The pursuit of liberty in 1776 didn't mean relief from tooth pain. There were few professional dentists in the early days of the United States. People turned to barbers, wigmakers and even a certain midnight-riding silversmith to remove their aching teeth.

Several years before Paul Revere announced, "the British are coming!" he studied the practice of dentistry under John Baker, one of the first English-trained dentists in the colonies. (Baker was one of many dentists to treat George Washington.)

In 1768, Revere put an ad in the Boston Gazette to advertise his services:

"Whereas many persons are so unfortunate as to lose their Fore-Teeth by Accident, and otherways, to their great Detriment, not only in Looks, but speaking both in Public and Private: This is to inform all such that they may have them re-laced with false Ones, that looks as well as the Natural, and answers the End of Speaking to all Intents, by PAUL REVERE, Goldsmith, near the Head of Dr. Clarke's Wharf, Boston. All Persons who have had false Teeth fixt by Mr. John Baker, Surgeon-Dentist, and they have got loose (as they will in Time) may have them fastened by the above, who learnt the Method of fixing them from Mr. Baker."

Revere also became the first person to identify human remains based on dental evidence. In 1775, Revere made a bridge for Dr. Joseph Warren. Soon after, Warren, who was a general in the Massachusetts Militia, was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The British buried him in a mass grave. After the British withdrew from Boston, the colonists wanted to give him a proper burial, but the bodies in the grave were too decomposed to recognize. Revere, however, was able to identify Warren's body based on the bridge he made.

Another colonial patriot also had a connection to dental history. In 1789, Benjamin Franklin received a letter, which asked for a loan of $20 to "keep an impecunious young dentist out of jail." History didn't record Franklin's response, but the letter-writer, R. C. Skinner, went on to become a noted dentist in the new United States. Skinner's Treatise on the Human Teeth was the first book on dentistry published in America.