Paul Revere of Boston, Massachusetts
Besides acting as a courier for Massachusetts' secret Committee of Correspondence and participating in the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere was a successful businessman.
Paul Revere (1735-1818) was a noted silver- and goldsmith, printer and engraver, bell-founder, dentist, soldier, brewer, and propagandist of the American revolutionary cause.
He even had a profitable business shipping ice from Massachusetts' winter ponds to the torrid West Indies in the Caribbean.
Paul Revere's Ride
Most Americans remember Paul Revere because of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous poem, Paul Revere's Ride.
Fellow messengers William Dawes and Samuel Prescott are all but forgotten, even though they got through to Lexington and Concord, while Revere was captured and held by the British.
In any case, the message got through, and the Minutemen turned out to meet the British expeditionary force that Revere was sent to warn about.
The Battle of Lexington and Battle of Concord were the result, igniting the Revolutionary War.
Revere's house in Boston's North End is now a notable museum:
Revere's Boston home is now a museum...
Further reading...