Joseph Warren Revere, so named for General Joseph Warren who was killed
at the battle of Bunker Hill, and with whom his father, Colonel Revere,
had been intimately associated in the uprising of the colonies, was the
third son of Paul and Rachel (Walker) Revere.
[Illustration: Joseph W. Revere & signature]
He was born at his father's house in North Square, Boston, April 30,
1777. His father was absent at the time in the interest of the colony,
and was so constantly occupied in public affairs that he did not return
to take up again a permanent residence with his family until the son was
about three years old.
The son, in 1801, became a partner in business with his father, and so
continued until his father's death in 1818. His mother died June 19,
1813.
He was a Director and the first President of the Company, and continued
to fill these offices until his death, which took place at his summer
home in Canton, after a somewhat lingering illness, October 12, 1868.
Mr. Revere grew up, and was deeply impressed with the stirring events of
the Revolutionary War; the settlements following peace; the adoption of
the Federal Constitution; the administrations of Washington and Adams,
and the final formation of parties which led to the defeat of Adams for
a second term and the election of Jefferson. It is not strange,
therefore, that he was a consistent Federalist, and subsequently
belonged to the old Whig party; that he venerated the worthies of the
republic, Washington, Franklin, and Lafayette, of national renown;
Josiah Quincy, Sam. Adams, and others of the State; and was an admirer
of those who, like Clay and Webster, continued in later years to labor
with the same devotion to the good and glory of a newborn and rising
nation.
His whole character seemed to have been formed of soberer and more
profound elements than in after years were generally recognized as
constituting the prevailing types.
Mr. Revere was one of the original members of the Boston Light Infantry,
whose first parade took place October 18, 1798, under command of Captain
Daniel Sargent; and was the last survivor of the original membership.[6]
His patriotism, inherited from a distinguished father, was pronounced,
and remained unshaken at the advanced age of nearly four-score years and
ten, through the terrible ordeal of parting with two sons killed, one
at Antietam and the other at Gettysburg, while contending for the
existence of a government their grandfather had exerted himself so
grandly in the struggle to establish.
Devoted and affectionate in his domestic relations; thorough, prudent,
and sagacious in business; impatient with meanness and strong in his
resentment of wrong; kind and considerate to those deserving his
confidence; courtly in bearing, while genial and sunny in his familiar
intercourse, he has left for us all a very precious memory. Every
recollection of him is simply delightful.