- Paul Revere's Ride Revisited
Fred Lynch's Drawings of a Changing America - Drawing along the exact route of Paul Revere’s famous ride from Boston to Lexington, Massachusetts (and beyond), Fred Lynch draws landmarks of the past and present, forming a visual essay that explores, documents and reveals history, preservation and change in America.
You can follow along with Fred's project at his blog, Paul Revere's Ride Revisited.
Fred Lynch is an illustrator, artist and professor of Illustration at Montserrat College of Art
and Rhode Island School of Design, his alma mater.
©Fred Lynch All rights reserved. 
The Hancock Clark Parsonage
Lexington, Massachusetts
The It was midnight when Paul Revere arrived at his actual destination on the night of his famous ride: the home of Lexington’s clergyman Jonas Clark. In the house, a short distance from the town’s Common, Colonial rabblerousers John Hancock and Samuel Adams were hiding out, and had been for over a week. Revere (and other riders) had been sent by Colonial leader Dr. Joseph Warren to warn them of oncoming British, and the likelihood of their arrest. Revere knew exactly where to go that night as he had run the route a week earlier.
Arriving in haste from his hour-long ride, he came upon Sergeant William Munroe and about a dozen other Lexington militiamen, who were guarding the house. Munroe didn’t know Revere and when Revere called out, he was ordered to quiet down, because everyone in the house was trying to sleep!
“Noise!” Paul Revere exclaimed, “You’ll have noise enough before long. The Regulars [British] are coming out!”
Parker's Revenge
Lincoln, Massachusetts
Walking the Battle Road on the weekend of Patriots Day, I too, came across a nervous band of patriots and not far from “Parker’s Revenge.” Turns out, it was the modern version of the Lexington Minute Men. I sat on a stone wall and sketched as the leader of the group prepared his men for a reenactment of the famous skirmish scheduled in a short hour’s time.
The commander showed impatience with his rag tag group. He was concerned the coordination of musket fire was sloppy. Over and over they practiced how the two rows of men should fire and reload. He was insistent they get it right before engaging in battle. Captain Parker would be proud.
Pizzeria Regina
Boston, Massachusetts
Paul Revere lived in Boston’s North End, which is now considered the city’s “Little Italy.” Walking the same streets as Revere, one sees an abundance of Italian restaurants, cafés, bakeries and shops. The place gives off an Old World vibe—the streets are narrow, the young people are seductively dressed, the old folks observe from benches and an occasional Vespa buzzes by. Parking is a nightmare.
Off the main drag, but no less a landmark in the North End, is Pizzeria Regina, a small, crowded, noisy restaurant which has attracted locals and and out-of-towners since 1926. The popular restaurant has since grown to a chain of stores throughout the suburbs. Pizza, one of the most popular foods in America, came with immigrants from the area of Naples. It actually exploded in popularity first in the U.S., before it was widely popularized all over Italy, where it was considered a regional dish.
The Paul Revere Restaurant
West Medford, Massachusetts
Founded in 1938, the restaurant places you immediately in a Norman Rockwell painting. The long lunch counter, hard stools, high-backed booths, tin ceiling and even some of the grit are all original, and in the back is a shrine of sorts to the restaurant’s namesake, Paul Revere. On the wall is a big photograph of the original owner, a woman who would find little changed since she left, five owners ago. Further down the wall is a long, framed group photo of the contestants in the 1965 Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City.
This is the kind of place where the old guys go for breakfast or lunch. Cheap and cheerful. Nothing fancy. Never changing. Not retro: original. After drawing, I had the chicken salad club with fries for $6.50. The talk at the lunch counter between the owner and a regular was of the next Boston Bruins game: “I’m going to the game tomorrow night…should be some fights.”
The Jason Russell House
Arlington, Massachusetts
The owner, Jason Russell, was 58 years old and quite lame, barely able to walk. When warned that the British were marching back from Concord and that fighting had commenced, he could not be persuaded to escape harm by fleeing with the rest of his family. “An Englishman’s home is his castle!” he insisted, and he hunkered down with his gun behind a pile of shingles in his yard. (At that time, colonists still considered themselves “Englishmen.”)
Militia from nearby towns joined Russell, taking up positions in his orchard and behind his stone wall. Little did they know that some British troops were flanking them. They were suddenly attacked from behind as well as from the front, and were soon overwhelmed. A group ran into the house to escape gunfire but Russell couldn’t get there. He was killed in his doorway by both bullets and bayonet. The British stormed the house and fought room by room. When Mrs. Russell returned home later that day, she found her husband dead along with 11 other patriots.- By the Landing Marker of Paul Revere
Charlestown, Massachusetts
The USS Constitution, a stone’s throw away from the Revere marker, is certainly worth a visit. The world’s oldest commissioned warship afloat, built in Boston, the Constitution was launched in 1797. It was built to battle with Barbary pirates off the coast of Africa, but gained great fame in the War of 1812 when she defeated four British warships and earned the nickname “Old Ironsides.” The ship was taken out of service in 1855 and is now a museum, owned and maintained by the US Navy. At over 220 feet high at its highest point, it is only one foot shorter than Charlestown’s other most famous site, the Bunker Hill Monument. Both icons influenced the design of Boston’s newest icon, the nearby Zakim Bridge, which combines features of the two.
The less renowned building, which is the focus of this drawing, is referred to as Hoosac Stores 1 & 2. This warehouse was built in 1895 by the Fitchburg Railroad. At the turn of the century, Boston was the nation’s leading importer of wool, and Hoosac docks were where most of that happened. - The Stone Building
East Lexington, Massachusetts
Almost all of the small village of East Lexington is historic. It developed separately from Lexington center where the “shot heard ’round the world” was fired. The early to mid 1800s were its heyday, led by the Robbins Family, who owned a successful fur dressing company producing capes, caps and muffs among other things. They, along with another manufacturer of fur dressings, Ambrose Morell, employed over 300 people at the height of their businesses.
The Robbins family not only brought prosperity to the village but also a worldly perspective. Eli Robbins (1786-1856) was very civic-minded and progressive in spirit. It was he who built Robbins Hall in 1833 as a combination public meeting hall and residence, a place to celebrate freedom of speech. The handsome Greek Revival structure played host to lyceum lectures (educational lectures of the period), religious services and speeches by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Julia Ward Howe and Henry David Thoreau to name a few. Abolitionism and temperance were topics of discussion. - Paul Revere's Change of Direction
Somerville, Massachusetts
Early on in Paul Revere’s ride, as he left Charlestown and rode toward what is now the border with Somerville, he was forced to change course abruptly.
There’s a marker signifying the spot where Paul Revere changed direction. It can be found in a surprising spot: across the street from Royal Pizza & Subs (featured in the drawing) by the doors of a Holiday Inn, at the edge of its parking lot.
The landmark that Revere used to describe where he changed course was quite different from the one outside of the hotel. He wrote that he changed course “nearly opposite where Mark was hung in chains.” That place was certainly a gruesome one.
Mark was one of three slaves who, in 1755, were arrested and tried for the murder of their owner, the Charlestown merchant and former ship captain, John Codman. The three slaves were found guilty and suffered different fates. Mark, 30 years old, was found guilty of the two crimes and was hanged (also at Gallows Hill). His body was then tarred, and gibbeted (hung in chains) for all to see, including Paul Revere, who came close to passing the decayed corpse, still hanging over the street, 25 years after the crime. - The Mystic River is only seven miles long and it’s not very wide. But, it played a large role in American history. The name itself may sound familiar, as it was the title of a popular movie directed by Clint Eastwood and Sean Penn. The movie was an adaptation of the novel by Dennis Lehane, the bestselling Boston author.On his way to Lexington, Paul Revere crossed the Mystic River by way of what is now the Cradock Bridge in Medford. The first bridge built here, in 1637, was a wooden drawbridge: the first toll bridge in New England. It was rebuilt in 1880 and 1909 according to a nearby sign. Plans are currently underway for another upgrade, at an estimated cost of 8.5 million dollars.It was along the Mystic’s banks that Massachusetts’s first ship was built in 1631. It was the first of many. Over 500 clipper ships were built here through the 1800′s, many designed for the China trade.
This area was also known for its rum. Old Medford Rum was popular and advertised as “the best rum in the states”.But most interesting to me, is the connection between this bridge and a song from my childhood: “Over the River and Through the Wood.” The song, which was sung in grade school, was originally written as a poem by Lydia Maria Child, the 1800′s women’s rights activist and abolitionist, who grew up in Medford. In the rolling song, Child describes her Thanksgiving trip to her grandparents house, over an earlier bridge at this same spot.Over the river and thru the wood, To grandfather’s house we go:
The horse knows the way,
To carry the sleigh,
Thru the white and drifted snow, oh!Over the river and thru the wood, Oh, how the wind does blow:
It stings the toes,
And bites the nose,
As over the ground we go.Over the river and thru the wood, To have a first-rate play;
Oh, hear the bell ring,
”Ting-a-ling-ling!”
Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day-ay!
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