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Primary sourceArtifactc. 1680

Paul Revere House

c. 1680

The c. 1680 Boston house Revere owned from 1770, from which he set out on his famous ride; now a museum.

Revere owned and lived in this house, setting out from it on the night of his famous ride.

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Exterior front view of a two-story wooden clapboard house with a shingled gabled roof, diamond-paned leaded windows, and a stone foundation. A brick chimney rises at the right, and a dark wooden door with a metal grate is on the ground floor.
Paul Revere House, Boston, built c. 1680.

About this source

What it is

This wooden house in Boston's North End was built no later than 1680. Paul Revere owned and lived in it from 1770 to 1800. It is now a museum run by the Paul Revere Memorial Association and is a stop on Boston's Freedom Trail.

Why it matters

As the oldest surviving building in downtown Boston, the house gives a direct physical link to Revere's everyday life as a craftsman and Patriot, and to the night he set out to warn colonial militias of British troop movements. Its long history, from an earlier parsonage destroyed by fire to tenement use after Revere sold it, also shows how ordinary buildings change hands and purposes over centuries before being preserved as historic sites.

Look closer

  • What does the house's simple wooden construction tell you about life in colonial Boston?
  • Why do you think this particular building was preserved while others nearby were not?
  • How might the house's various owners and uses over time change what story it tells visitors today?

This artifact is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Paul Revere on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Hand-colored engraving titled 'The Bloody Massacre' showing British redcoat soldiers firing volleys of musket smoke at a crowd in King Street, Boston, with bodies on the ground and a Town House building in the background. Verse text and a caption appear below.Painting

Primary source

The Bloody Massacre

Paul Revere · 1770

Oil portrait of a man with short brown hair in a white linen shirt and dark green vest, resting his right hand against his chin. His left hand holds a polished silver teapot on a round wooden stand. Tools lie on the dark wooden table in front of him against a black background.Painting

Primary source

Portrait of Paul Revere

John Singleton Copley · 1768

A large polished silver punch bowl on a glass pedestal in a museum gallery, with engraved inscription and scrolling decoration around its outer rim. Behind it hang gilt-framed portraits on gray walls, including a man in a white shirt and dark waistcoat resting his hand on his chin beside a teapot, and a display case holding silver pieces.Artifact

Primary source

Sons of Liberty Bowl

Paul Revere · 1768

Scanned page 27 of an 1861 magazine, headed 'Paul Revere's Ride', showing the poem's title and opening stanzas in two columns of printed text, with prose from the preceding article above.Book

Secondary source

Paul Revere's Ride

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · 1860

Oil portrait of an elderly man with white hair, shown from the chest up against a dark background. He wears a black coat and a white cravat, and his face is turned slightly to the right, looking toward the viewer.Painting

Primary source

Portrait of Paul Revere by Gilbert Stuart

Gilbert Stuart · 1813

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