Quotes About Saltpeter

Every morning at dawn the village trembles with the rumbling of the wagons. They come in from everywhere, loaded with saltpeter, with corn, with hay. The wheels creak and creak, rattling the windows and waking up the village. That's the hour when the ovens are opened and the air smells of new-baked bread.Suddenly it thunders, perhaps, and the rain falls. perhaps spring is coming. You'll learn there what 'perhaps' means, my son...

None other than Paul Revere engraved a plate diagramming how to refine saltpeter, an essential component in the making of gunpowder. It was published in August 1774 in the Royal American Magazine, the unlikely title for a magazine published by Isaiah Thomas, a member of the Sons of Liberty.