Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn

by Robert Martello

  Revere’s pre-Revolutionary silverworking experiences reflected the state of early American manufacturing, a blend of European tradition and New World modification that included hints of the onset of industrial capitalism. The pre-industrial, or “craft,” method of production can be generalized as small-scale operations that depended on personal relationships between owners, workers, and customers to overcome capital, labor, technology, and resource limitations. Revere compensated for his early lack of access to capital by making the most of his connections, which enabled him to draw upon fellow silversmiths while steadily increasing his client base. He liberally combined old and new business and manufacturing methods throughout this period, dealing with craft apprentices and salaried employees, multiple silverworking styles, and a juxtaposition of affordable and luxury items. Above all else, Revere’s early silver years demonstrate his impressive combination of technological and entrepreneurial acumen, which allowed him to identify and exploit new opportunities. This skill proved an essential survival characteristic in colonial Boston’s turbulent society and economy, never more valuable than in the years to follow, when war brought the foundations of Revere’s world crashing down.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Patriot, Soldier, and Handyman of the Revolution (1775–1783)

  In November 1775, Paul Revere visited Philadelphia to learn how to produce gunpowder. He succeeded, but also received a more valuable education in a different subject.

  Following his Midnight Ride, Revere kept busy outside Boston, biding his time in a boardinghouse in Watertown while British troops occupied his hometown. Separated from his silverworking shop, he repeatedly assisted the Patriot cause, but something was missing. Even after earning a position of trust in the organization, as illustrated by the importance of his midnight mission on the 18th of April, leadership positions remained outside his grasp, much to his chagrin. Most recently, the Continental army had denied his petitions for an officer’s commission because he lacked specific military experience and the credentials of a gentleman. The opportunity to study and reproduce a gunpowder mill represented a new chance to prove his worth to the Patriot leaders by performing a service that few others could even attempt.

  The Continental army perpetually faced shortages of weapons, ammunition, and gunpowder. With the British navy intercepting merchant ships and the former colonies struggling against a century of manufacturing dependence, the Patriots took desperate measures to keep their army in the field. The Massachusetts Provincial Congress dispatched Revere to a Philadelphia gunpowder mill in hopes that he could establish a similar facility in Massachusetts. Revere carried an official letter from influential congressional delegates Robert Morris and John Dickinson to mill owner Oswell Eve, assuring him that “A Powder Mill in New England cannot in the least degree affect your Manufacture nor be of any disadvantage to you. Therefore these Gentn & myself hope You will Chearfully & from Public Spirited Motives give Mr. Revere such information as will inable him to Conduct the bussiness on his return home . . . P.S. Mr. Revere will desire to see the Construction of your Mill & I hope you will gratify him in that point.”1

  At last, Revere could exercise authority and contribute to the military effort by providing a unique service, backed by the full authority of the Continental Congress. Unfortunately, Oswell Eve chose not to cooperate. Eve grudgingly took him on a quick walking tour of the factory but refused to give him a diagram of its layout unless Revere paid a tremendous bribe. We can imagine Revere’s frustration and perhaps even his shock as he wondered why his vital mission and wonderful letter received such a harsh reception. Patriotism meant nothing to Eve, who only cared about maintaining his advantageous monopoly. Secrecy was the basis of his power.

  But power flows in many directions. Revere’s brief factory tour still provided him with a basic understanding of the shop’s layout, and he shrewdly observed enough details of the gunpowder production process to begin his designs. Patriot leader Samuel Adams brought his own networking skills to bear, obtaining a set of plans for a different gunpowder mill from a “New York gentleman.”2 Between his personal observations and these borrowed plans, Revere helped design a new mill soon constructed in Stoughton, Massachusetts. In this case, true power did not lie in secrecy, but rather in the allied network of innovators, politicians, and influential people who worked together to pool their expertise and solve common problems. This lesson served Revere well.

  Revere’s period of patriotic service, including his famous Midnight Ride and other resistance activities in the years before the Revolution, his brief time in the Massachusetts militia, and the numerous technological endeavors he undertook on behalf of the Revolutionary leadership, served as the true turning point of his career. These activities increasingly pulled Revere away from his primary vocation and forced him to reevaluate his career goals, particularly in light of his frequent interactions with political leaders. The Revolution also provided several clues about the structure of American society, clues that eventually helped him identify his assets and liabilities. Revolutionary America’s social, economic, and political upheaval gave rise to an overlap between the older system of patronage-driven hierarchy and the emerging democratic meritocracy. Revere’s diverse wartime experiences, including his successful technical endeavors, his failed military career, and his multifaceted patriotic efforts, taught him the importance of operating in both of these worlds: his networking abilities paid respect to the existing hierarchy and opened doors, while his practical technical and managerial abilities allowed him to solve problems and make the most of his opportunities. As a successful artisan, Revere often took on an intermediary social and political role that, if he could play his cards correctly, might lead to grander things.

  Patriot Resistance and the Role of Artisans

  Throughout his colonial silverworking career, Revere participated in an increasingly important series of Patriot activities that brought him in contact with Revolutionaries who ranged from the poorest laborers to some of Boston’s most elite lawyers and merchants. Revere’s metallurgical and patriotic activities influenced each other. Although the Revolution frequently disrupted his silver operations by taking him away from the shop or disturbing the local economy, at the same time he steadily increased his social responsibilities, reputation, and network of potential patrons by growing closer to fellow Patriots. Silverworking influenced his patriotic exploits in return, because his career perfectly situated him for the role he played in America’s Revolution. Although Revere achieved an unusual degree of prominence in the Revolutionary movement, his experiences and goals paralleled those of many artisans across the colonies who parlayed the conflict with England into a valuable opportunity for social advancement and public participation.

  At the close of the French and Indian War in 1763, Revere had no inkling of the impending tide of resistance and revolution that would soon overtake his nation and his own life. America’s pride in Britain’s victory and its hopes for a peaceful, prosperous future gradually receded in light of a series of ominous developments. Both England and America suffered from depressed economic conditions when the end of wartime spending produced cash and credit shortages. Many merchants, artisans, and farmers fell into debt or even bankruptcy during this period, mirroring the staggering sums owed by the British government to the many creditors who had helped finance the war.3 Britain’s postwar regulation of its American colonies included new policies prohibiting colonial westward expansion into Indian-controlled lands, as well as increased efforts to raise colonial taxes that could help pay the ongoing costs of supporting a North American army. Parliament passed the Sugar and Stamp Acts in the mid-1760s in order to raise revenue: the Sugar Act taxed colonial imports and the Stamp Act required the purchase of tax stamps on most colonial printed items. Instead of raising revenue, these acts raised hell.

  Even though the American colonies had a long and scandalous history of dodging customs duties, the shift in the 1760s from evasion to outright and wide
spread opposition represented a bold change that frightened many observers. Hindsight casts the colonial resistance movement in a deceptive light: far from being an irresistible force, colonial attempts at resistance to parliamentary acts began in a disorganized manner and faced colossal impediments. The divided American colonies lacked a common cause or political identity at first, and the majority of colonists looked to town authorities or occasionally to colonial capitals for leadership. While some colonists, particularly merchants or larger landowners, began interacting with counterparts in other colonies by the late eighteenth century, intercolonial trade remained minimal and most economies operated on local scales.4 But in spite of prevailing isolationist tendencies, the colonists shared their British heritage and culture, which included common legal systems, traditions, and the widespread belief in America’s untapped economic potential. In addition, the timing of the Anglo-American consumer revolution around the mid-eighteenth century helped align the experiences and expectations of many would-be Patriots. Most families at this time, regardless of their social or economic status, began acquiring inexpensive, high-quality British manufactured goods that made their lives more comfortable. American imports of British merchandise increased each year, and some colonists—such as Revere and other artisans who viewed cheap foreign goods as threatening competition—began connecting imports to American dependence and British oppression. Consumers in many colonies developed a strong distaste for further parliamentary attempts to exacerbate the disparity between the mother country and its periphery. Sugar and Stamp Act taxation fell immediately into this category and gave many colonists another reason to identify with one another and unite against England.5

  During the early years of colonial resistance to British taxation policies, Americans forged connections that began to cross geographical, social, and economic lines. Colonists during the resistance period saw foreign taxes as dangerous to liberty. The Stamp Act proved particularly incendiary because it attempted to pose an “internal” tax, or a tax on individual purchases for the purpose of extracting revenue from the colonies, rather than a less controversial “external” tax levying duties on trade for the benefit of all constituents of the empire. By targeting document users such as lawyers, merchants, and newspaper publishers, the Stamp Act inadvertently antagonized a literate and highly influential segment of colonial society, uniting certain master craftsmen, professionals, and merchants. This broad array of actors produced an equally varied set of responses, including ideological opposition, mob intimidation, and some of the earliest organized boycott activities in world history. Colonial rhetoric questioned Parliament’s right to levy any tax upon British citizens against their will, and in May 1765 the Virginia House of Burgesses became the first official group to publicly protest the Stamp Act while more broadly attacking Parliament’s right to tax the colonies. Before the end of the year, legislatures in eight other colonies had passed similar resolutions.6

  In Boston, following news of Virginia’s action, a small group called the Loyal Nine initiated more dramatic resistance methods. The Loyal Nine primarily consisted of middle-class working men, including lesser merchants, distillers, braziers, and a printer. Using their connections to laborers’ organizations, they guided the activities of Boston’s North End and South End workingmen mobs. The mob produced rapid and dramatic results: it nearly leveled the professional and personal residences of designated stamp collector Andrew Oliver on August 14, secured his promised resignation the next day, and ravaged the house of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson eleven days later. Throughout this ordeal the sheriff and all other authorities proved powerless in the face of the multitude, an instructive development for would-be Patriots in other colonies who also started using force or the threat of force to persuade stamp collectors to resign. By December 1766, the Loyal Nine rechristened themselves the Sons of Liberty. This larger organization soon had branches in many other colonies, and generally consisted of respectable men in good standing in their communities. The Sons of Liberty gained influence with shocking rapidity: according to Thomas Hutchinson in 1766, “the authority of every colony is in the hands of the sons of liberty.”7 Paul Revere counted himself a member of this organization, and greatly benefited from the connections he formed with other members.

  The Stamp Act struggle initiated a significant change in the membership and operations of the colonial resistance movement. Throughout most of the colonial period, artisans did not take on social leadership roles or collectively attempt to change policies. For the first time during the resistance period, agency started shifting from gentlemen to the prominent, influential, and growing middle class, including the large number of master artisans who joined Revolutionary organizations such as the Sons of Liberty.8 Evolving relationships between social classes led to interesting politics, to say the least. Artisans grew more forceful in the pursuit of common goals and interests, beginning with their support for an egalitarian meritocracy. Proud of the societal value of their skills, artisans felt entitled to community respect and a role in public policymaking. Artisans in the 1760s and 1770s, in their efforts to join and lead resistance activities, asserted their right to advocate for themselves and hold public office in spite of, and even because of, the fact that they worked for a living. Gentleman officeholders found these suggestions threatening and resented the implication that members of the lowlier trades might make diplomatic or legal decisions. Some artisans, in turn, resented merchants for their role in importing British goods, accusing these merchants of placing profit over patriotism. In spite of these ideological differences, resistance groups exercised incredible restraint, avoided destructive dissent between their constituents, and minimized their use of violent public actions. Organizations such as committees of correspondence and the ever-growing Sons of Liberty gradually took on more leadership functions in a strategic manner that involved members from different societal groups.9

  The Sons of Liberty, and Patriots in general, won an important victory when Parliament repealed the Sugar and Stamp Acts in 1766.10 Following the resolution of this crisis, the remainder of the 1760s and early 1770s offered periods of cooling patriotic fervor punctuated by new conflicts that helped solidify the resistance movement. The British Parliament continued inciting the colonists, starting with the Townshend Revenue Acts of 1767, which raised new duties on colonial imports, and culminating with the Tea Act of 1773, which began the countdown to war. The situation grew uglier as British troops lodged themselves in various towns, particularly Boston, which had the dubious honor of hosting two regiments as early as 1768. Colonial resentment arose over what appeared to be a foreign occupying force in their towns, and injury added to insult when these soldiers competed with local laborers for hard-to-find hired work. Physical confrontations intensified during most of this period, peaking in 1770 when a small group of British soldiers triggered the “Boston Massacre” by firing into a huge mob of hostile colonists, killing five. Ideological resistance also increased at this time, with colonial assemblies and individuals such as John Dickinson, author of the highly influential “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania,” protesting Parliament’s right to legislate without colonial consent.

  The American resistance movement became the first to employ the voluntary consumer boycott strategy, using the market to punish Britain’s economy. Patriotic non-importation associations encouraged, and in many cases forced, colonial merchants to boycott British goods, producing impressive reductions in import levels while also greatly increasing the quantity of home manufactures. The production of native goods such as homespun clothing became imbued with moral values such as industry, frugality, and independence.11 Artisans, already enjoying greater political influence through their membership in resistance organizations, played a crucial role in supporting and enforcing the non-importation agreement. By the later days of the resistance, artisans effectively took action against rogue or Loyalist merchants who attempted to escape the non-importation movement and increased
their political influence in certain cities and towns. Artisans and other pro-manufacturing members of the resistance movement took this opportunity to expand the scale of their goals: instead of simply wishing to overturn unfriendly legislation and restore the pre-1765 status quo, the non-importation movement now attempted to foster an economic climate more favorable to colonial interests, such as manufacturing. Non-importation opposed British taxation while improving artisans’ ability to compete.12

  Colonial resistance measures did not produce a dramatic shift in British policy but did impact the mother country, and by 1770 the new ministry repealed the Townshend duties for economic reasons, retaining only a token tax on tea. Tea became anything other than token in 1773, when Parliament passed a new Tea Act that granted the East India Company a favorable tea monopoly in the colonies. Not surprisingly, this infringement on colonial autonomy provoked a new round of protests that culminated on December 16, 1773, when angry Bostonians—including many artisans and Sons of Liberty—dumped ninety thousand pounds of tea into the harbor to protest Britain’s attempts to raise taxes again. The Boston Tea Party marked a point of no return in the relationship between colonies and mother country. The next few years witnessed passage of the Coercive Acts (or, as they were more colorfully known in the colonies, the Intolerable Acts) intended to punish Boston by closing its port, revising the Massachusetts charter to minimize the role of popularly elected officials, shifting certain judicial hearings from Massachusetts to Britain, and making it easier to quarter troops in the colonies.

  Boston became the primary stage of colonial resistance rhetoric and activity in these turbulent times, hosting the earliest mob protests, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, two regiments of British troops, and eventually the start of the Revolutionary War. Britain’s repressive actions had a particularly incendiary impact in Boston because of its long tradition of public participation in government. Any adult male with an estate valued at more than 20 pounds could vote at the Town Meeting, a local government institution loved by the people. Town Meetings often operated by seeking consensus rather than giving rise to conflicts, although much of this consensus came about through negotiated “behind the scenes” arrangements between groups such as the North End Caucus, which discussed and resolved pressing issues prior to the actual Town Meeting. This strong tradition of communal decision making partially explains why Boston artisans deferred to merchants far longer than the artisan committees in Philadelphia and New York. Boston artisans might not sway Town Meetings or hold prestigious offices in the same manner as merchants or professionals, but their voices and votes carried critical weight in important community matters.13