Revering Paul Revere and His Famous Ride
April 18, 2025 | Washington, D.C.
by Anne Schlafly, Executive Director, Eagle Forum
The overnight of April 18, 2025, is the 250th anniversary of this famous event that all of us should remember and celebrate this year:
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five.
It seems like no one today remembers this important date. Only six states celebrate the anniversary of Paul Revere’s Ride: Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. Some of those states observe the holiday on the third Monday of April; others use the actual date: April 19.
Let us remember the purpose of this important date and celebrate the heroes. April 19, 1775, was the opening battle of our fight for independence. Next year will mark our 250th birthday on July 4, 2026.
So what did happen 250 years ago today? The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow explains:
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height,
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
Then, Paul Revere, carrying the fate of a nation, started his ride to alert Americans in the communities of Lexington and Concord to the threat of invasion by the British redcoats.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
Revere’s ride was a success and the brave Americans defended their homeland. Do you know the rest of the story?
You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
Let us all echo the cries of liberty! My wedding anniversary is April 19; I am proud to share this important day with Paul Revere and our Revolutionary War heroes.
Anne Schlafly is Chairman of Eagle Forum and has served on Eagle Forum boards of directors since 2008. She is the daughter of Eagle Forum’s founder, Phyllis Schlafly.