Young Andrew Beckett hopes to be a doctor. Jack Cochran plans to take over his father s position as militia captain of the fort. Then Paul Revere rides into town with urgent news that changes their lives forever. The Portsmouth Alarm: December 1774 is based on an actual event. On December 13 1774 just four months before the events in Lexington and Concord Massachusetts Paul Revere delivered a message to the Portsmouth, New Hampshire Committee of Correspondence. The message warned of General Gage s shocking plan for the Piscataqua Region sparking hundreds in New Hampshire and Massachusetts (now Maine) to take action.