Gov. Samuel Adams II , Signer of the "Declaration of Independence"

DAR Ancestor # A000577

Sam Adams, founder of the Boston Tea Party.

The Adams Family, a Massachusetts family of statesmen, scholars, and authors that included two Presidents of the United States. It is considered by many historians to be the most remarkable family in American history. Intellectually gifted and articulate, its members made notable contributions to public life and letters from colonial times to the 20th century.

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He and John Hancock were the only men excluded from General Gage's offer of general amnesty on 12 Jun 1775

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He was 2nd Cousin to John Adams, 2nd President of the USA, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, They had the same Great Grand Father and Great Grand Mother.

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Samuel Adams was political leader in the American Revolution and signer of the Declaration of Independence. He founded the Sons of Liberty, a group dedicated to methodically resisting English rule in all of its American colonies. It was Adams who gave the signal to commence with the Boston Tea Party.

Elected to the House of Representatives in 1765, he drafted the resolution against the Stamp Act and served on the House's Committee of Correspondence. He was President of the Massachusetts Senate in 1781, and Lieutenant Governor for his friend, Governor John Hancock from 1789 to 1793.

Among Governor Adams' chief concerns was delineating the division of powers between federal and state government. He was known to have advocated for extending public education to girls and to have required that children be taught to read before starting their public education. After being elected Governor four times in his own right, Adams chose to retire in 1797 and lived out the remainder of his life in Boston.

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Patriot and ancestor of a GREAT beer maker!

Samuel Adams is William Philo Hibbard's 4th Cousin

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Declaration of Independence

Samuel Adams was the second cousin of John Adams. The Declaration was signed in Independence Hall. Sam Adams signature is located in the last column on the right. The third signature down. WGA

Samuel Adams was born in Boston in the British colony of Massachusetts on September 16, 1722, an Old Style date that is sometimes converted to the New Style date of September 27. Adams was one of twelve children born to Samuel Adams, Sr., and Mary (Fifield) Adams; in an age of high infant mortality, only three of these children would live past their third birthday. Adams's parents were devout Puritans, and members of the Old South Congregation Church. The family lived on Purchase Street in Boston. Adams was proud of his Puritan heritage, and emphasised Puritan values, especially virtue, in his political career.

Samuel Adams, Sr. (1689–1748) was a prosperous merchant and church deacon. Deacon Adams became a leading figure in Boston politics through an organization that became known as the Boston Caucus, which promoted candidates who supported popular causes. The Boston Caucus helped shape the agenda of the Boston Town Meeting. A New England town meeting is a form of local government with elected officials, and not just a gathering of citizens; it was, according to historian William Fowler, "the most democratic institution in the British empire". Deacon Adams rose through the political ranks, becoming a justice of the peace, a selectman, and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He worked closely with Elisha Cooke, Jr. (1678–1737), the leader of the "popular party", a faction that resisted any encroachment by royal officials on the colonial rights embodied in the Massachusetts Charter of 1691. In the coming years, members of the "popular party" would become known as Whigs or Patriots.

While at Harvard, Adams boarded at Massachusetts Hall.

The younger Samuel Adams attended Boston Latin School and then entered Harvard College in 1736. His parents hoped that his schooling would prepare him for the ministry, but Adams gradually shifted his interest to politics. After graduating in 1740, Adams continued his studies, earning a master's degree in 1743. His thesis, in which he argued that it was "lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved", indicated that his political views, like his father's, were oriented towards colonial rights.

Adams's life was greatly affected by his father's involvement in a banking controversy. In 1739, with Massachusetts facing a serious currency shortage, Deacon Adams and the Boston Caucus created a "land bank", which issued paper money to borrowers who mortgaged their land as security. The land bank was generally supported by the citizenry and the popular party, which dominated the House of Representatives, the lower branch of the General Court. Opposition to the land bank came from the more aristocratic "court party", who were supporters of the royal governor and controlled the Governor's Council, the upper chamber of the General Court. The court party used its influence to have the British Parliament dissolve the land bank in 1741. Directors of the land bank, including Deacon Adams, became personally liable for the currency still in circulation, payable in silver and gold. Lawsuits over the bank persisted for years, even after Deacon Adams's death, and the younger Samuel Adams would often have to defend the family estate from seizure by the government. For Adams, these lawsuits "served as a constant personal reminder that Britain's power over the colonies could be exercised in arbitrary and destructive ways".

Early career

After leaving Harvard in 1743, Adams was unsure about his future. He considered becoming a lawyer, but instead decided to go into business. He worked at Thomas Cushing's counting house, but the job only lasted a few months because Cushing felt that Adams was too preoccupied with politics to become a good merchant. Adams's father then loaned him £1,000 to go into business for himself, a substantial amount for that time. Adams's lack of business instincts were confirmed: he loaned half of this money to a friend, which was never repaid, and frittered away the other half. Adams would always remain, in the words of historian Pauline Maier, "a man utterly uninterested in either making or possessing money".

The Old South Meeting House (1968 photo shown) was Adams's church. During the crisis with Great Britain, mass meetings that were too large for Faneuil Hall were held here.

Having lost his money, Adams's father made him a partner in the family's malthouse, which was next to the family home on Purchase Street. Several generations of Adamses were maltsters, who produced the malt necessary for brewing beer. Years later, a poet would poke fun at Adams by calling him "Sam the maltster". Adams has often been described as a brewer, but the extant evidence suggests that Adams worked as a maltster and not a brewer.

In January 1748, Adams and some friends, inflamed by British impressment, launched the Independent Advertiser, a weekly newspaper that printed many political essays written by Adams. Drawing heavily upon English political theorist John Locke's Second Treatise of Government, Adams's essays emphasized many of the themes that would characterize his subsequent career. He argued that the people must resist any encroachment on their constitutional rights. He cited the decline of the Roman Empire as an example of what could happen to New England if it were to abandon its Puritan values.

When Deacon Adams died in 1748, Adams was given the responsibility of managing the family's affairs. In October 1749, he married Elizabeth Checkley, his pastor's daughter. Elizabeth gave birth to six children over the next seven years, but only two—Samuel (born 1751) and Hannah (born 1756)—would live to adulthood. In July 1757, Elizabeth died soon after giving birth to a stillborn son. Adams would remarry in 1764, to Elizabeth Wells, but would have no other children.

Like his father, Adams embarked on a political career with the support of the Boston Caucus. He was elected to his first political office in 1747, serving as one of the clerks of the Boston market. In 1756 the Boston Town Meeting elected him to the post of tax collector, which provided a small income. Adams often failed to collect taxes from his fellow citizens, which increased his popularity among those who did not pay, but left him liable for the shortage. By 1765, Adams's account was more than £8,000 in arrears. Because the town meeting was on the verge of bankruptcy, Adams was compelled to file suit against delinquent taxpayers, but many taxes went uncollected. In 1768, Adams's political opponents would use the situation to their advantage, obtaining a court judgment of £1,463 against him. Adams's friends paid off some of the deficit, and the town meeting wrote off the remainder. By then, Adams had emerged as a leader of the popular party, and the embarrassing situation did not lessen his influence.

Adams took a leading role in the events that led up to the famous Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, although the precise nature of his involvement has been disputed.

In May 1773, the British Parliament passed the Tea Act, a tax law to help the struggling East India Company, one of Great Britain's most important commercial institutions. Because of the heavy taxes imposed on tea imported into Great Britain, Britons could buy smuggled Dutch tea more cheaply than the East India Company's tea, and so the company amassed a huge surplus of tea that it could not sell. The British government's solution to the problem was to sell the surplus in the colonies. The Tea Act permitted the East India Company, for the first time, to export tea directly to the colonies, bypassing most of the merchants who had previously acted as middlemen. The act also reduced the taxes on tea paid by the company in Britain, but kept the controversial Townshend duty on tea imported in the colonies. A few merchants in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Charlestown were selected to receive the company's tea for resale. In late 1773, seven ships carrying East India Company tea were sent to the colonies, including four bound for Boston.

News of the Tea Act set off a firestorm of protest in the colonies. This was not a dispute about high taxes: the price of legally imported tea was actually reduced by the Tea Act. Protesters were instead concerned with a variety of other issues. The familiar "no taxation without representation" argument, along with the question of the extent of Parliament's authority in the colonies, remained prominent. Some colonists worried that by buying the cheaper tea, they would be conceding that Parliament had the right to tax them. The "power of the purse" conflict was still at issue: The tea tax revenues were to be used to pay the salaries of certain royal officials, making them independent of the people. Colonial smugglers played a significant role in the protests, since the Tea Act made legally imported tea cheaper, which threatened to put smugglers of Dutch tea out of business. Legitimate tea importers who had not been named as consignees by the East India Company were also threatened with financial ruin by the Tea Act, and other merchants worried about the precedent of a government-created monopoly.

This 1846 lithograph has become a classic image of the Boston Tea Party.

Adams and the correspondence committees promoted opposition to the Tea Act. In every colony except Massachusetts, protestors were able to force the tea consignees to resign or to return the tea to England. In Boston, however, Governor Hutchinson was determined to hold his ground. He convinced the tea consignees, two of whom were his sons, not to back down. The Boston Caucus and then the Town Meeting attempted to compel the consignees to resign, but they refused. With the tea ships about to arrive, Adams and the Boston Committee of Correspondence contacted nearby committees to rally support.

When the tea ship Dartmouth arrived in the Boston Harbor in late November, Adams wrote a circular letter calling for a mass meeting to be held at Faneuil Hall on November 29. Thousands of people arrived, so many that the meeting was moved to the larger Old South Meeting House. British law required the Dartmouth to unload and pay the duties within twenty days or customs officials could confiscate the cargo. The mass meeting passed a resolution, introduced by Adams, urging the captain of the Dartmouth to send the ship back without paying the import duty. Meanwhile, the meeting assigned twenty-five men to watch the ship and prevent the tea from being unloaded.

Governor Hutchinson refused to grant permission for the Dartmouth to leave without paying the duty. Two more tea ships, the Eleanor and the Beaver, arrived in Boston Harbor. On December 16—the last day of the Dartmouth's deadline—about 7,000 people had gathered around the Old South Meeting House. After receiving a report that Governor Hutchinson had again refused to let the ships leave, Adams announced that "This meeting can do nothing further to save the country." According to a popular story, Adams's statement was a prearranged signal for the "tea party" to begin. However, this claim did not appear in print until nearly a century after the event, in a biography of Adams written by his great-grandson, who apparently misinterpreted the evidence. According to eyewitness accounts, people did not leave the meeting until ten or fifteen minutes after Adams' alleged "signal", and Adams in fact tried to stop people from leaving because the meeting was not yet over.

While Adams tried to reassert control of the meeting, people poured out of the Old South Meeting House and headed to Boston Harbor. That evening, a group of 30 to 130 men, some of them thinly disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded the three vessels and, over the course of three hours, dumped all 342 chests of tea into the water. Adams never revealed if he went to the wharf to witness the destruction of the tea. Whether or not he helped plan the event is unknown, but Adams immediately worked to publicize and defend it. He argued that the Tea Party was not the act of a lawless mob, but was instead a principled protest and the only remaining option the people had to defend their constitutional rights.

First Continental Congress

In Philadelphia, Adams promoted colonial unity while using his political skills to lobby other delegates.[156] On September 16, messenger Paul Revere brought Congress the Suffolk Resolves, one of many resolutions passed in Massachusetts that promised strident resistance to the Coercive Acts. Congress endorsed the Suffolk Resolves, issued a Declaration of Rights that denied Parliament's right to legislate for the colonies, and organized a colonial boycott known as the Continental Association.

Adams returned to Massachusetts in November 1774, where he served in the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, an extralegal legislative body independent of British control. The Provincial Congress created the first minutemen companies, consisting of militiamen who were to be ready for action on a moment's notice. Adams also served as moderator of the Boston Town Meeting, which convened despite the Massachusetts Government Act, and was appointed to the Committee of Inspection to enforce the Continental Association. He was also selected to attend the Second Continental Congress, scheduled to meet in Philadelphia in May 1775.

Before his journey to the second Congress, Adams and John Hancock, who had been added to the delegation, attended the Provincial Congress in Concord, Massachusetts. Deciding that it was not safe to return to Boston before leaving for Philadelphia, the two men stayed at Hancock's childhood home in Lexington. On April 14, 1775, General Gage received a letter from Lord Dartmouth advising him "to arrest the principal actors and abettors in the Provincial Congress whose proceedings appear in every light to be acts of treason and rebellion". On the night of April 18, Gage sent out a detachment of soldiers on the fateful mission that would spark the American Revolutionary War. The purpose of the British expedition was to seize and destroy military supplies that the colonists had stored in Concord. According to many historical accounts, Gage also instructed his men to arrest Hancock and Adams, but the written orders issued by Gage made no mention of arresting the Patriot leaders.

Although Gage had evidently decided against seizing Adams and Hancock, Patriots initially believed otherwise. From Boston, Joseph Warren dispatched Paul Revere to warn the two that British troops were on the move and might attempt to arrest them. As Hancock and Adams made their escape, the first shots of the war began at Lexington and Concord. Soon after the battle, Gage issued a proclamation granting a general pardon to all who would "lay down their arms, and return to the duties of peaceable subjects"—with the exceptions of Hancock and Samuel Adams. Singling out Hancock and Adams in this manner only added to their renown among Patriots, and, according to Patriot historian Mercy Otis Warren, perhaps exaggerated the importance of the two men.

Return to Massachusetts

Adams remained active in politics upon his return to Massachusetts. He frequently served as moderator of the Boston Town Meeting, and was elected to the state senate, where he often served as that body's president.

Adams focused his political agenda on promoting virtue, which he considered essential in a republican government. If republican leaders lacked virtue, he believed, liberty was endangered. His major opponent in this campaign was his former protégé, John Hancock. The two men had had a falling out in the Continental Congress. Adams disapproved of what he viewed as Hancock's vanity and extravagance, which Adams believed were inappropriate in a republican leader. When Hancock left Congress in 1777, Adams and the other Massachusetts delegates voted against thanking Hancock for his service as president of Congress. The struggle continued in Massachusetts. Adams thought that Hancock, by acting like an aristocrat and courting popularity, was not acting the part of a virtuous republican leader. Adams favored James Bowdoin for governor, and was distressed when Hancock won annual landslide victories.

Adams's promotion of public virtue took several forms. He played a major role in getting Boston to provide a free public education for children, even for girls, which was controversial. After the Revolutionary War, Adams joined others, including Thomas Jefferson, in denouncing the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of former army officers. Adams worried that the Society was "a stride towards an hereditary military nobility", and thus a threat to republicanism. Adams also believed that public theaters undermined civic virtue, and he joined an ultimately unsuccessful effort to keep theaters banned in Boston. Decades after Adams's death, orator Edward Everett would call him "the last of the Puritans".

I firmly believe that the benevolent Creator designed the republican Form of Government for Man.

—Samuel Adams, April 14, 1785

Postwar economic troubles in western Massachusetts led to an uprising known as Shays's Rebellion, which began in 1786. Small farmers, angered by high taxes and debts, armed themselves and shut down debtor courts in two counties. Governor James Bowdoin sent four thousand militiamen to put down the uprising, an action supported by Adams. Although his old political ally James Warren thought that Adams had forsaken his principles, Adams saw no contradiction. He approved of rebellion against an unrepresentative government, as had happened during the American Revolution, but he opposed taking up arms against a republican government, where problems should be remedied through elections. He thought the leaders of Shays's Rebellion should be hanged, reportedly saying that "the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death".

Shays's Rebellion contributed to the belief that the Articles of Confederation needed to be revised. In 1787, delegates to the Philadelphia Convention, instead of revising the Articles, created a new United States Constitution with a much stronger national government. When the Constitution was sent to the states for ratification, Adams expressed his displeasure. "I confess," he wrote to Richard Henry Lee in 1787, "as I enter the Building I stumble at the Threshold. I meet with a National Government, instead of a Federal Union of States." Adams was one of those derisively labeled "Anti-Federalists" by proponents of the new Constitution, who called themselves "Federalists". Adams was elected to the Massachusetts ratifying convention, which met in January 1788. Despite his reservations, Adams rarely spoke at the convention, and listened carefully to the arguments rather than raising objections. Adams and John Hancock, who had reconciled, finally agreed to give their support for the Constitution, with the proviso that some amendments be added later. Even with the support of Hancock and Adams, the Massachusetts convention narrowly ratified the Constitution by a vote of 187 to 168.

While Adams was attending the ratifying convention, his only son, Samuel Adams, Jr., died at just thirty-seven years of age. The younger Adams had served as surgeon in the Revolutionary War, but had fallen ill and never fully recovered. The death was a stunning blow to the elder Adams. The younger Adams left his father the certificates he had earned as a soldier, giving Adams and his wife unexpected financial security in their final years. Investments in land would make them relatively wealthy by the mid-1790s, but this did not alter their frugal lifestyle.

Concerned about the new Constitution, Adams made an attempt to reenter national politics. He allowed his name to be put forth as a candidate for the United States House of Representatives in the December 1788 election, but lost to Fisher Ames, apparently because Ames was a stronger supporter of the Constitution, a more popular position. Despite his defeat, Adams continued to work for amendments to the Constitution, a movement that ultimately resulted in the addition of a Bill of Rights in 1791. With these amendments, and the possibility of more, Adams subsequently became a firm supporter of the Constitution.

In 1789, Adams was elected Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, and served in that office until Governor Hancock's death in 1793, when he became acting governor. The next year Adams was elected as governor in his own right, the first of four annual terms. He was generally regarded as the leader of his state's Jeffersonian Republicans, who were opposed to the Federalist Party. Unlike some other Republicans, Adams supported the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 for the same reasons that he had opposed Shays's Rebellion. Like his fellow Republicans, he spoke out against the Jay Treaty in 1796, a position that drew criticism in a state that was increasingly Federalist. In that year's U. S. presidential election, Republicans in Virginia cast 15 electoral votes for Adams in an effort to make him Jefferson's vice-president, but Federalist John Adams won the election, with Jefferson becoming vice-president. The Adams cousins remained friends, but Samuel was pleased when Jefferson defeated John Adams in the 1800 presidential election.

Taking a cue from President Washington, who declined to run for reelection in 1796, Adams retired from politics at the end of his term as governor in 1797. Adams suffered from what is now believed to have been essential tremor, a movement disorder that, in the final decade of his life, rendered him unable to write. He died at the age of 81 on October 2, 1803, and was interred at the Granary Burying Ground in Boston. Boston's Republican newspaper, the Independent Chronicle, eulogized him as the "Father of the American Revolution".

Legacy

Samuel Adams grave marker in the Granary Burying Ground.

Samuel Adams is a controversial figure in American history. Disagreement about his significance and reputation began before his death and continues to the present.

Adams's contemporaries, both friends and foes, regarded him as one of the foremost leaders of the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson, for example, characterized Adams as "truly the Man of the Revolution." Leaders in other colonies were compared to him: Cornelius Harnett was called the "Samuel Adams of North Carolina", Charles Thomson the "Samuel Adams of Philadelphia", and Christopher Gadsden the "Sam Adams of the South". When John Adams traveled to France during the Revolution, he had to explain that he was not Samuel, "the famous Adams".

Although supporters of the Revolution praised Adams, Loyalists viewed him as a sinister figure. Peter Oliver, the exiled chief justice of Massachusetts, characterized Adams as devious Machiavellian with a "cloven Foot". Thomas Hutchinson, Adams's political foe, took his revenge in his History of Massachusetts Bay, in which he denounced Adams as a dishonest character assassin, emphasizing Adams's failures as a businessman and tax collector. This hostile "Tory interpretation" of Adams was revived in the 20th century by historian Clifford K. Shipton in the Sibley's Harvard Graduates reference series. Shipton wrote positive portraits of Hutchinson and Oliver and scathing sketches of Adams and Hancock; his entry on Adams was characterized by historian Pauline Maier as "forty-five pages of contempt".

Whig historians challenged the "Tory interpretation" of Adams. William Gordon and Mercy Otis Warren, two historians who knew Adams, wrote of him as man selflessly dedicated to the American Revolution. But in the early 19th century, Adams was often viewed as an old-fashioned Puritan, and was consequently neglected by historians. Interest in Adams was revived in the mid-19th century. Historian George Bancroft portrayed Adams favorably in his monumental History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent (1852). The first full biography of Adams appeared in 1865, a three-volume work written by William Wells, Adams's great-grandson. Although the Wells biography is still valuable for its wealth of information,] Whig portrayals of Adams were uncritically pro-American and had elements of hagiography, a view that influenced some later biographies written for general audiences.

In the late 19th century, many American historians, uncomfortable with contemporary revolutions, found it problematic to write approvingly about Adams. Relations between the United States and Great Britain had improved, and Adams's role in dividing Americans from Britons was increasingly viewed with regret. In 1885, James Hosmer wrote a biography that praised Adams, but also found some of his actions, such as the 1773 publication of Hutchinson's private letters, to be troubling. Subsequent biographers became increasingly hostile towards Adams and the common people he represented. In 1923, Ralph V. Harlow used a "Freudian" approach to characterize Adams as a "neurotic crank" driven by an "inferiority complex". Harlow argued that because the masses were easily misled, Adams "manufactured public opinion" to produce the Revolution, a view that became the thesis of John C. Miller's 1936 biography, Sam Adams: Pioneer in Propaganda. Consistently calling his subject "Sam", despite the fact that Adams was almost always known as "Samuel" in his lifetime, Miller portrayed Adams more as an incendiary revolutionary than an adroit political operative, attributing all acts of Boston's "body of the people" to this one man.[230]

Miller's influential book became, in the words of historian Charles Akers, the "scholarly enshrinement" of "the myth of Sam Adams as the Boston dictator who almost singlehandedly led his colony into rebellion". According to Akers, Miller and others historians used "Sam did it" to explain crowd actions and other developments without citing any evidence that Adams directed those events. In 1974, Akers called on historians to critically reexamine the sources rather than simply repeating the myth. By then, scholars were increasingly rejecting the notion that Adams and others used "propaganda" to incite "ignorant mobs", and were instead portraying a revolutionary Massachusetts too complex to have been controlled by one man. Historian Pauline Maier argued that Adams, far from being a radical mob leader, took a moderate position based on the English revolutionary tradition that imposed strict constraints on resistance to authority. That belief justified force only against threats to the constitutional rights so grave that the "body of the people" recognized the danger, and only after all peaceful means of redress had failed. Within that revolutionary tradition, resistance was essentially conservative. In 2004, Ray Raphael's Founding Myths continued Maier's line by deconstructing several of the "Sam" Adams myths that are still repeated in many textbooks and popular histories.

Samuel Adams's name has been appropriated by commercial and non-profit ventures since his death. Drawing upon the tradition that Adams had been a brewer, the Boston Beer Company created Samuel Adams Boston Lager in 1985, which has become a popular, award-winning brand. Adams's name is also used by a pair of non-profit organizations, the Sam Adams Alliance and the Sam Adams Foundation. These groups take their names from Adams in homage of his ability to organize citizens at the local level in order to achieve a national goal.

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- Brewer, Statesman, and Politician.

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Samuel Adams (September 27 [O.S. September 16] 1722 – October 2, 1803) was an American statesman, politician, writer and political philosopher, brewer, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Adams was instrumental in garnering the support of the colonies for rebellion against Great Britain, eventually resulting in the American Revolution, and was also one of the key architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped American political culture. He was the second cousin of John Adams.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Adams was brought up in a religious and politically active family. After being educated at Boston Latin School and Harvard College, Adams became a mercantile businessman, but this proved not to be his vocation and he soon turned to politics, and became an influential political writer and theorist. Adams established himself as one of the voices of opposition to British control in the colonies; he argued that the colonies should withdraw from Great Britain and form a new government. Adams called for the colonists to defend their rights and liberties, and led town meetings in which he drafted written protests against Parliament's colonial tax measures such as the Stamp Act of 1765. Adams played a prominent role during protests against the Stamp Act, and in the events of the Boston Tea Party in 1773. He participated in the Continental Congress. He also advocated the adoption of the Declaration of Independence at the Second Continental Congress.

After the United States declared its independence in 1776, Adams helped write the Massachusetts Constitution with John Adams and James Bowdoin. Afterwards, Adams helped draft the Articles of Confederation. Following the end of the American Revolutionary War, he ran for the House of Representatives in the 1st United States Congressional election, but was unsuccessful in his bid. He was elected Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts in 1789, and after John Hancock's death in 1793, Adams served as the acting governor until he was elected governor in January of the following year. He served in that position until June 1797 when he retired from politics. He died six years later on October 2, 1803.

Walter G. Ashworth, Second cousin 11x removed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams

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"Samuel Adams, the Boston patriot, was in some respects, without doubt, the most illustrious scion of the Henry Adams family. He was educated in the Boston Latin School and Harvard College, and although he left College to engage in business, when his parents desired him to enter the ministry, and the law was not so respectable as it has since become, the college honored his scholarship, and when a candidate for the master's degree in 1743, he showed of what material he was made, and what would come of him, in his his discussion of the thesis, "Whether it be lawful to resist the supreme magistrate, if the commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved."

"Upon his father's death, 1748, he assumed the business of brewing, and was called "Sammy the Maltster." When elected tax-collector he was called "Sammy the publican." He soon became prominent as an opponent of British rule in the colonies. In May, 1764, he drafted the instructions to Boston's representatives, which were the first public protest against the right of parliament to tax the colonies. He was elected representative to the legislature, 1765 to 1774, and was the writer of most of the remarkable state papers of that remarkable time. The circular letter of Massachusetts to the other colonies, written by him, particularly enraged the king, and the Legislature was ordered to rescind it, but refused, 92 to 17, to do so. Mr. Adams had the confidence and co-operation of the people in demanding the removal of the king's two regiments from Boston after the "massacre" in March, 1770. When in 1772, the king had ordered the judges of the courts to receive their salaries from the crown, and not from the colony, and the people of Boston asked the Governor to conveue the Legislature, and he refused, Mr. Adams proposed that the towns of Massachusetts appoint "committees of correspondence," and in a short time eighty towns had chosen their committees. This led to the intercolonial committees, the founding of the Colonial Congress, and the declaration of independence. The subsequent political history of Mr. Adams is well known. "As an adroit political manager he was not surpassed by Jefferson. He had a genuine sympathy for men with leather aprons and hands browned by toil; he knew how to win their confidence, and never abused it, for he was in no sense a demagogue."

"Samuel Adams and his cousin, John, were delegates to the first continental congress, 1774. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence in 1776; became Lieut.-Governor of his State in 1789, and Governor in 1794-97. His decision to support the new Federal constitution in the Massachusetts convention of 1788 is said to have carried the ratification by the narrow majority of 187 yeas to 168 nays, and this was really the most important of all his great services to his country and the republic.

"His cousin, President John Adams, declared him to have been of "incorruptible integrity," "the very soul of the Revolution," and that the appointment of Washington to the command of the army was due to him. Rufus Choate pronounced him "the matchless orator," and though none of his orations have come down to us, we know what they were.

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Samuel and John Adams' names are almost synonymous in all accounts of the Revolution that grew, largely, out of Boston. Though they were cousins and not brothers, they were often referred to as the Adams' brothers, or simply as the Adams'. Samuel Adams was born in Boston, son of a merchant and brewer. He was an excellent politician, an unsuccessful brewer, and a poor businessman. His early public office as a tax collector might have made him suspect as an agent of British authority, however he made good use of his understanding of the tax codes and wide acquaintance with the merchants of Boston. Samuel was a very visible popular leader who, along with John, spent a great deal of time in the public eye agitating for resistance. In 1765 he was elected to the Massachusetts Assembly where he served as clerk for many years. It was there that he was the first to propose a continental congress. He was a leading advocate of republicanism and a good friend of Tom Paine. In 1774, he was chosen to be a member of the provincial council during the crisis in Boston. He was then appointed as a representative to the Continental Congress, where he was most noted for his oratory skills, and as a passionate advocate of independence from Britain. In 1776, as a delegate to the Continental Congress, he signed the Declaration of Independence. Adams retired from the Congress in 1781 and returned to Massachusetts to become a leading member of that state's convention to form a constitution. In 1789 he was appointed lieutenant governor of the state. In 1794 he was elected Governor, and was re-elected annually until 1797 when he retired for health reasons. He died in the morning of October 2, 1803, in his home town of Boston.

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"Firebrand of the Revolution," Samuel Adams probably more than almost any other individual instigated and organized colonial resistance to the Crown. A talented polemicist and agitator-propagandist who relied more on his facile pen than the podium in behind-the-scenes manipulation of men and events, he religiously believed in the righteousness of his political causes, to which he persistently tried to convert others. He failed in business, neglected his family, gained a reputation as an eccentric, and demonstrated as much indifference to his own welfare as he did solicitousness for that of the public. His second cousin John Adams, more of a statesman, eclipsed him in the Continental Congress, though Samuel signed both the Declaration and the Articles of Confederation. In his later years, the Commonwealth

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Samuel and John Adams' names are almost synonymous in all accounts of the Revolution that grew, largely, out of Boston. Though they were cousins and not brothers, they were often referred to as the Adams' brothers, or simply as the Adams'. Samuel Adams was born in Boston, son of a merchant and brewer. He was an excellent politician, an unsuccessful brewer, and a poor businessman. His early public office as a tax collector might have made him suspect as an agent of British authority, however he made good use of his understanding of the tax codes and wide acquaintance with the merchants of Boston. Samuel was a very visible popular leader who, along with John, spent a great deal of time in the public eye agitating for resistance. In 1765 he was elected to the Massachusetts Assembly where he served as clerk for many years. It was there that he was the first to propose a continental congress. He was a leading advocate of republicanism and a good friend of Tom Paine. In 1774, he was chosen to be a member of the provincial council during the crisis in Boston. He was then appointed as a representative to the Continental Congress, where he was most noted for his oratory skills, and as a passionate advocate of independence from Britain. In 1776, as a delegate to the Continental Congress, he signed the Declaration of Independence. Adams retired from the Congress in 1781 and returned to Massachusetts to become a leading member of that state's convention to form a constitution. In 1789 he was appointed lieutenant governor of the state. In 1794 he was elected Governor, and was re-elected annually until 1797 when he retired for health reasons. He died in the morning of October 2, 1803, in his home town of Boston.

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http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=9&ref=wvr

Samuel Adams- Memorial

Birth: Sep. 27, 1722 Boston Suffolk County Massachusetts, USA

Death: Oct. 2, 1803 Boston Suffolk County Massachusetts, USA

Declaration of Independence Signer, Massachusetts Governor. The cousin to John Adams, second President of the United States, he was a leading speaker in the cause of American Independence. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of a respected landowner and brewer, he attended Harvard College, graduating in 1740. Entering private business, he was never a success at it, and by 1764, he was deeply in debt. As poor a businessman as he was, he was a greater success in politics, and founded a number of patriotic societies, and was active in Boston town meetings. He openly opposed the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and spoke out against British colonial policy. From 1765 to 1774, he served in the Massachusetts legislature, and as its clerk, corresponded widely with other colonial leaders. Writing for the Boston newspapers, he condemned what he considered British government tyranny and in 1772, set up the Committee of Correspondence, which kept other colonial leaders informed as to what was happening in each of the colonies. A founding member of the Sons of Liberty, Adams is believed to have helped organize and signaled the Boston Tea Party in 1773, an act that in 1774 made King George III close Boston Harbor and to declare the colony in a state of rebellion. Calling for a congressional congress made up of representatives from each of the colonies, Adams and four others represented Massachusetts in the First Continental Congress in 1774. In 1775, he was selected for the Second Continental Congress, which produced the Declaration of Independence, and Adams signed for Massachusetts. Continuing to serve in Congress until 1781, he worked on numerous congressional committees, and supported George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. After independence, he continued to work on supporting the concept of a Federal Government, and helped to ratify the United States Constitution in 1787. He was elected Governor of Massachusetts from 1793 to 1797. (bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson)

Family links:

Children:

 Hannah Wells (1756 - 1821)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial: Granary Burying Ground Boston Suffolk County Massachusetts, USA

Maintained by: Michelle Record added: Jan 01, 2001 Find A Grave Memorial# 9

Added by: Bobb Edwards

Added by: bosguy

Added by: Dan G

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thank you for standing up to King George and founding our nation - colin smith

Added: Apr. 2, 2014

- MIKE ROUW

Added: Mar. 31, 2014

- Cemetery Wanderer

Added: Mar. 16, 2014

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Rest In Peace Samuel Adams.

Rest In Peace Samuel Adams.
Hello, this is Elizabeth Wells. My poor husband Sam has died. I remember him telling me how important this blog is to him, so I just wanted to share the news with you all. Why? How you may ask? Well, he has been sick for a while now, he probably didn't share the information because I think he thought he was going to get better. Well, Sam is a bit of a dreamer, the doctor told him he would only get worse. But he didn't believe him, but it's okay. Sam is in a better place. I believe that he served his country well, don't you? After all, if it weren't for Sam, we may never be close to where we all are today. Well anyways, Sam died in Boston, where he was born. Ironic, don't you think? Well, Sam, you are a very great man, very influential, and probably will be for years to come. I'll try to figure out how to post a picture of Sam's tombstone. He never did explain to me how this blog works. Well alright, he usually ends his blogs with "Bye for now" or something like that, well sad to say that I'm gunna have to end this blog with Goodbye Forever. Rest In Peace Samuel Adams. We love you. Posted by Karinna at 6:50 PM 2 comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest

My Speech. A little while ago, I made a speech at the Philadelphia State House. My wife believes that I said something that may be carried on for generations to come. People are already starting to quote me, which in my opinion is very cool! These are the words that I said. "If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home and leave us in peace. We seek not your council, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our country men."

Posted by Karinna at 6:41 PM 1 comment: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest

Family Life Hiii! I just wanted to dedicate this blog post to my wonderful family. They have been with me through it all, stuck by me even when I was more concerned about the Declaration then them! Well I have a very beautiful wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Adams, previously Elizabeth Checkley. She is the best thing I could ever ask for, she is very supportive and loving. Now moving on to my children. I will start off with my first son, Samuel Adams, born in 1750. Then, I had another son named Samuel Adams born in 1751. Then my wife and I had a son named Joseph in 1753, but he died one day after his birth. :( Next, we had Mary, my first daughter, who was born in 1754. She died 3 months and 9 days after her birth. :( Then came Samantha, who was born in 1756. Last but not least, my wife was expected to have a son in 1757, at this point she died. Then I married my second wife, Elizabeth Wells, in 1764. Elizabeth Wells is a great woman, and so are my children! One other person in my family that should go in this category is my great cousin John Adams. He is the second President. Well, that's it! My family is the best! Okay, bye for now!

Posted by Karinna at 6:32 PM No comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest

"The Most Dangerous Man In Massachussets" Well, it looks like they have come up with a perspective of me. Great British leaders have gathered information about me that lead them to think that I am a threat. They have labeled me as The Most Dangerous Man In Massachusetts.I find this quite amusing. Thank goodness the British did not win the war, because if they did, I guarantee that Mr. Hancock and I would be dead. Well I gotta go. I'll write back soon!

http://karinnasreport.blogspot.com/

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Birth: Sep. 27, 1722
Boston Suffolk County Massachusetts, USA Death: Oct. 2, 1803 Boston Suffolk County Massachusetts, USA

Declaration of Independence Signer, Massachusetts Governor. The cousin to John Adams, second President of the United States, he was a leading speaker in the cause of American Independence. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of a respected landowner and brewer, he attended Harvard College, graduating in 1740. Entering private business, he was never a success at it, and by 1764, he was deeply in debt. As poor a businessman as he was, he was a greater success in politics, and founded a number of patriotic societies, and was active in Boston town meetings. He openly opposed the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and spoke out against British colonial policy. From 1765 to 1774, he served in the Massachusetts legislature, and as its clerk, corresponded widely with other colonial leaders. Writing for the Boston newspapers, he condemned what he considered British government tyranny and in 1772, set up the Committee of Correspondence, which kept other colonial leaders informed as to what was happening in each of the colonies. A founding member of the Sons of Liberty, Adams is believed to have helped organize and signaled the Boston Tea Party in 1773, an act that in 1774 made King George III close Boston Harbor and to declare the colony in a state of rebellion. Calling for a congressional congress made up of representatives from each of the colonies, Adams and four others represented Massachusetts in the First Continental Congress in 1774. In 1775, he was selected for the Second Continental Congress, which produced the Declaration of Independence, and Adams signed for Massachusetts. Continuing to serve in Congress until 1781, he worked on numerous congressional committees, and supported George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. After independence, he continued to work on supporting the concept of a Federal Government, and helped to ratify the United States Constitution in 1787. He was elected Governor of Massachusetts from 1793 to 1797. (bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson)

Family links:

Parents:

 Samuel Adams (1689 - 1748)

 Mary Fifield Adams (1694 - 1748)

Children:

 Hannah Wells (1756 - 1821)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial: Granary Burying Ground Boston Suffolk County Massachusetts, USA

Edit Virtual Cemetery info [?]

Maintained by: Find A Grave Record added: Jan 01, 2001 Find A Grave Memorial

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1. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=9
2. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams