Paul Revere House

Boston's oldest surviving clapboard frame house had been standing for nearly a century when Revere purchased it in 1770, there to raise 16 children with his second wife Rachel and earn his versatile living as a gold- and silversmith, copper engravermaker of church bells and cannon balls and carver of wooden false teeth. Small leaded casement windows and an overhanging upper story are indicators of the dwelling's English Elizabethan influences. The three high-ceilinged rooms contain period artifacts, including original pieces Revere family furniture and items of silver made in his workshop.

After he sold the house in 1800, it became an immigrants' tenement, with shops squeezed onto the ground floor. Led by a great-grandson, preservationists saved the building from demolition. After restoration, this Freedom Trail landmark was reopened in April 1908. Next door, the brick Pierce/Hichborn
House was built in 1711 for Moses Pierce, a glazier and later owned by Nathaniel Hichborn, a wealthy boatbuilder and first cousin of Paul Revere. A veritable mansion, it incorporates many features of English Georgian architectural motifs.