Paul Revere

Paul Revere was a North End silversmith and engraver who carried messages for the Sons of Liberty. On the night of April 18, 1775, he rode out to warn that British troops were marching on Lexington and Concord, and was captured before he reached Concord. He became a legend only in 1861, when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem made the ride famous.

The rest of his life is the bigger story. He cast church bells, and the one in King's Chapel is his largest; his copper company sheathed the dome of the Massachusetts State House in 1802. His house in North Square, built around 1680, is the oldest surviving residence in downtown Boston. Go in the morning, when the rooms are least crowded, then walk to the Old North Church where the lanterns were hung.