the fluctuating post-war economic climate.

By 1788 he had invested some of the profits from his growing silverworking trade to construct a large furnace, which would allow him to work with larger quantities of metals at higher temperatures.

"Revere's rapid foundry success resulted from fortuitous timing, innate technical aptitude, thorough research, and the casting experience he gained from silverworking.

In his earlier days, Revere primarily utilized the apprenticeship model standard for artisan shops at this time, but as his business expanded he hired employees (wage laborers) to work for his foundry.

Many manufacturers of the era found this transition from master to employer difficult because many employees at the onset of the Industrial Revolution identified themselves as skilled workers, and thus wanted to be treated with the respect and autonomy accorded to artisans.

[81] After mastering the iron casting process and realizing substantial profits from this new product line, Revere identified a burgeoning market for church bells in the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening that followed the war.

Although the government often had trouble paying him on time, its large orders inspired him to deepen his contracting and seek additional product lines of interest to the military.

[83] By 1795, a growing percentage of his foundry's business came from a new product, copper bolts, spikes, and other fittings that he sold to merchants and the Boston naval yard for ship construction.

[85] To achieve the beginnings of standardization, Revere used identical molds for casting, especially in the fabrication of mass-produced items such as stoves, ovens, frames, and chimney backs.

[90] During his tenure, Revere, along with Governor Samuel Adams and Deputy Grand Master, Colonel William Scollay, deposited a box containing an assemblage of commemorative items under the cornerstone of the Massachusetts State House on July 4, 1795.

In episode 8 of the 2nd season of the US TV show The West Wing (1999–2006), Paul Revere is named as the manufacturer of president Bartlet's knife-set he presents to Charlie, his personal aide.