Revere, Massachusetts: The Law That Never Mentions Paul Revere

The 1871 law that turned North Chelsea into Revere, Massachusetts, never says which Revere it means. An 1874 gazetteer does: Paul Revere, the patriot of the midnight ride.

Four short sections

The act is chapter 126 of the state’s laws for 1871, and it fits on part of one page. Section 1 does the work: “The town of North Chelsea shall take the name of Revere.” The rest is about the vote. The change only counted if a majority of the town’s voters, “present and voting thereon by ballot,” accepted it at a special meeting held within ninety days. It was approved on March 24, 1871.

That’s all. No patriot, no ride, no reason given.

Who the name honors

You have to look elsewhere for the why. Elias Nason’s Gazetteer of the State of Massachusetts, published three years later, says the name “was officially changed to Revere March 24, 1871, in honor of the Revolutionary patriot, Paul Revere, whose midnight ride to Concord Mr. Longfellow has made the subject of a beautiful poem.”

Henry Gannett’s 1905 place-name list for the U.S. Geological Survey says the same in four words, “named for Paul Revere,” and so does the Survey’s GNIS database today. Nason mentions Longfellow’s poem, but he doesn’t say the poem was the reason, and these sources don’t say who first suggested the name.

Marsh, then Chelsea, then North Chelsea

The land had already worn a few names. Nason says that in 1630 the whole area “was known as ‘Rumney Marsh,’ and formed a part of Boston.” It became the town of Chelsea in 1738, a name “given it, probably, in honor of Chelsea, in Middlesex County, Eng.”

In 1848, the northern part split off as a new town, North Chelsea. Twenty-three years later, it dropped the Chelsea part of its name altogether.

One small wrinkle: in his Chelsea entry, Nason says the change to Revere came “in 1870.” His own Revere entry and the printed law both say 1871, and the law is the better record.

Beach town

Nason also gives a snapshot of the place right after the rename. He calls it “a new and beautiful suburban town” of 1,197 people, with a long neck of land called Point of Pines and “a splendid sandy beach, that is visited by thousands of people for sea-bathing in the summer season.” If you’ve ever spent a hot day on the sand in Revere, you’re following a crowd that was already there in 1874.

Sources & further reading

• Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts in the Year 1871 (Boston, 1871), ch. 126, p. 506. “An Act to change the name of the town of North Chelsea”: “The town of North Chelsea shall take the name of Revere,” subject to a ballot of the town’s voters; approved March 24, 1871.
• Elias Nason, A Gazetteer of the State of Massachusetts (Boston, 1874). Revere entry (pp. 431-432): North Chelsea incorporated March 9, 1848, and renamed March 24, 1871, “in honor of the Revolutionary patriot, Paul Revere”; the beach and Point of Pines. Chelsea entry (p. 154): Rumney Marsh, Chelsea named “probably” for Chelsea, England, and the change to Revere dated 1870.
• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS, 1905), p. 261. “Named for Paul Revere.”
• GNIS feature 612810 (U.S. Geological Survey). The federal record for Revere: “Named for Paul Revere.”