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F
or most Americans, the name Paul Re-
vere conjures up images of the Boston
silversmith’s famous “midnight ride” of
April 18th, 1775, when he galloped through
the towns of Middlesex County, Massachusetts
to warn the colonists of the British troops who
were crossing the Charles River from Boston on
their way to Lexington and Concord to seize a
rebel arms cache, and perhaps, arrest a few of
the nascent revolution’s leaders.
But for the residents of Canton, Massachu-
setts, a town of 21,500, some 15 miles south-
west of downtown Boston, the story of Paul Re-
vere begins much later in the life of the famous
patriot - in fact a good quarter century after his
famous ride. In 1801, at age 65, Revere decided
to move from Boston to Canton to set up a mill
to roll copper sheets, presumably to replace cor-
rosive iron fixtures and plate bottoms on ships
with rustproof copper. The process of plating
Canton, Massachusetts
Home of the Paul Revere Heritage Site
Massachusetts
Canton,