Paul Revere's Midnight Ride: Boston to Concord

About ten o'clock on the evening of 18 April 1775, Dr. Joseph Warren sent for Revere in great haste. Revere had ridden to Lexington only the Sunday before, to see Hancock and Adams. William Dawes was taking the land route out over Boston Neck. Revere went home for his boots and overcoat and set out. The house he left is at 19 North Square, built no later than 1680; he owned it from 1770 to 1800, and it is now a museum.

Visitor guidance: The Paul Revere House is a museum at 19 North Square.

Revere had agreed a signal with Colonel Conant and other friends in Charlestown: two lanterns in the North Church steeple if the British went out by water, one if by land. He asked a friend to hang them. Credit is divided between the sexton Robert Newman and the sea captain John Pulling. Two lanterns went up and came down within two minutes. They were meant for Charlestown; Longfellow's poem wrongly has Revere watching them himself. One original lantern survives at the Concord Museum.

Visitor guidance: Old North Church, built in 1723, is the oldest standing church in Boston.

Two friends rowed Revere across the Charles River, a little to the east of the warship Somerset. The tide was young flood and the moon was rising. They landed him on the Charlestown side, which in his 1775 deposition he places near Charlestown Battery. In town he met Colonel Conant and others, who said they had seen the signals. Then he got a horse from Deacon Larkin. The Navy Yard that fills this shore today may be the landing site.

Location precision: Revere says only "near Charlestown Battery"; the pin marks the Navy Yard, which may have been his landing site.

Visitor guidance: The Charlestown Navy Yard is part of the National Park Service; USS Constitution is docked there.

Revere set off at about eleven on a very good horse. Richard Devens had told him he had passed mounted, armed British officers on the road: ten in the 1798 letter, nine in the 1775 deposition. Past Charlestown Neck, Revere saw two men on horseback under a tree. He turned his horse quickly, galloped back toward the neck and pushed on for the Medford road. The officer chasing him got stuck in a clay pond.

Location precision: Revere places the ambush only beyond Charlestown Neck, under a tree; the pin marks Sullivan Square, where the roads to Medford and Cambridge fan out.

Revere took the Medford road and crossed the bridge, then went on toward Menotomy. In Medford, in his own words, he "awaked the Captain of the Minute men", and after that he alarmed almost every house until he reached Lexington. The captain was Isaac Hall, and his house in Medford Square is listed as one of Revere's stops. The ride followed Main Street and High Street through Medford Square; a re-enactment is held there every year.

Location precision: Revere's letter does not name the captain's house; the pin marks the Isaac Hall House, which is listed as one of his stops.

Revere found Hancock and Adams at the Rev. Mr. Clarke's house and told them his errand. After about half an hour Dawes arrived, and the two set off for Concord, overtaken on the road by a young doctor, Samuel Prescott, whom Revere found to be "a high Son of Liberty". They believed the British force was too large merely to arrest two men and that Concord was its main target. The house, built in 1738, was moved across the street in 1896 and back to its original site in 1974.

Visitor guidance: The Hancock-Clarke House is a museum run by the Lexington Historical Society.

At around 1:30 am, in Lincoln, a British patrol stopped the three riders. Six officers ordered Revere to dismount. Prescott jumped his horse over a low stone wall and got away to Concord, and Dawes turned around and fled. Major Mitchell clapped a pistol to Revere's head. Revere told his captors the country was alarmed all the way up. The patrol took him back toward Lexington.

Location precision: Revere describes only a pasture and a wood; the pin marks the commemorative plaque beside the Battle Road.

Visitor guidance: A plaque marks the site beside the Battle Road in Minute Man National Historical Park.

Revere's captors rode toward Lexington until the militia fired a volley that visibly alarmed them. A sergeant took Revere's horse, and he was released. He went back to the tavern with a companion for Hancock's trunk of papers, passing through about fifty militia. In his deposition he heard the order to let the troops pass and not molest them. A gun went off, the troops gave a great shout, ran a few paces, and the whole line fired.

Visitor guidance: The Battle Green is a public park; a statue of Captain John Parker stands on it.

Revere never got to Concord. Samuel Prescott was the only rider of the three who did. In Concord he gave word to the sentry, and the First Parish church bell was rung to alert the town. Hearing his news, the townspeople decided to move the remaining stores to nearby towns. Later that morning about 400 provincial minutemen and militia engaged roughly 90 British troops at the North Bridge, the moment Emerson called the "shot heard round the world".

Location precision: The sources do not say where in Concord Prescott first gave the alarm; the pin marks the North Bridge, the town's best-known site of that day.

Visitor guidance: The footbridge is a 1956 replica, part of the North Bridge unit of Minute Man National Historical Park.