The Boston's Parents' Paper

Massachusetts' No. 1 Parenting Magazine
June 2004

Parenting People by Kim Foley MacKinnon

Paul Revere Relative Spices Up Boston Tours

Ben Edwards grew up hearing family stories about his Boston ancestors. They were rather vague oral tales, but one in particular captured his imagination - that he was somehow related to Paul Revere.

Edwards' interest in Revere only grew as he became an adult. After years of poring over family records and filling his basement with historic documents, he realized he had proved that Revere was indeed his ancestor, but he didn't have anything else to show for it. Not wanting to write a genealogy book of interest to just his family he decided to write a children's book instead.

That book One April in Boston (Spyglass Books, 2000) details pre-Revolutionary War life in 1775, as seen through the eyes of a 10-year-old boy named Ben Edwards. While the narrative story and dialogue are fictional, the historical accounts in the book are true. The Ben Edwards in the book is a true ancestor of modern-day Ben Edwards. And this earlier Ben's sister married Paul Revere's eldest son, Paul Jr. The book (and Edwards' website) make the long family tree readily understandable and offer a fantastic view of what Boston was like during the Colonial period. No one has to take only Edwards' word for it, though. Besides the volumes of material he gathered, the Paul Revere House confirms his connection and even sells his book.

After the book was completed in 2000 and produced on an audio CD in 2001, Edwards still felt he couldn't let go of the story. He wanted to share it with more people. Thus, a brand-new business came about this year: "Walking Tours of Historic Boston."

But won't following in some other family's historical footsteps be a bit dull? Edwards puts the concern to rest. "The tour is not about my family," he says. "It's about Boston." But he does feel his personal connection makes the tour more meaningful. "I see so many people doing self-guided tours, looking at things and sort of meandering around. There is so much value going with someone who has a connection," he says.

Edwards' two-hour tour covers 14 historic sites and he brings a slew of material with him. Pages from his family Bible, maps, photographs, period engravings and 225-year-old documents (all in protective plastic) are packed into a backpack Edwards carries. Throughout the tour, he pulls out relevant items to underline his point. For example, at Park Street, Edwards pulls out old photographs showing the street as it used to look with paving stones that one of his relatives, a paver, worked on.

Another Motive

Besides the history lesson, there's another theme that runs through Edwards' tour and his book (the audio book is given out on the tour to each family). Edwards is a big proponent of goal setting and perseverance. He asks children on the tour what they want to be when they grow up and then asks how they plan to do it. Edwards then pulls out a small book that he wrote when he was 10, an amazing harbinger of what he was to do later in life. His childhood book, written on lined notebook paper with accompanying sketches, was about Boston's history. It even listed interesting things to see!

Edwards incorporated his belief in goal setting into One April in Boston, by having young Ben set a goal of becoming a cooper so he could work on a sailing ship and see the world. In the book, Ben writes this down on paper and looks at it every day to remind himself to keep to his dream. This aspect of the book, along with tips on how to research your own family tree, color photos of artifacts and documents of the Edwards family dating back 300 years, along with personal anecdotes from Edwards, make it a rich resource that parents (and teachers) will appreciate.

On the tour, kids will appreciate having history come to life for them in a very concrete way. Not only will they meet someone with such deep connections to Boston, they'll meet someone who made his own dream come true.