Paul Revere and Sam Adams

Posted by bronson Thu, 25 May 2006 21:48:00 GMT

My dad visited during the brief respite between Mammoth and Aruba. We took the Freedom Trail tour from the Common to Fanueil Hall, then continued on our own up to Bunker Hill. Our tour guide was entertaining and undid some of the damage caused by taking US history class in the 80s. For instance, Longfellow’s poem (“Listen my children and you shall hear; Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere…”) makes better Yankee propaganda than any sort of historical account.

The Wikipedia article is pretty good but doesn’t go on to describe how Revere and Dawes went drinking later that night and then were captured by the British. It’s a great story. Both Revere and Dawes wrote about that night first-hand in their memoirs, so why can I find 14,300 copies of Longfellow’s poem online but not a single copy of either man’s actual writings?

I think that Longfellow’s poem actually does Revere a disservice. Revere created the communication system that organized the colonial militia and was instrumental in defeating the British. He forged the bolts and plating used to construct The U.S.S. Constitution. He was influential in starting the United States’s industrial economy. He was an an amazing American. It’s a shame that everybody knows him for something that he didn’t really do.


J.S. Copley’s portrait of Paul Revere wearing American linen and holding a silver teapot that he made.	His hairline has changed and he’s holding a beer stein but why is Paul Revere’s picture on the Samuel Adams label?	Because this is Samuel Adams. In fact, this picture probably rather optimistic. Adams was said to be fatter and uglier.

Samuel Adams inherited the family brewery in 1748 and, mostly though incompetence and neglect, finally drove it out of business in 1764. He was a great patriot and revolutionary but a poor brewer.

So the picture is a little less than legit. And the name. So what? What about the beer?

Microbrewers tend to regard Jim Koch (creator of Sam Adams) as a wife regards a mistress: while they built breweries from scratch, he contract-brewed his beer in idle capacity at large industrial plants, then labeled it “microbrewed.” Not having to invest money in a brewery allowed him to spend more on advertising. “Samuel Adams is a marketing shell,” says Kurt Widmer. – Portland Weekly

The new, more festive label!

A few weeks ago, Cassie and I toured the local Sam Adams “brewery”. It’s small and cheesy because they don’t actually brew any significant amount of beer here. Most of the Sam Adams drunk on the East Coast is brewed at Anheuser-Busch’s St. Louis plant. Even the gift shop was devoid anything tasteful to buy. The best thing about the tour? 21 oz of beer at the end.

Ah well. I always did like Sierra better.

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