ADAMS, Amos, clergyman, b. in Medfield, Mass., 1 Sept., 1728; d. in Dorchester, 5 Oct., 1775. He was graduated at Harvard in 1752, and in September of the following year became pastor of a church in Roxbury, which he served until his death. He was secretary of the convention of ministers at Watertown, which in May, 1775, recommended the people to take up arms. Many of his sermons were published from 1756 to 1769, as well as two discourses on “Religious Liberty” (1767). The most notable of his writings were two discourses on the general fast, 6 April, 1769, in which he gave “A Concise Historical View of the Difficulties, Hardships, and Perils which Attended the Planting and Progressive Improvement in New England, with a Particular Account of its Long and Destructive Wars, Expensive Expeditions,” etc. (republished in London, 1770).
ADAMS, Andrew, jurist, b. in Stratford, Conn., in January, 1736; d. in Litchfield, 26 Nov., 1797. He was graduated at Yale college in 1760, admitted to the bar in Fairfield co., and practised law for a time in Stamford, but in 1764 removed to Litchfield. He was a member of the legislature in 1776-81, a delegate to congress in 1777-'80, and again in 1781-'82, as well as a member of the council in 1771. In 1789 he received the appointment of judge of the supreme court, of which he was made chief justice in 1793. He was an adroit and able lawyer and a learned judge.
ADAMS, Benjamin, lawyer, b. in Worcester, Mass., in 1765; d. in Uxbridge, 28 March, 1837. He was graduated at Brown university in 1788, and became a lawyer; was member of the legislature from 1809 to 1814, state senator in 1814-'15, and again in 1822-'25, and went to congress in 1816, where he remained until 1821.
ADAMS, Charles, lawyer, b. in Arlington, Vt., 12 March, 1785; d. in Burlington, 13 Feb., 1861. He prepared himself for college by the light of his father's forge, and was a member of the first class that was graduated from the university of Vermont in 1804. He became a prominent lawyer, and was a constant contributor to newspapers on political questions. He was the friend and adviser of Gen. Wool during the Canadian difficulties of 1838, and wrote a history of the events connected with that rebellion under the title of “The Patriot War.” The work appeared in parts in the local press, but was never issued in book form.
ADAMS, Charles Baker, geologist, b. in Dorchester, Mass., 11 Jan., 1814; d. in St. Thomas, W. I., 19 Jan., 1853. He was graduated at Amherst college in 1834, and studied for two years at Andover theological seminary. Later he was associated with Prof. Edward Hitchcock in a geological survey of New York. In 1837 he became tutor in Amherst college, and in 1838 was made professor of chemistry and natural history in Middlebury college, Vt. From 1845 to 1848 he was state geologist of Vermont, and published annual reports of his work. In 1847 he was chosen professor of astronomy and zoology in Amherst college. Between 1844 and 1851 he made journeys to Panama and the West Indies for scientific purposes. He was the author of eleven numbers of “Contributions to Conchology,” monographs of “Stoastoma” and “Vitrinella,” “Catalogue of Shells Collected in Panama” (New York, 1852), and, with Alonzo Gray, “Elements of Geology” (1852).
ADAMS, Charles Follen, author, b. in Dorchester, Mass., 21 April, 1842. He received a common-school education, and at the age of fifteen entered into mercantile pursuits. At the age of twenty-two he enlisted in the 13th Massachusetts infantry; was in all the battles in which his regiment participated, was wounded at Gettysburg, taken prisoner; released, and detailed for hospital duty. Since 1872 he has been known as a writer of German dialect poems, chiefly humorous. The first that appeared was “The Puzzled Dutchman” in “Our Young Folks” in 1872. This was followed by various others of which “Leedle Yawcob Strauss” (1876) became immediately a favorite. Mr. Adams is a frequent contributor to periodical literature, and has published in a volume “Leedle Yawcob Strauss and other Poems” (Boston, 1877).
ADAMS, Charles Francis, diplomatist, son of
John Quincy Adams, b. in Boston, 18 Aug., 1807;
d. there 21 Nov., 1886. When two years old he
was taken by his father to St. Petersburg, where he
acquired German, French, and Russian. Early in
1815 he travelled all the way from St. Petersburg to
Paris with his mother by private carriage, a
difficult journey at that time, and not unattended with
danger. His father was soon afterward appointed
minister to England, and the little boy was placed
at an English boarding-school. The feelings
between British and Americans was then more hostile
than ever before or since, and young Adams was
frequently called upon to defend with his fists the
good name of his country. When he returned after
two years to America, his father placed him in the
Boston Latin school, and he was graduated at
Harvard college in 1825, shortly after his father's
inauguration as
president of the
United States.
He spent two
years in
Washington, and
then returned to
Boston, where
he studied law
in the office of
Daniel Webster,
and was admitted
to the
Suffolk bar in
1828. The next
year he married
the youngest
daughter of
Peter Chardon
Brooks, whose
elder daughters
were married to Edward Everett and Rev.
Nathaniel Frothingham. From 1831 to 1836 Mr.
Adams served in the Massachusetts legislature.
He was a member of the whig party, but, like all
the rest of his vigorous and free-thinking family,
he was extremely independent in politics and
inclined to strike out into new paths in advance of
the public sentiment. After 1836 he came to differ
more and more widely with the leaders of the
whig party with whom he had hitherto acted. In
1848 the newly organized free-soil party, consisting
largely of democrats, held its convention at
Buffalo and nominated Martin Van Buren for president
and Charles Francis Adams for vice-president.
There was no hope of electing these candidates,
but this little party grew, six years later, into the
great republican party. In 1858 he was elected to
congress by the republicans of the 3d district of
Massachusetts, and in 1860 he was reëlected. In
the spring of 1861 President Lincoln appointed him
minister to England, a place, which both his father
and his grandfather had filled before him. Mr.
Adams had now to fight with tongue and pen for
his country as in school-boy days he had fought
