The Biographical Dictionary of America/Adams, Samuel

ADAMS, Samuel, statesman, was born in Boston, Mass., Sept. 10, 1722, son of Samuel and Mary (Fifield) Adams. His grandfather, John Adams, was a sea captain, brother of Joseph Adams of Braintree, who was grandfather of John Adams, second President of the United States, and grandson of Henry Adams, the first American ancestor, who came from Devonshire, England, about 1636, and built his home near Mount Wollaston, Quincy, Mass.
Sewall HouseThe elder Samuel Adams was a man of great wealth for the time, a brewer and shipowner, and the proprietor of a large estate fronting on Boston harbor, on which he built a palatial mansion. He was a member of the legislature of the colony, a justice of the peace, selectman, deacon in the Old South church, and a man who commanded the respect of his neighbors. He organized the "caulkers club" of Boston, made up of influential businessmen engaged in the shipping business, who met to determine on the men best fitted for office, and from this club the word "caucus," as applied to political gatherings, was derived. His son enjoyed the companionship of the best people of Boston, and was influenced by a rigidly pious mother. As a boy, he met all the strong men of the colony who were accustomed to gather at his father's house, and, as a listener, early caught the spirit of liberty that pervaded the atmosphere of the period. When he entered Harvard college he was far advanced in general information and was diligent and studious. He was graduated in 1740, when only eighteen years old, and at the wish of his father he entered upon a course in theology, expecting to become a clergyman. This did not suit his views and he began to study law, which he left, at the wish of his mother, to learn business in a counting room. Upon arriving at his majority in 1743, he attended the commencement exercises at Harvard and there received his degree as master of arts, selecting as his thesis, the proposition that "It is lawful to resist the supreme magistrate if the Commonwealth cannot be otherwise preserved." Seated on the platform during its delivery was Governor Shirley and the other crown officials who represented the "supreme magistrate." Young Adams was a strict Calvinist, and a zealous member of the Old South church. His father soon gave him one thousand pounds that he might begin business for himself, but he sunk the whole amount, half by a bad loan and the other half in his business. Next he joined his father in carrying on a malt house on his father's estate on Purchase street. His father died in 1748 and left him one-third of his estate. In 1749 he married Elizabeth Checkley, daughter of the minister of the New South religious society in Summer street, which his father had been instrumental in founding in 1718. He continued the business of the malt house, and this gave rise to the title "Sammy the Malster," bestowed upon him by his political opponents. Massachusetts had issued paper money and coin had been driven from circulation. An inflation of prices resulted, attended with disastrous fluctuations. British merchants trading with the colony complained of the paper currency, and the people, as represented in the legislature, opposed the board of trade, which was sustained by the governor. This condition led to the formation of two banking companies, the people taking the stocks of the "land bank," or "manufactory scheme," which issued £150,000, redeemable in produce after twenty years, and Mr. Adams's father became a large shareholder. The "silver scheme" was patronized by the merchants, who issued £110,000 in notes, to be redeemed in silver in ten years. The land bank had 800 stockholders, and they were influential in the legislature, and as a political power succeeded in causing the removal of Governor Belcher. The plans of both of these banking companies were frustrated by an act of parliament that was extended to the colonies, an old law of England forbidding any joint-stock company having over six shareholders. The two banks were therefore obliged to redeem their script and suspend business. As the individual shareholders were personally responsible it brought ruin to many of the larger holders. In 1758 an attempt was made to seize the Adams estate to satisfy a claim against his father on account of his personal liability in the "land bank." Samuel resisted the attempt, and held off the levy till the colonial legislature released the directors from personal liability. In 1756 he was made collector of taxes, and as the payment of taxes was slow the delinquency was recorded in the Boston town records as against the collectors, naming the sum to be £9,878. The tories charged the deficiency against Adams; and Hutchinson, the last royalist governor, in his history of the colony called it a "defalcation." In the transactions of the Massachusetts historical society for 1883, a complete disproval of the charge is recorded. In 1757 Mr. Adams's wife died and left two children, a son and a daughter. His malt house was a failure. He had lost his other property, save only the ancestral home on Purchase street, and this was much out of repair. In this dark hour, he was one of five men appointed by the town of Boston to instruct the representatives just elected to the general court as to the wishes of the people of the town of Boston, and Samuel Adams wrote out America's first protest against the plan of Lord Grenville for taxing the colonies.

Indeed in his capacity as clerk of the legislature he was the author of nearly all the papers that were drawn up against impositions of the British government. The patriot party found in him its very soul. His instructions were read before the general court May 24, 1764, and the original draft of the document is preserved, having been the property of George Bancroft, the historian, at the time of his death. On Dec. 6, 1764, Mr. Adams was married to Elizabeth Wells. In Boston the news of the passage of the stamp act by the British parliament called out determined resistance. Hutchinson's house was destroyed and his family barely escaped the infuriated mob. The general assembly was to convene in September, and Samuel Adams again prepared the instructions for the Boston members. John Adams had written the instructions for the Quincy members, and the Gazette printed both documents. Samuel Adams was elected to a vacancy in the Assembly Sept. 27, 1765, and the day he was sworn in, Bernard, the royalist governor, prorogued the legislature. In October, 1765, he began his service in behalf of revolution as the only remedy, for oppression, and advocated it in the colonial assembly continuously until 1774, when he was sent as a representative to the Colonial Congress at Philadelphia, and there continued the agitation. Great Britain felt the force of the man who was opposing her, and stood ready to forgive all in rebellion but Samuel Adams and John Hancock. She realized that the American colonies could not be brought under subjection so long as such fearless advocates of liberty were throwing down the gauntlet. He was a leading spirit in the first Continental Congress, and the first man to publicly advocate independence. His eloquence hastened the Declaration of Independence in Congress, and induced Massachusetts to adopt the constitution of the United States.

All the energies of the man were poured out in the cause he loved; he gave little thought to the accumulation of money, and his was the pure, incorruptible patriotism that scorns to acquire it in public office. Most of his life he was poor. His more frugal wife soon attended to all money matters, and it was not until after the death of his only son, who left him a small property, that he was in comfortable circumstances. On the same day of the occurrence of the "Boston massacre," at the town meeting held in the Old South meeting-house, March 5, 1770, Mr. Adams as chairman of the committee communicated to Governor Hutchinson the demand of the inhabitants that the troops should be removed from the city. Hutchinson offered to remove one regiment, and Adams returned through the crowded streets to the meeting-house, quickly passing the watchword, "both regiments or none," and when the vote was demanded the 5000 voices shouted, "both regiments or none." Adams returned with the ultimatum of the people, and warned Hutchinson that if the two regiments were not removed before nightfall they remained at his peril, and before the sun set they were removed to the castle in the harbor. The people of Massachusetts next demanded that judges holding office at the pleasure of the king should be paid by the crown and not by the colonies, and at the same time the judges were threatened with impeachment if they accepted a penny from the crown. Adams, when Hutchinson refused to convene the legislature to decide the question of the judges' salaries, proposed "committees of correspondence" in each town to consult as to the common welfare. This legally a proper act, was virtually an act of revolution, as the governor had no power over such an organization. Within a month eighty towns had chosen committees, and the system, that afterwards extended to all the colonies, was in operation. It was by such stages that the revolutionary government was formed, with Samuel Adams as the leading spirit.

When the legislature convened at Salem, June 17, 1774, he locked the doors, put the key in his pocket and carried through his plan for convening a congress of the colonies at Philadelphia on the first of September. A tory member, feigning sickness, was let out, and informed Governor Hutchinson; who, however, could not gain admission to serve a writ to dissolve the assembly, and when the business at hand was finished the last Massachusetts legislature under sovereign authority had adjourned sine die. James Bowdoin, Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine were elected to meet the delegates from other colonial assemblies in Philadelphia, and £500 was appropriated to pay their expenses, each town being assessed according to the tax list. Cushing, the two Adams and Paine departed from Boston Aug. 10, 1774, in a stage coach, Bowdoin being detained by the illness of his wife. In the first meeting of the first Continental Congress it was proposed to open the session with prayer, but this was opposed by John Jay, an Episcopalian, on the ground that the members belonging, as they did, to various sects and denominations, could not be expected to unite in formal worship. Samuel Adams replied that "he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer from a gentleman of piety and virtue, who was at the same time a friend of his country;" that "he was a stranger in Philadelphia, but he had heard that Mr. Duché deserved that character, and there- from he moved that Mr. Duché, an Episcopal clergyman, might be desired to read prayers to Congress."

New York, Virginia and South Carolina had been distrustful of the extreme policy heretofore pursued by Massachusetts, but this evidence of friendship from her most prominent representative disarmed opposition; and the delegates from these states, mostly Episcopalians, were greatly pleased, as were those from Pennsylvania, Mr. Duché being the most popular preacher in Philadelphia. On Nov. 9, 1774, Adams was back in Boston, organizing and promoting rebellion. On the fifth anniversary of the Boston massacre, March 5, 1775, Samuel Adams presided at a gathering in the Old South meeting-house, and Joseph Warren delivered the oration. The city was occupied by eleven regiments of British troops and many of the officers were in the meeting. Adams's tact as presiding officer prevented an outbreak. Then in April followed the expeditions of the British troops to Concord and Lexington, and the attempted seizure of the stores gathered there, which aroused the people, who successfully drove them back. Adams and Hancock had departed from Boston for Philadelphia secretly, as General Gage had published his instructions from the British government to arrest Samuel Adams and "his willing and ready tool" John Hancock, and send them over to London to be tried for high treason. A plan was made to seize them at Lexington, April 19, but they were forewarned by Paul Revere, while stopping at the house of Rev. Jonas Clark. There was a guard about the house, and when Revere rode up to warn the patriot leaders he was told not to make so much noise. "Noise!" was his reply, "you'll have noise enough before long; the regulars are coming on." After the warning by Revere, Adams and Hancock went to a hill, southeast of Mr. Clark's, then well wooded, and remained until the British troops had passed on to Concord. They were afterwards taken to the home of Madam Jones in Burlington, — the Sewall house shown in an illustration in this article. From thence, on a new alarm, they went to Billerica. While walking in the field, after hearing the firing at Lexington, Adams said to one of his companions, "It is a fine day." "Very pleasant," was the reply, having reference to the brightness of the dawning day. "I mean," was the earnest and prophetic reply, "I mean this is a glorious day for America." They made their way to Philadelphia in time for the second session of Congress, May 10, 1775. Here he stood almost alone in proposing immediate separation from the mother country. On June 12th General Gage proclaimed pardon "to all persons who should lay down their arms and return to the duties of peaceful subjects, excepting only from the benefits of such pardon, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, whose offences are of too flagitious a nature to admit any other consideration than that of condign punishment." The army hastily-gathered around Boston, and which had done so good service at Concord and Lexington, was adopted by Congress through the efforts of Samuel and John Adams, and on his return home he found that the "territory of Massachusetts Bay" had been founded, and that he had been made one of the first eighteen councillors, and shortly after he was made secretary of state. Forthwith he made his home in Cambridge. On June 17, 1775, the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, and General Warren killed; and on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed, and Samuel Adams "reached the most triumphant moment of his life." He helped to frame the state constitution of Massachusetts in 1780, but hesitated in accepting the constitution of the United States as framed in 1787, although he did not actively oppose it; and in the Massachusetts convention of 1788, having the document under consideration, he for two weeks sat silent listening to the arguments of the other members. He then decided to support it, and reserved only the condition that the new congress should consider amendments in the nature of a bill of rights. His decision to act secured Massachusetts to the Union, and carried the convention by a vote of 187 yeas to 168 nays. It was this proposed amendment of Samuel Adams that led to the attaching of the first ten amendments to the constitution as declared in force Dec. 15, 1791. In 1789 Mr. Adams was elected lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, and in 1794 was chosen its governor, serving three terms. His only son, Samuel, was educated at Harvard, graduating with the class of 1771, and died in 1788. He received the degree of LL.D. from Harvard in 1792, and was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In April, 1898, a tablet was erected to his memory by the Sons of the Revolution, and in October 1900, his name was one of the thirty-seven in "Class M., Rulers and Statesmen," eligible for a place in the Hall of Fame, New York University, and received thirty-three votes. He died in Boston, Mass., Oct. 2, 1803.