Preliminary thereto, however, a brief historical statement should be made of the beginnings of the enterprises to which the Company succeeded.

In January, 1801, Colonel Paul Revere[3] bought the old powder-mill at Canton, where during the Revolutionary War, largely by his instrumentality and agency, the Colony and State had been supplied with powder. He and his son, Mr. Joseph W. Revere, under the firm-name of Paul Revere & Son, erected and adapted the buildings necessary for the manufacture of copper into sheets and bars.

In the years 1804 and 1805 Mr. J. W. Revere spent considerable time on a visit to England and the continent for the purpose of obtaining all the information possible in the prosecution of their undertaking.

Colonel Revere claims, in letters written by him at the time, that their mill for rolling copper was the first erected in this country.[4] And it may be said in passing that the copper trade in England was hardly more advanced there than here.

Their business grew slowly, but it made a steady progress until substantially established. Colonel Revere died in 1818, but the son, Mr. Joseph W. Revere, continued on with the manufactory started at Canton until it became a part of the incorporated Company.

Singularly coincident with the events already narrated, Mr. James Davis, but five months younger than Mr. Joseph W. Revere, had come to Boston from Barnstable, his native town, and acquired here a trade, reaching his majority in 1798.

In the very first years of the present century he established himself on Union Street as a brass founder. Here he continued, gradually expanding the business until the admission of his son, Mr. James Davis, Jr., as a partner, January 4, 1828, when the firm-name of James Davis & Son was adopted.

These two enterprises naturally ran along very much together in certain respects. For instance, in their trade with shipbuilders, which was an important feature with each; while the foundry was turning out composition castings required for fastenings, the mill was preparing copper in its various forms for use on the same vessel.

It was therefore to be expected that the rapid revival of our mercantile marine after the close of the second war, giving to both these firms a largely increased trade, would bring them into very intimate relations and suggest to them the wisdom of a more permanent union.

Out of these conditions finally grew the incorporated Company, taking the family name of its real founder, and known since as the Revere Copper Company.

The card on the opposite page is printed from the original copperplate, which must have been engraved earlier than the year 1804. In that year the foundry described as "at the north part of Boston," which was on Lynn Street,[5] was so seriously damaged in a severe gale that it was not afterwards repaired nor occupied; its contents and the work done there were transferred to the copper-mill at Canton.

The plate is in possession of the present Mr. J. W. Revere, son of the late Mr. John Revere, and has been kindly loaned for use here.