Paul Revere House

Paul Revere House
National Register of Historic Places
National Historic Landmark
Street view
location	Boston , Massachusetts
Coordinates	42 ° 21 '49.4 "  N , 71 ° 3' 13.2"  W Coordinates: 42 ° 21 '49.4 "  N , 71 ° 3' 13.2"  W.
Built	circa 1680
architect	John Steffs
NRHP number	66000785
Data
The NRHP added	October 15, 1966
Declared as an  NHL	January 20, 1961

The Paul Revere House is at the address 19 North Square in the city of Boston in the state of Massachusetts of the United States . It was built in 1680 and is the colonial house of the American freedom fighter Paul Revere . Today it is a non-profit museum of the Paul Revere Memorial Association , which can be visited for a fee. The house is part of the Boston Freedom Trail .

history

Photograph of the Paul Revere House, ca.1898

Side view of the Paul Revere House

The three-story house was built around 1680 on the site of the Second Church of Boston parsonage , where Increase Mather and Cotton Mather had lived. However, this was destroyed during the great fire in 1676. The first owner of the new building was the wealthy merchant Robert Howard. The L-shaped townhouse offered generous spaces and was further enhanced by external features such as an overhanging first floor and casement windows .

As was typical of the early wooden structures in the newly populated Massachusetts Bay , the main body of the three-story house consisted of four structural travées delimited by heavy support beams and cross members. The largest room on the ground floor of this part of the building was dominated by a fireplace and the adjoining passage to the foyer . Although the kitchen was housed in a separate part of the building in some Boston houses from this era, the two-story extension behind the Paul Revere House is still a typical feature. Since the house was relatively close to the neighboring buildings, its double casement windows were mounted on the entire rear view of the building instead of the usual placement in a gable .

Two major renovations were carried out on the house in the middle of the 18th century . Initially, the roofline facing the street was raised significantly to bring the house in line with the Georgian architectural style that was very common at the time. This measure was reversed by the restorers in 1907/1908, but without adding a gable again, which led to the widespread misconception that the attic had been removed as part of these measures. The second renovation was the addition of a two-story extension within the corner between the two 17th-century building sections. During the aforementioned restoration, this extension was completely removed.

The silversmith and printer Paul Revere (1735-1818) owned the house from 1770 to 1800, but probably lived elsewhere with his family for a while in the 1780s and 1790s. It is certain that the rear fireplace and kitchen were added during this period (around 1790), which visitors can see in the first room when they enter the house. Revere became famous for the distribution of the colored copper engraving The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th, 1770 based on a design by engraver Henry Pelhams (1748 / 49–1806) showing the so-called massacre of Boston ; in British historiography, the same event is called "Incident on King Street". Revere was also a member of the Sons of Liberty and participated in the Boston Tea Party (1773).

After Revere sold the house, it was converted into a rental home. At the same time, the ground floor was converted for business use. Among other things, a candy shop, a cigar factory, a bank and a vegetable shop were found there at various times. In 1902 John P. Reynolds Jr., Paul Revere's great grandson , bought the house to prevent demolition. The building was then extensively restored under the direction of the architect and curator Joseph Chandler. In April 1908, the house opened its doors to the public as one of the first historic residential museums in the United States.

The Paul Revere House today

Apart from the extensive restoration work that returned the house to its presumed state around 1700, 90% of the structure - including two doors, three window frames and parts of the floor, the foundations and interior walls - have been preserved in the original from 1680. The stained glass windows, however, are more recent. The heavy ceiling beams, the large fireplaces and the lack of interior corridor areas are typical of residential buildings from the colonial era. The two rooms on the upper floor contain some pieces of furniture that, according to current research, were in the possession of the Revere family for a long time.

In the immediate vicinity on the other side of the courtyard is the Pierce-Hichborn House , which was built around 1711 as an early Georgian house and is also operated as a non-profit museum by the Paul Revere Memorial Association .

See also

• List of entries on the National Register of Historic Places in northern Boston
• List of National Historic Landmarks in Boston

literature

• Nina Zannieri: Report From the Field . Not the Same Old Freedom Trail-A View from the Paul Revere House. In: The Public Historian . tape 25 , no. 2 . University of California Press, 2003, ISSN  0272-3433 , OCLC 466096466 , p. 43-53 .

Web links

Commons : Paul Revere House  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• The Paul Revere House. Retrieved November 21, 2011 (English, Paul Revere House official website). 
• Paul Revere House. In: City of Boston.gov. Retrieved November 21, 2011 . 
• Paul Revere House. In: National Park Service . Retrieved November 21, 2011 . 
• Paul Revere House, 19 North Square, Boston, Suffolk, MA. In: Library of Congress . Retrieved on November 21, 2011 (English, database entry with photographs). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Massachusetts. National Park Service , accessed August 12, 2019.