BATH — On the night of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere set off on horseback toward Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, with the warning that the British were coming.

This British drum was captured at the Battle of Lexington and Concord and eventually purchased by Capt. Walter Merryman from Harpswell. It was later repurposed by Andrew Alexander for use in the 20th Maine Regiment during the Civil War. Submitted photo

Nearly 250 years later, on April 10, Tom Putnam, former director of the Concord Museum, plans to tell the story of “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” and the beginning of the American Revolution, according to a news release from Larissa Vigue Picard, executive director, Pejepscot History Center.

The center will host the program at 5:30 p.m. in Maine Maritime Museum’s Long Reach Hall at 243 Washington St. Light refreshments are included.

Putnam previously directed the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum and worked at the National Archives and Records Administration.

Attendees of the event will get a rare look at a painted drum, captured from the British at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775. The drum, which eventually made its way to Harpswell, has been in the center’s collection for decades.

“According to our records, it was purchased by Captain Walter Merryman shortly after the capture,” explains Picard. “It descended in his Harpswell family and was repurposed for the Civil War by Andrew Alexander who served in the 20th Maine Regiment — led by none other than Joshua Chamberlain. It’s quite a treasure.”

With his 1860 poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” Brunswick’s own Henry Wadsworth Longfellow elevated the rider to mythic status, even though several additional riders joined Revere that night. An abolitionist, Longfellow wrote the poem as a call to action to northerners against the threats of the south to secede from the union the year before the Civil War.

Registration is required. Tickets, costing $15 general admission and $10 for members of the center, are available at pejepscothistorical.org or by calling 207-729-6606.