As the colonies moved toward revolution in the 1760s and 70s, Britain began to tax more and more items. This led to colonists like Paul Revere needing to find additional ways to make ends meet. Interestingly, one of the things Revere turned to was dentistry, a practice he’d learned from a surgeon that was living with a friend. Revere’s most famous patient was Dr. Joseph Warren, a close friend of his and the man who sent him on his famous midnight ride. Warren was killed in 1775 in the Battle of Bunker Hill; he was shot in the head, stripped of his clothes, and buried in an unmarked grave. His body would have been unidentifiable, but the dental work done by Revere allowed Warren to be identified and buried in a marked grave. Today, Warren is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston.
