When Jefferson became President, in his messages to Congress again and again he advised the fixing of sufficient salaries to secure the best men for every branch of the service, and suggested the folly of expecting anything for nothing, or the hope of officials not "fixing things" if not properly paid.

Men from the soil who gain power are usually intoxicated by it; beginning as democrats they evolve into aristocrats, then into tyrants, if kindly Fate does not interpose, and are dethroned by the people who made them. And it is not surprising that this man, born into a plenty that bordered on affluence, and who never knew from experience the necessity of economy (until in old age tobacco and slavery had wrecked Virginia and Monticello alike), should set an almost ideal example of simplicity, moderation and brotherly kindness.

Among the chief glories that belong to him are these:

1. Writing the Declaration of Independence.

2. Suggesting and carrying out the present decimal monetary system.

3. Inducing Virginia to deed to the States, as their common property, the Northwest Territory.

4. Purchasing from France, for the comparatively trifling sum of fifteen million dollars, Louisiana and the territory running from the Gulf of Mexico to Puget's Sound, being at the rate of a fraction of a cent per acre, and giving the United States full control of the Mississippi River.

But over and beyond these is the spirit of patriotism that makes each true American feel he is parcel and part of the very fabric of the State, and in his deepest heart believe that "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."



SAMUEL ADAMS

The body of the people are now in council. Their opposition grows into a system. They are united and resolute. And if the British Administration and Government do not return to the principles of moderation and equity, the evil, which they profess to aim at preventing by their rigorous measures, will the sooner be brought to pass, viz., the entire separation and independence of the Colonies. —Letter to Arthur Lee



Samuel and John Adams were second cousins, having the same great-grandfather. Between them in many ways there was a marked contrast, but true to their New England instincts both were theologians.

John was a conservative in politics, and at first had little sympathy with "those small-minded men who refused to pay a trivial tax on their tea; and who would plunge the country into war, and ruin all for a matter of stamps." John was born and lived at the village of Braintree. He did not really center his mind on politics until the British had closed all law-courts in Boston, thus making his profession obsolete. He was scholarly, shrewd, diplomatic, cautious, good-natured, fat, and took his religion with a wink. He was blessed with a wife who was worthy of being the mother of kings (or presidents); he lived comfortably, acquired property, and died aged ninety-two. He had been President and seen his son President of the United States, and that is an experience that has never come and probably never will come to another living man, for there seems to be an unwritten law that no man under fifty shall occupy the office of Chief Magistrate of these United States.

Samuel was stern, serious and deeply in earnest. He seldom smiled and never laughed. He was uncompromisingly religious, conscientious and morally unbending. In his life there was no soft sentiment. The fact that he ran a brewery can be excused when we remember that the best spirit of the times saw nothing inconsistent in the occupation; and further than this we might explain in extenuation that he gave the business indifferent attention, and the quality of his brew was said to be very bad.

In religion, he swerved not nor wavered. He was a Calvinist and clung to the five points with a tenacity at times seemingly quite unnecessary.

When in that first Congress, Samuel Adams publicly consented to the opening of the meeting with religious service conducted by the Reverend Mr. Duche, an Episcopal clergyman, he gave a violent wrench to his conscience and an awful shock to his friends. But Mr. Duche met the issue in the true spirit, and leaving his detested "popery robe" and prayer-book at home uttered an extemporaneous invocation, without a trace of intoning, that pleased the Puritans and caused one of them to remark, "He is surely coming over to the Lord's side!"

But in politics, Samuel Adams was a liberal of the liberals. In statecraft, the heresy of change had no terrors for him, and with Hamlet, he might have said, "Oh, reform it altogether!"

The limitations set in every character seem to prevent a man from being generous in more than one direction; the bigot in religion is often a liberal in politics, and vice versa. For instance, physicians are almost invariably liberal in religious matters, but are prone to call a man "Mister" who does not belong to their school; while orthodox clergymen, I have noticed, usually employ a homeopathist.

In that most valuable and interesting work, "The Diary of John Adams," the author refers repeatedly to Samuel Adams as "Adams"! This simple way of using the word "Adams" shows a world of appreciation for the man who blazed the path that others of this illustrious name might follow. And so with the high precedent in mind, I, too, will drop prefix and call my subject simply "Adams."

On the authority of King George, General Gage made an offer of pardon to all save two who had figured in the Boston uprising.

The two men thus honored were John Hancock (whose signature the King could read without spectacles), and the other was "one, S. Adams."

Adams, however, was the real offender, and the plea might have been made for John Hancock that, if it had not been for accident and Adams, Hancock would probably have remained loyal to the mother country.

Hancock was aristocratic, cultured and complacent. He was the richest man in New England. His personal interests were on the side of peace and the established order. But circumstances and the combined tact and zeal of Adams threw him off his guard, and in a moment of dalliance the seeds of sedition found lodgment in his brain. And the more he thought about it, the nearer he came to the conclusion that Adams was right. But let the fact further be stated, if truth demands, that both John Hancock and Samuel Adams, the first men who clearly and boldly expressed the idea of American Independence, were moved in the beginning by personal grievances.

A single motion made before the British Parliament by we know not whom, and put to vote by the Speaker, bankrupted the father of Samuel Adams and robbed the youth of his patrimony.

The boy was then seventeen; old enough to know that from plenty his father was reduced to penury, and this because England, three thousand miles away, had interfered with the business arrangements of the Colony, and made unlawful a private banking scheme.

Then did the boy ask the question, What moral right has England to govern us, anyway?

From thinking it over he began to formulate reasons. He discussed the subject at odd times and thought of it continually, and, in Seventeen Hundred Forty-three, when he prepared his graduation thesis at Harvard College he chose for his subject, "The Doctrine of the Lawfulness of Resistance to the Supreme Magistrate if the Commonwealth Can Not Otherwise be Preserved."

When Massachusetts admitted that she was under subjection to the King, yet argued for the right to nullify the Acts of the English Parliament, she took exactly the same ground that South Carolina did a hundred years later. The logic of Samuel Adams and of Robert Hayne was one and the same.

Yet we are glad that Adams carried his point; and we rejoice exceedingly that Hayne failed, so curious are these things we call "reasons."

The royalists who heard of this youth with a logical mind denounced him without stint. A few newspapers upheld him and spoke of the right of free speech and all that, reprinting the thesis in full. And in the controversy that followed, young Adams was always a prominent figure. He was not an orator in the popular sense, but he held the pen of a ready writer, and through the Boston papers kept up a constant fusillade.

The tricks of journalism are no new thing belonging to the fag-end of this century. Young Adams wrote letters over the "nom de plume" of Pro Bono Publico, and then replied to them over the signature of Rex Americus. He did not adopt as his motto, "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth," for he wrote with both hands and each hand was in the secret.

During the years that followed his graduation from college he was a businessman and a poor one, for a man who looks after public affairs much can not attend to his own. But he managed to make shift; and when too closely pressed by creditors, a loan from Hancock, or John Adams, Hancock's attorney, relieved the pressure. In fact, when he went to Philadelphia "on that very important errand," he rode a horse borrowed from John Adams, and his Sunday coat was the gift of a thoughtful friend.

In Seventeen Hundred Sixty-three, it became known that the British Government had on foot a scheme to demand a tribute from the Colonies. On invitation of a committee, possibly appointed by Adams, Adams was requested to draw up instructions to the Representatives in the Colonial Legislature. Adams did so and the document is now in the archives of the old State House at Boston, in the plain and elegant penmanship that is so easily recognized. This document calls itself, "The First Public Denial of the Right of the British Parliament to tax the Colonies without their Consent, and the first Public Suggestion of a Union on the part of the Colonies to Protect themselves against British Aggression."

The style of the paper is lucid, firm and logical; it combines in itself the suggestion of all there was to be said or could be said on the matter. Adams saw all over and around his topic—no unpleasant surprise could be sprung on him—twenty-five years had he studied this one theme. He had made himself familiar with the political history of every nation so far as such history could be gathered; he was past master of his subject.

However, when he was forty years of age his followers were few and mostly men of small influence. The Calkers' Club was the home of the sedition, and many of the members were day-laborers. But the idea of independence gradually grew, and, in Seventeen Hundred Sixty-five, Adams was elected a member of the Massachusetts Colonial Legislature. In honor of his writing ability, he was chosen clerk of the Assembly, for in all public gatherings orators are chosen as presidents and newspapermen for secretaries. Thus are honors distributed, and thus, too, does the public show which talent it values most.

On November Second, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-two, on motion of Adams, a committee of several hundred citizens was appointed "to state the Rights of the Colonies and to communicate and publish them to the World as the sense of the Town, with the infringements and violations thereof that have been or may be made from time to time; also requesting from each Town a free communication of their sentiments on this Subject."

This was the Committee of Correspondence from which grew the union of the Colonies and the Congress of the United States. It is a pretty well attested fact that the first suggestion of the Philadelphia Congress came from Samuel Adams, and the chief work of bringing it about was also his.

It was well known to the British Government who the chief agitator was, and when General Gage arrived in Boston in May, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four, his first work was an attempt to buy off Samuel Adams. With Adams out of the way, England might have adopted a policy of conciliation and kept America for her very own—yes, to the point of moving the home government here and saving the snug little island as a colony, for both in wealth and in population America has now far surpassed England.

But Adams was not for sale. His reply to Gage sounds like a scrap from Cromwell: "I trust I have long since made my peace with the King of Kings. No personal consideration shall induce me to abandon the Righteous Cause of my Country."

Gage having refused to recognize the thirteen Counselors appointed by the people, the General Court of Massachusetts, in secret session, appointed five delegates to attend the Congress of Colonies at Philadelphia. Of course Samuel Adams was one of these delegates; and to John Adams, another delegate, are we indebted for a minute description of that most momentous meeting.

A room in the State House had been offered the delegates, but with commendable modesty they accepted the offer of the Carpenters' Company to use their hall.

And so there they convened on the fifth day of September, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four, having met by appointment, and walked over from the City Tavern in a body. Forty-four men were present—not a large gathering, but they had come hundreds of miles, and several of them had been months on the journey.

They were a sturdy lot; and madam! I think it would have been worth while to have looked in upon them. There were several coonskin caps in evidence; also lace and frills and velvet brought from England—but plainness to severity was the rule. Few of these men had ever been away from their own Colonies before, few had ever met any members of the Congress save their own colleagues. They represented civilizations of very different degrees. Each stood a bit in awe of all the rest. Several of the Colonies had been in conflict with the others.

Meeting new men in those days, when even the stagecoach was a passing show worth going miles to see, was an event. There was awkwardness and nervousness on the swarthy faces; firm mouths twitched, and big, bony hands sought for places of concealment.

The meeting had been called for September First, but was postponed for five days awaiting the arrival of belated delegates who had been detained by floods. Even then, delegates from North Carolina had not arrived, and Georgia not having thought it worth while to send any, eleven Colonies only were represented. Each delegation naturally kept together, as men will who have a fighting history and a pioneer ancestry.

It was a serious, solemn business, and these men were not given to levity in any event. When they were seated, there was a moment of silence so tense it could be heard. Every chance movement of a foot on the uncarpeted floor sent an echo through the room.

The stillness was first broken by Mr. Lynch, of South Carolina, who arose and in a low, clear voice said: "There is a gentleman present who has presided with great dignity over a very respectable body and greatly to the advantage of America. Gentlemen, I move that the Honorable Peyton Randolph, one of the delegates from Virginia, be appointed to preside over this meeting. I doubt not it will be unanimous."

It was so; and a large man in powdered wig and scarlet coat arose, and, carrying his gold-headed cane before him like a mace, walked to the platform without apology.

The New Englanders in homespun looked at one another with trepidation on their features. The red coat was not assuring, but they kept their peace and breathed hard, praying that the enemy had not captured the convention through strategy. Mr. Randolph's first suggestion was not revolutionary; it was that a secretary be appointed.

Again Mr. Lynch arose and named Charles Thomson, "a gentleman of family, fortune and character." This testimonial of family and fortune was not assuring to the plain Massachusetts men, but they said nothing and awaited developments.

All were cautious as woodsmen, and the motion that the Council be held behind closed doors was adopted. Every member then held up his right hand and made a solemn promise to divulge no part of the transactions; and Galloway, of Pennsylvania, promised with the rest, and straightway each night informed the enemy of every move.

Little was done that first day but get acquainted by talking very cautiously and very politely. The next day a notable member had arrived, and in a front seat sat Richard Henry Lee, a man you would turn and look at in any company. Slender and dark, with a brilliant eye and a profile—and only one man in ten thousand has a profile—Lee was a gracious presence. His voice was gentle and flexible and luring, and there was a dignity and poise in his manner that made him easily the foremost orator of his time.

Near him sat William Livingston, of New Jersey, and John Jay, his son-in-law, the youngest man in the Congress, with a nose that denoted character, and all his fame in the future.

The Pennsylvanians were all together, grouped on one side. Duane, of New York, sat near them, "shy and squint-eyed, very sensible and very artful," wrote John Adams that night in his diary.

Then over there sat Christopher Gadsden, of South Carolina, who had preached independence for full ten years before this, and who, when he heard that the British soldiers had taken Boston, proposed to raise a troop at once and fight redcoats wherever found.

"But the British will burn our seaport towns if we antagonize them," some timid soul explained.

"Our towns are built of brick and wood; if they are burned we can rebuild them; but liberty once gone is gone forever," he retorted. And the saying sounds well, even if it will not stand analysis.

Back near the wall was a man who, when the assembly stood at morning prayers, showed a half-head above his neighbors. His face was broad, and he, too, had a profile. His mouth was tightly closed, and during the first fourteen days of that Congress he never opened it to utter a word, and after his long quiet he broke the silence by saying, "Mr. President, I second the motion." Once, in a passionate speech, Lynch turned to him and pointing his finger said: "There is a man who has not spoken here, but in the Virginia Assembly he made the most eloquent speech I ever heard. He said, 'I will raise a thousand men, and arm and subsist them at my expense and march them to the relief of Boston.'" And then did the tall man, whose name was George Washington, blush like a schoolgirl.

But in all that company the men most noticed were the five members from Massachusetts. They were Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Gushing and Robert Treat Paine. Massachusetts had thus far taken the lead in the struggle with England. A British army was encamped upon her soil, her chief city besieged—the port closed. Her sufferings had called this Congress into being, and to her delegates the members had come to listen. All recognized Samuel Adams as the chief man of the Convention. His hand wrote the invitations and earnest requests to come. Galloway, writing to his friends, the enemy, said: "Samuel Adams eats little, drinks little, sleeps little and thinks much. He is most decisive and indefatigable in the pursuit of his object. He is the man who, by his superior application, manages at once the faction in Philadelphia and the factions of New England."

Yet Samuel Adams talked little at the Convention. He allowed John Adams to state the case, but sat next to him supplying memoranda, occasionally arising to make remarks or explanations in a purely conversational tone. But so earnest and impressive was his manner, so ably did he answer every argument and reply to every objection, that he thoroughly convinced a tall, angular, homely man by the name of Patrick Henry of the righteousness of his cause. Patrick Henry was pretty thoroughly convinced before, but the recital of Boston's case fired the Virginian, and he made the first and only real speech of the Congress. In burning words he pictured all the Colonies had suffered and endured, and by his matchless eloquence told in prophetic words of the glories yet to be. In his speech he paid just tribute to the genius of Samuel Adams, declaring that the good that was to come from this "first of an unending succession of Congresses" was owing to the work of Adams. And in after-years Adams repaid the compliment by saying that if it had not been for the cementing power of Patrick Henry's eloquence, that first Congress probably would have ended in a futile wrangle.

The South regarded, in great degree, the fight in Boston as Massachusetts' own. To make the entire thirteen Colonies adopt the quarrel and back the Colonial army in the vicinity of Boston was the only way to make the issue a success, and to unite the factions by choosing for a leader a Virginian aristocrat was a crowning stroke of diplomacy.

John Hancock had succeeded Randolph as president of the second Congress, and Virginia was inclined to be lukewarm, when John Adams in an impassioned speech nominated Colonel George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. The nomination was seconded very quietly by Samuel Adams. It was a vote, and the South was committed to the cause of backing up Washington, and, incidentally, New England. The entire plan was probably the work of Samuel Adams, yet he gave the credit to John, while the credit of stoutly opposing it goes to John Hancock, who, being presiding officer, worked at a disadvantage.

But Adams had a way of reducing opposition to the minimum. He kept out of sight and furthered his ends by pushing this man or that to the front at the right time to make the plea. He was a master in that fine art of managing men and never letting them know they are managed. By keeping behind the arras, he accomplished purposes that a leader never can who allows his personality to be in continual evidence, for personality repels as well as attracts, and the man too much before the public is sure to be undone eventually. Adams knew that the power of Pericles lay largely in the fact that he was never seen upon but a single street of Athens, and that but once a year.

The complete writings of Adams have recently been collected and published. One marvels that such valuable material has not before been printed and given to the public, for the literary style and perspicuity shown are most inspiring, and the value of the data can not be gainsaid.

No one ever accused Adams of being a muddy thinker; you grant his premises and you are bound to accept his conclusions. He leaves no loopholes for escape.

The following words, used by Chatham, refer to documents in which Adams took a prominent part in preparing: "When your Lordships look at the papers transmitted us from America, when you consider their decency, firmness and wisdom, you can not but respect their cause and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must avow that, in all my reading—and I have read Thucydides and have studied and admired the master statesmen of the world—for solidity of reason, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion under a complication of difficult circumstances, no body of men can stand in preference to the general Congress of Philadelphia. The histories of Greece and Rome give us nothing like it, and all attempts to impress servitude on such a mighty continental people must be in vain."

In the life of Adams there was no soft sentiment nor romantic vagaries. "He is a Puritan in all the word implies, and the unbending fanatic of independence," wrote Gage, and the description fits.

He was twice married. Our knowledge of his first wife is very slight, but his second wife, Elizabeth Wells, daughter of an English merchant, was a capable woman of brave good sense. She adopted her husband's political views and with true womanly devotion let her old kinsmen slide; and during the dark hours of the war bore deprivation without repining.

Adams' home life was simple to the verge of hardship. All through life he was on the ragged edge financially, and in his latter years he was for the first time relieved from pressing obligations by an afflicting event—the death of his only son, who was a surgeon in Washington's army. The money paid to the son by the Government for his services gave the father the only financial competency he ever knew. Two daughters survived him, but with him died the name.

John Adams survived Samuel for twenty-three years. He lived to see "the great American experiment," as Mr. Ruskin has been pleased to call our country, on a firm basis, constantly growing stronger and stronger. He lived to realize that the sanguine prophecies made by Samuel were working themselves out in very truth.

The grave of Samuel Adams is viewed by more people than that of any other American patriot. In the old Granary Burying-Ground, in the very center of Boston, on Tremont Street—there where travel congests, and two living streams meet all day long—-you look through the iron fence, so slender that it scarce impedes the view, and not twenty feet from the curb is a simple metal disk set on an iron rod driven into the ground and on it this inscription: "This marks the grave of Samuel Adams."

For many years the grave was unmarked, and the disk that now denotes it was only recently placed in position by the Sons of the American Revolution. But the place of Samuel Adams on the pages of history is secure. Upon the times in which he lived he exercised a profound influence. And he who influences the times in which he lives has influenced all the times that come after; he has left his impress on eternity.



JOHN HANCOCK

Boston, Sept. 30, 1765

Gent:

Since my last I have receiv'd your favour by Capt Hulme who is arriv'd here with the most disagreeable Commodity (say Stamps) that were imported into this Country & what if carry'd into Execution will entirely Stagnate Trade here, for it is universally determined here never to Submitt to it and the principal merchts here will by no means carry on Business under a Stamp, we are in the utmost Confusion here and shall be more so after the first of November & nothing but the repeal of the act will righten, the Consequence of its taking place here will be bad, & attended with many troubles, & I believe may say more fatal to you than us. I dread the Event. —Extract From Hancock's Letter-Book



Long years ago when society was young, learning was centered in one man in each community, and that man was the priest. It was the priest who was sent for in every emergency of life. He taught the young, prescribed for the sick, advised those who were in trouble, and when human help was vain and man had done his all, this priest knelt at the bedside of the dying and invoked a Power with whom it was believed he had influence.

The so-called learned professions are only another example of the Division of Labor. We usually say there are three learned professions: Theology, Medicine and Law. As to which is the greatest is a much-mooted question and has caused too many family feuds for me to attempt to decide it. And so I evade the issue and say there is a fourth profession, that is only allowed to be called so by grace, but which in my mind is greater than them all—the profession of Teacher. I can conceive of a condition of society so high and excellent that it has no use for either doctor, lawyer or preacher, but the teacher would still be needed. Ignorance and sin supply the three "learned professions" their excuse for being, but the teacher's work is to develop the germ of wisdom that is in every soul.

And now each of these professions has divided up, like monads, into many heads. In medicine, we have as many specialists as there are organs of the body. The lawyer who advises you in a copyright or patent cause knows nothing about admiralty; and as they tell us a man who pleads his own case has a fool for a client, so does the insurance lawyer who is retained to foreclose a mortgage. In all prosperous city churches, the preacher who attracts the crowd in the morning allows a 'prentice to preach to the young folks in the evening; he does not make pastoral calls; and the curate who reads the service at funerals is never called upon to perform a marriage ceremony except in a case of charity. Likewise the teacher's profession has its specialists: the man who teaches Greek well can not write good English; the man who teaches composition is baffled and perplexed by long division; and the teacher who delights in trigonometry pooh-poohs a kindergartner.

Just where this evolutionary dividing and subdividing of social cells will land the race no man can say; but that a specialist is a dangerous man, is sure. He is a buzz-saw with which wise men never monkey. A surgeon who has operated for appendicitis five times successfully is above all to be avoided. I once knew a man with lung trouble who inadvertently strayed into an oculist's and was looked over and sent away with an order on an optician. And should you through error stray into the office of a nose and throat specialist, and ask him to treat you for varicose veins, he would probably do so by nasal douche.

Even now a specialist in theology will lead us, if he can, a merry "ignis-fatuus" chase and land us in a morass. The only thing that saved the priest in days agone was the fact that he had so many duties to perform that he exercised all his mental muscles, and thus attained a degree of all-roundness which is not possible to the specialist. Even then there were not lacking men who found time to devote to specialties: Bishop Georgius Ambrosius, for instance, who in the Fifteenth Century produced a learned work proving that women have no souls. And a like book was written at Nashville, Tennessee, in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-nine, by the Reverend Hubert Parsons of the Methodist Episcopal Church (South), showing that negroes were in a like predicament. But a more notable instance of the danger of a specialty is the Reverend Cotton Mather, who investigated the subject of witchcraft and issued a modest brochure incorporating his views on the subject. He succeeded in convincing at least one man of its verity, and that man was himself, and thus immortality was given to the town of Salem, which, otherwise, would have no claim on us for remembrance, save that Hawthorne was once a clerk in its custom-house.

A very slight study of Colonial history will show any student that, for two centuries, the ministers in New England occupied very much the same position in society that the priest did during the Middle Ages. As the monks kept learning from dying off the face of the earth, so did the ministers of the New World preserve culture from passing into forgetfulness. Very seldom, indeed, were books to be found in a community except at the minister's. And during the Seventeenth Century, and well into the Eighteenth, he combined in himself the offices of doctor, lawyer, preacher and teacher. Mr. Lowell has said: "I can not remember when there was not one or more students in my father's household, and others still who came at regular intervals to recite. And this was the usual custom. It was the minister who fitted boys for college, and no youth was ever sent away to school until he had been drilled by the local clergyman."

And it must further be noted that genealogical tables show that very nearly all of the eminent men of New England were sons of ministers, or of an ancestry where ministers' names are seen at frequent intervals. As an intellectual and moral force, the minister has now but a rudiment of the power he once exercised. The tendency to specialize all art and all knowledge has to a degree shorn him of his strength. And to such an extent is this true, that within forty years it has passed into a common proverb that the sons of clergymen are rascals, whereas in Colonial days the highest recommendation a youth could carry was that he was the son of a minister.

The Reverend John Hancock, grandfather of John Hancock the patriot, was for more than half a century the minister of Lexington, Massachusetts. I say "the minister," because there was only one: the keen competition of sect that establishes half a dozen preachers in a small community is a very modern innovation.

John Hancock, "Bishop of Lexington," was a man of pronounced personality, as is plainly seen in his portrait in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. They say he ruled the town with a rod of iron; and when the young men, who adorned the front steps of the meetinghouse during service, grew disorderly, he stopped in his prayer, and going outside soundly cuffed the ears of the first delinquent he could lay hands upon. In his clay there was a dash of facetiousness that saved him from excess, supplying a useful check to his zeal—for zeal uncurbed is very bad. He was a wise and beneficent dictator; and government under such a one can not be improved upon. His manner was gracious, frank and open, and such was the specific gravity of his nature that his words carried weight, and his wish was sufficient.

The house where this fine old autocrat lived and reigned is standing in Lexington now. When you walk out through Cambridge and Arlington on your way to Concord, following the road the British took on their way out to Concord, you will pass by it. It is a good place to stop and rest. You will know the place by the tablet in front, on which is the legend: "Here John Hancock and Samuel Adams were sleeping on the night of the Eighteenth of April, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-five, when aroused by Paul Revere."

The Reverend Jonas Clark owned the house after the Reverend John Hancock, and the ministries of those two men, and their occupancy of the house, cover one hundred years and five years more. Here the thirteen children of Jonas Clark were born, and all lived to be old men and women. When you call there I hope you will be treated with the same gentle courtesy that I met. If you delay not your visit too long, you will see a fine, motherly woman, with white "sausage curls" and a high back-comb, wearing a check dress and felt slippers, and she will tell you that she is over eighty, and that when her mother was a little girl she once sat on Governor Hancock's knee and he showed her the works in his watch.

And then as you go away you will think again of what the old lady has just told you, and as you look back for a parting glance at the house, standing firm and solemn in its rusty-gray dignity, you will doff your hat to it, and mayhap murmur: The days of man on earth—they are but as a passing shadow!

"Here John Hancock and Samuel Adams were sleeping when aroused by Paul Revere!" Merchant-prince and agitator, horse and rider—where are you now? And is your sleep disturbed by dreams of British redcoats or hissing flintlocks?

Phantom British warships may lie at their moorings, swinging wide on the unforgetting tide, lanterns may hang high in the belfry of the Old North Church tower, hurried knocks and calls of defiance and hoof-beats of fast-galloping steed may echo and echo again, borne on the night-wind of the dim Past, but you heed them not!

* * * * *

The Reverend John Hancock of Lexington had two sons. John Hancock (Number Two) became pastor of the church of the North Precinct of the town of Braintree, which afterwards was to be the town of Quincy.

The nearest neighbor to the village preacher was John Adams, shoemaker and farmer. Each Sunday in the amen corner of the Reverend John Hancock's meetinghouse was mustered the well washed and combed brood of Mr. and Mrs. Adams. Now, this John Adams had a son whom the Reverend John Hancock baptized, also named John, two years older than John, the son of the preacher. And young John Adams and John Hancock (Number Three) used to fish and swim together, and go nutting, and set traps for squirrels, and help each other in fractions. And then they would climb trees, and wrestle, and sometimes fight. In the fights, they say, John Hancock used to get the better of his antagonist, but as an exploiter of fractions John Adams was more than his equal.

The parents of John Adams were industrious and savin'—the little farm prospered, for Boston supplied a goodly market, and weekly trips were made there in a one-horse cart, often piloted by young John, with the minister's boy for ballast. The Adams family had ambitions for their son John—he was to go to Harvard and be educated, and be a minister and preach at Braintree, or Weymouth, or perhaps even Boston!

In the meantime the Reverend John Hancock had died, and the widowed mother was not able to give her boy a college education—times were hard.

But the lad's uncle, Thomas Hancock, a prosperous merchant of Boston, took quite an interest in young John. And it occurred to him to adopt the fatherless boy, legally, as his own. The mother demurred, but after some months decided that it was best so, for when twenty-one he would be her boy just as much and as truly as if his uncle had not adopted him. And so the rich uncle took him, and rigged him out with a deal finer clothing than he had ever before worn, and sent him to the Latin School and afterward over to Cambridge, with silver jingling in his pocket.

Prosperity is a severe handicap to youth; not very many grown men can stand it; but beyond a needless display of velvet coats and frilled shirts, the young man stood the test, and got through Harvard. In point of scholarship he did not stand so high as John Adams; and between the lads there grew a small but well-defined gulf, as is but natural between homespun and broadcloth. Still the gulf was not impassable, for over it friendly favors were occasionally passed.

John Hancock's mother wanted him to be a preacher, but Uncle Thomas would not listen to it—the youth must be taught to be a merchant, so he could be the ready helper and then the successor of his foster-father.

Graduating at the early age of seventeen, John Hancock at once went to work in his uncle's counting-house in Boston. He was a fine, tall fellow with dash and spirit, and seemed to show considerable aptitude for the work. The business prospered, and Uncle Thomas was very proud of his handsome ward, who was quite in demand at parties and balls and in a general social way, while the uncle could not dance a minuet to save him.

Not needing the young man very badly around the store, the uncle sent him to Europe to complete his education by travel. He went with the retiring Governor Pownal, whose taste for social enjoyment was very much in accord with his own. In England, he attended the funeral of George the Second, and saw the coronation of George the Third, little thinking the while that he would some day make violent efforts to snatch from that crown its brightest jewel.

When young Hancock was twenty-seven, the uncle died, and left to him his entire fortune of three hundred fifty thousand dollars. It made him one of the very richest men in the Colony—for at that time there was not a man in Massachusetts worth half a million dollars.

The jingling silver in his pocket when sent to Harvard had severely tested his moral fiber, but this great fortune came near smothering all his native commonsense. If a man makes his money himself, he stands a certain chance of growing as the pile grows.

There is little doubt as to the soundness of Emerson's epigram, that what you put into his chest you take out of the man. More than this, when a man gradually accumulates wealth, it attracts little attention, so the mob that follows the newly rich never really gets on to the scent. And besides that, the man who makes his own fortune always stands ready to repel boarders.

There may be young men of twenty-seven who are men grown, and no doubt every man of twenty-seven is very sure that he is one of these; but the thought that man is mortal never occurs to either men or women until they are past thirty. The blood is warm, conquest lies before, and to seize the world by the tail and snap its head off seems both easy and desirable.

The promoters, the flatterers and friends until then unknown flocked to Hancock and condoled with him on the death of his uncle. Some wanted small loans to tide over temporary emergencies, others had business ventures in hand whereby John Hancock could double his wealth very shortly. Still others spoke of wealth being a trust, and to use money to help your fellow-men, and thus to secure the gratitude of many, was the proper thing.

The unselfishness of the latter suggestion appealed to Hancock. To be the friend of humanity, to assist others—this is the highest ambition to which a man can aspire! And, of course, if one is pointed out on the street as the good Mr. Hancock it can not be helped. It is the penalty of well-doing.

So in order to give work to many and to promote the interests of Boston, a thriving city of fifteen thousand inhabitants, for all good men wish to build up the place in which they live, John Hancock was induced to embark in shipbuilding. He also owned several ships of his own which traded with London and the West Indies, and was part owner of others. But he publicly explained that he did not care to make money for himself—his desire was to give employment to the worthy poor and to enhance the good of Boston.

The aristocratic company of militia, known as the Governor's Guard, had been fitted out with new uniforms and arms by the generous Hancock, and he had been chosen commanding officer, with rank of Colonel. He drilled with the crack company and studied the manual much more diligently than he ever had his Bible.

Hancock lived in the mansion, inherited from his uncle, on Beacon Street, facing the Common. There was a chariot and six horses for state occasions, much fine furniture from over the sea, elegant clothes that the Puritans called "gaudy apparel," and at the dinners the wine flowed freely, and cards, dancing and music filled many a night.

The Puritan neighbors were shocked, and held up their hands in horror to think that the son of a minister should so affront the staid and sober customs of his ancestors. Still others said, "Why, that's what a rich man should do—spend his money, of course; Hancock is the benefactor of his kind; just see how many people he employs!"

The town was all agog, and Hancock was easily Boston's first citizen, but in his time of prosperity he did not forget his old friends. He sent for them to come and make merry with him; and among the first in his good offices was John Adams, the rising young lawyer of Braintree.

John Adams had found clients scarce, and those he had, poor pay, but when he became the trusted legal adviser of John Hancock, things took a turn and prosperity came that way. The wine and cards and dinners hadn't much attraction for him, but still there were no conscientious scruples in the way. He patted John Hancock on the back, assured him that he was the people, looked after his interests loyally, and extracted goodly fees for services performed.

At the home of Adams at Braintree, Hancock had met a quiet, taciturn individual by the name of Samuel Adams. This man he had long known in a casual way, but had never been able really to make his acquaintance. He was fifteen years older than Hancock, and by his quiet dignity and self-possession made quite an impression on the young man.

So, now that prosperity had smiled, Hancock invited him to his house, but the quiet man was an ascetic and neither played cards, drank wine nor danced, and so declined with thanks.

But not long after, he requested a small loan from the merchant-prince, and asked it as though it were his right, and so he got it. His manner was in such opposition to the flatterers and those who crawled, and whined, and begged, that Hancock was pleased with the man. Samuel Adams had declined Hancock's social favors, and yet, in asking for a loan, showed his friendliness.

Samuel Adams was a politician, and had long taken an active part in the town meetings. In fact, to get a measure through, it was well to have Samuel Adams at your side. He was clear-headed, astute, and knew the human heart. Yet he talked but little, and the convivial ways of the small politician were far from him; but in the fine art that can manage men and never let them know they are managed he was a past-master. Tucked in his sleeve, no doubt, was a degree of pride in his power, but the stoic quality in his nature never allowed him to break into laughter when he considered how he led men by the nose.

In Boston and its vicinity, Samuel Adams was not highly regarded, and outside of Boston, at forty years of age, he was positively unknown. The neighbors regarded him as a harmless fanatic, sane on most subjects, but possessed of a buzzing bee in his bonnet to the effect that the Colonies should be separated from their protector, England. Samuel Adams neglected his business and kept up a fusillade of articles in the newspapers, on various political subjects, and men who do this are regarded everywhere as "queer." A professional newspaper-writer never takes his calling seriously—it is business. He writes to please his employer, or if he owns the paper himself, he still writes to please his employer, that is to say, the public. Journalism, thy name is pander!

The man who comes up the stairway furtively, with a manuscript he wants printed, is in dead earnest; and he has excited the ridicule, wrath or pity of editors for three hundred years. Such a one was Samuel Adams. His wife did her own work, and the grocer with bills in his hand often grew red in the face and knocked in vain.

And yet the keen intellect of Samuel Adams was not a thing to smile at. Any one who stood before him, face to face, felt the power of the man, and acknowledged it then and there, as we always do when we stand in the presence of a strong individuality. And this inward acknowledgment of worth was instinctively made by John Hancock, the biggest man in all Boston town.

John Hancock, through his genial, glowing personality, and his lavish spending of money, was very popular. He was being fed on flattery, and the more a man gets of flattery, once the taste is acquired, the more he craves. It is like the mad thirst for liquor, or the Romeike habit.

John Hancock was getting attention, and he wanted more. He had been chosen selectman to fill the place that his uncle had occupied, and when Samuel Adams incidentally dropped a remark that good men were needed in the General Court, John Hancock agreed with him. He was named for the office and with Samuel Adams' help was easily elected.

Not long after this, the sloop "Liberty" was seized by the government officials for violation of the revenue laws. The craft was owned by John Hancock and had surreptitiously landed a cargo of wine without paying duty.

When the ship of Boston's chief citizen was seized by the bumptious, gilt-braided British officials, there was a merry uproar. All the men in the shipyards quit work, and the Calkers' Club, of which Samuel Adams was secretary, passed hot resolutions and revolutionary preambles and eulogies of John Hancock, who was doing so much for Boston.

In fact, there was a riot, and three regiments of British troops were ordered to Boston.

And this was the very first step on the part of England to enforce her authority, by arms, in America.

The troops were in the town to preserve order, but the mob would not disperse. Upon the soldiers, they heaped every indignity and insult. They dared them to shoot, and with clubs and stones drove the soldiers before them. At last the troops made a stand and in order to save themselves from absolute rout fired a volley. Five men fell dead—and the mob dispersed.

This was the so-called Boston massacre.

Pinkerton guards would blush at bagging so small a game with a volley. They have done better again and again at Pittsburgh, Pottsville and Chicago.

The riot was quelled, and out of the scrimmage various suits were instigated by the Crown against John Hancock, in the Court of Admiralty. The claims against him amounted to over three hundred thousand dollars, and the charge was that he had long been evading the revenue laws. John Adams was his attorney, with Samuel Adams as counsel, and vigorous efforts for prosecution and defense were being made.

If the Crown were successful the suits would confiscate the entire Hancock estate—matters were getting in a serious way. Witnesses were summoned, but the trial was staved off from time to time.

Hancock had refused to follow Samuel Adams' lead in the controversy with Governor Hutchinson as to the right to convene the General Court. The report was that John Hancock was growing lukewarm and siding with the Tories. A year had passed since the massacre had occurred, and the agitators proposed to commemorate the day.

Colonel Hancock had appeared in many prominent parts, but never as an orator.

"Why not show the town what you can do!" some one said.

So John Hancock was invited to deliver the oration. He did so to an immense concourse. The address was read from the written page. It overflowed with wisdom and patriotism; and the earnestness and eloquence of the well-rounded periods was the talk of the town.

The knowing ones went around corners and roared with laughter, but Samuel Adams said not a word. The charge was everywhere made by the captious and bickering that the speech was written by another, and that, moreover, John Hancock had not even a very firm hold on its import. It was the one speech of his life. Anyway, it so angered General Gage that he removed Colonel Hancock from his command of the cadets.

An order was out for Hancock's arrest, and he and Samuel Adams were in hiding.

The British troops marched out to Lexington to capture them, but Paul Revere was two hours ahead, and when the redcoats arrived the birds had flown.

Then came the expulsion of the British, the closing of all courts, the Admiralty included. The merchant-prince breathed easier, and that was the last of the Crown versus John Hancock.

* * * * *

Throughout the months that had gone before, when the Hancock mansion was gay with floral decorations, and servants in livery stood at the door with silver trays, and the dancing-hall was bright with mirth and music, Samuel Adams had quietly been working his Bureau of Correspondence to the end that the thirteen Colonies of America should come together in convention. Chief mover of the plan, and the one man in Massachusetts who was giving all his time to it, he dictated whom Massachusetts should send as delegates. This delegation, as we know, included John Hancock, John Adams and Samuel Adams himself.

From the danger of Lexington, Hancock and Adams made their way to Philadelphia to attend the Second Congress.

At that time the rich men of New England were hurriedly making their way into the English fold. Some thought that the mother country had been harsh, but still, England had only acted within her right, and she was well able to back up this authority. She had regiment upon regiment of trained fighting men, warships, and money to build more. The Colonies had no army, no ships, no capital.

Only those who have nothing to lose can afford to resist lawful authority—back into the fold they went, penitent and under their breath cursing the bull-headed men who insisted on plunging the country into red war.

Out in the cold world stood John Hancock, alone, save for Bowdoin, among the aristocrats of New England. The British would confiscate his property, his splendid house—all would be gone!

"It will all be gone, anyway," calmly suggested Samuel Adams. "You know those suits against you in the Admiralty Court?"

"Yes, yes!"

"And if we can unite these thirteen Colonies an army can be raised, and we can separate ourselves entire, in which case there will be glory for somebody."

John Hancock, the rich, the ambitious, the pleasure-loving, had burned his bridges. He was in the hands of Samuel Adams, and his infamy was one with this man who was a professional agitator, and who had nothing to lose.

General Gage had made an offer of pardon to all—all, save two men: Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Back into the fold tumbled the Tories, but against John Hancock the gates were barred. John Adams, Attorney of the Hancock estate, rubbed his chin, and decided to stand by the ship—sink or swim, survive or perish.

Down in his heart Samuel Adams grimly smiled, but on his cold, pale face there was no sign.

The British held Boston secure, and in the splendid mansion of Hancock lived the rebel, Lord Percy, England's pet. The furniture, plate and keeping of the place were quite to his liking.

Hancock's ambitions grew as the days went by. The fight was on. His property was in the hands of the British, and a price was upon his head. He, too, now had nothing to lose. If England could be whipped he would get his property back, and the honors of victory would be his, beside.

Ambition grew apace; he studied the Manual of Arms as never before, and made himself familiar with the lives of Caesar and Alexander. At Harvard, he had read the Anabasis on compulsion, but now he read it with zest.

The Second Congress was a Congress of action; the first had been one merely of conference. A presiding officer was required, and Samuel Adams quietly pushed his man to the front. He let it be known that Hancock was the richest man in New England, perhaps in America, and a power in every emergency.

John Hancock was given the office of presiding officer, the place of honor.

The thought never occurred to him that the man on the floor is the man who acts, and the individual in the chair is only a referee, an onlooker of the contest. When a man is chosen to preside he is safely out of the way, and no one knew this better than that clear-headed man, wise as a serpent, Samuel Adams.

Hancock was intent on being chosen Commander of the Continental Army. The war was in Massachusetts, her principal port closed, all business at a standstill. Hancock was a soldier, and was, moreover, the chief citizen of Massachusetts—the command should go to him. Samuel Adams knew this could never be.

To hold the Southern Colonies and give the cause a show of reason before the world, an aristocrat with something to lose, and without a personal grievance, must be chosen, and the man must be from the South. To get Hancock in a position where his mouth would be stopped, he was placed in the chair. It was a master move.

Colonel George Washington was already a hero; he had fought valiantly for England. His hands were clean; while Hancock was openly called a smuggler. Washington was nominated by John Adams. The motion was seconded by Samuel Adams. Hancock turned first red and then deathly pale. He grasped the arms of his chair with both hands, and—put the question.

It was unanimous.

Hancock's fame seems to rest on the fact that he was presiding officer of the Congress that passed the Declaration of Independence, and therefore its first signer, and, without consideration for cost of ink and paper, wrote his name in poster letters. When you look upon the Declaration the first thing you see is the signature of John Hancock, and you recall his remark, "I guess King George can read that without spectacles." The whole action was melodramatic, and although a bold signature has ever been said to betoken a bold heart, it has yet to be demonstrated that boys who whistle going through the woods are indifferent to danger. "Conscious weakness takes strong attitudes," says Delsarte. The strength of Hancock's signature was an affectation quite in keeping with his habit of riding about Boston in a coach-and-six, with outriders in uniform, and servants in livery.

When Hancock wrote to Washington asking for an appointment in the army, the wise and farseeing chief replied with gentle words of praise concerning Colonel Hancock's record, and wound up by saying that he regretted there was no place at his disposal worthy of Colonel Hancock's qualifications. Well did he know that Hancock was not quite patriot enough to fill a lowly rank.

The part that Hancock played in the eight years of war was inconspicuous. However, there was little spirit of revenge in his character: he sometimes scolded, but he did not hate. He never allowed personal animosities to make him waver in his loyalty to independence. In fact, with a price upon his head, but one course was open for him.

Just before Washington was inaugurated President, he visited Boston, and a curious struggle took place between him and Hancock, who was Governor. It was all a question of etiquette—which should make the first call. Each side played a waiting game, and at last Hancock's gout came in as an excellent excuse and the country was saved.

In one of his letters, Hancock says, "The entire Genteel portion of the town was invited to my House, while on the sidewalk I had a cask of Madeira for the Common People." His repeated re-election as Governor proves his popularity. Through lavish expenditure, his fortune was much reduced, and for many years he was sorely pressed for funds, his means being tied up in unproductive ways.

His last triumph, as Governor, was to send a special message to the Legislature, informing that body that "a company of Aliens and Foreigners have entered the State, and the Metropolis of Government, and under advertisements insulting to all Good Men and Ladies have been pleased to invite them to attend certain Stage-Plays, Interludes and Theatrical Entertainments under the Style and Appellation of Moral Lectures.... All of which must be put a stop to to once and the Rogues and Varlots punished."

A few days after this, "the Aliens and Foreigners" gave a presentation of Sheridan's "School for Scandal." In the midst of the performance the sheriff and a posse made a rush upon the stage and bagged all the offenders.

When their trial came on, the next day, the "varlots and vagroms" had secured high legal talent to defend them, one of which counsel was Harrison Gray Otis. The actors were discharged on the slim technicality that the warrants of arrest had not been properly verified.

However, the theater was closed, but the "Common People" made such an unseemly howl about "rights" and all that, that the Legislature made haste to repeal the law which provided that play-actors should be flogged.

Hancock defaulted in his stewardship as Treasurer of Harvard College, and only escaped arrest for embezzlement through the fact that he was Governor of the State, and no process could be served upon him. After his death his estate paid nine years' simple interest on his deficit, and ten years thereafter, the principal was paid.

His widow married Captain Scott, who was long in Hancock's employ as master of a brig; and we find the worthy captain proudly exclaiming, "I have embarked on the sea of Matrimony, and am now at the helm of the Hancock mansion!"

No biography of Governor Hancock has ever been written. The record of his life flutters only in newspaper paragraphs, letters, and chance mention in various diaries.

Hancock did not live to see John Adams President. Worn by worry, and grown old before his time, he died at the early age of fifty-six, of a combination of gout and that unplebeian complaint we now term Bright's Disease.

Thirty-three years after, hale old John Adams down at Quincy spoke of him as "a clever fellow, a bit spoiled by a legacy, whom I used to know in my younger days."

He left no descendants, and his heirs were too intent on being in at the death to care for his memory. They neither preserved the data of his life, nor over his grave placed a headstone. The monument that now marks his resting-place was recently erected by the State of Massachusetts. He was buried in the Old Granary Burying-Ground, on Tremont Street, and only a step from his grave sleeps his friend Samuel Adams.



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

To the guidance of the legislative councils; to the assistance of the executive and subordinate departments; to the friendly co-operation of the respective State Governments; to the candid and liberal support of the people, so far as it may be deserved by honest industry and zeal, I shall look for whatever success may attend my public service; and knowing that "except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh in vain," with fervent supplications for His favor, to His overruling providence I commit, with humble but fearless confidence, my own fate and the future destinies of my country. —Inaugural Address



Nine miles south of Boston, just a little back from the escalloped shores of Old Ocean, lies the village of Braintree. It is on the Plymouth post-road, being one of that string of settlements, built a few miles apart for better protection, that lined the sea, Boston being crowded, and Plymouth full to overflowing, the home-seekers spread out north and south.

In Sixteen Hundred Twenty, when the first cabin was built at Braintree, land that was not in sight of the coast had actually no value. Back a mile, all was a howling wilderness, with trails made by wild beasts or savage men as wild. These paths led through tangles of fallen trees and tumbled rocks, beneath dark, overhanging pines where winter's snows melted not till midsummer, and the sun's rays were strange and alien. Men who sought to traverse these ways had to crouch and crawl or climb. Through them no horse or ox or beast of burden had carried its load.

But up from the sea the ground rose gradually for a mile, and along this slope that faced the tide, wind and storm had partly cleared the ground, and on the hillsides our forefathers made their homes. The houses were built facing either the east or the south. This persistence to face either the sun or the sea shows a last, strange rudiment of paganism, making queer angles now that surveyors have come with Gunter's chain and transit, laying out streets and doing their work.

A mile out, north of Braintree, on the Boston road, came, in Sixteen Hundred Twenty-five, one Captain Wollaston, a merry wight, and thirty boon companions, all of whom probably left England for England's good. They were in search of gold and pelf, and all were agreed on one point: they were quite too good to do any hard work. Their camp was called Mount Wollaston, or the Merry Mount. Our gallant gentlemen cultivated the friendship of the Indians, in the hope that they would reveal the caves and caverns where the gold grew lush and nuggets cumbered the way; and the Indians, liking the drink they offered, brought them meal and corn and furs.

And so the thirty set up a Maypole, adorned with bucks' horns, and drank and feasted, and danced like fairies or furies, the livelong day or night. So scandalously did these exiled lords behave that good folks made a wide circuit 'round to avoid their camp.

Preaching had been in vain, and prayers for the conversion of the wretches remained unanswered. So the neighbors held a convention, and decided to send Captain Miles Standish with a posse to teach the merry men manners.

Standish appeared among the bacchanalians one morning, perfectly sober, and they were not. He arrested the captain, and bade the others begone. The leader was shipped back to England, with compliments and regrets, and the thirty scattered. This was the first move in that quarter in favor of local option.

Six years later, the land thereabouts was granted and apportioned out to the Reverend John Wilson, William Coddington, Edward Quinsey, James Penniman, Moses Payne and Francis Eliot.

And these men and their families built houses and founded "the North Precinct of the Town of Braintree."

Between the North Precinct and the South Precinct there was continual rivalry. Boys who were caught over the dead-line, which was marked by Deacon Penniman's house, had to fight. Thus things continued until Seventeen Hundred Ninety-two, when one John Adams was Vice-President of the United States. Now this John Adams, lawyer, was the son of John Adams, honest farmer and cordwainer, who had bought the Penniman homestead, and whose progenitor, Henry Adams, had moved there in Sixteen Hundred Thirty-six. John Adams, Vice-President, afterwards President, was born there in the Penniman house, and was regarded as a neutral, although he had been thrashed by boys both from the North and from the South Precinct. But at the last, there is no such thing as neutrality.

John Adams sided with the boys from the North Precinct, and now that he was in power it occurred to him, having had a little experience in the revolutionary line, that for the North Precinct to secede from the great town of Braintree would be but proper and right.

The North Precinct had six stores that sold W.I. goods, and a tavern that sold W.E.T. goods, and it should have a post-office of its own.

So John Adams suggested the matter to Richard Cranch, who was his brother-in-law and near neighbor. Cranch agitated the matter, and the new town, which was the old, was incorporated. They called it Quincy, probably because Abigail, John's wife, insisted upon it. She had named her eldest boy Quincy, in honor of her grandfather, whose father's name was Quinsey, and who had relatives who spelled it De Quincey, one of which tribe was an opium-eater.

Now, when Abigail made a suggestion, John usually heeded it. For Abigail was as wise as she was good, and John well knew that his success in life had come largely from the help, counsel and inspiration vouchsafed to him by this splendid woman. And the man who will not let a woman have her way in all such small matters as naming of babies or towns is not much of a man.

So the town was named Quincy, and brother-in-law Cranch was appointed its first postmaster. Shortly after, the Boston "Centinel" contained a sarcastic article over the signature, "Old Subscriber," concerning the distribution of official patronage among kinsmen, and the Eliots and the Everetts gossiped over their back fences.

At this time Abigail lived in the cottage there on the Plymouth road, halfway between Braintree and Quincy, but she got her mail at Quincy.

The Adams cottage is there now, and the next time you are in Boston you had better go out and see it, just as June and I did one bright October day.

June has lived within an hour's ride of the Adams' home all her blessed thirty-two sunshiny summers; she also boasts a Mayflower ancestry, with, however, a slight infusion of Castle Garden, like myself, to give firmness of fiber—and yet she had never been to Quincy.

The John and Abigail cottage was built in Seventeen Hundred Sixteen, so says a truthful brick found in the quaint old chimney. Deacon Penniman built this house for his son, and it faces the sea, although the older Penniman house faces the south. John Adams was born in the older house; but when he used to go to Weymouth every Wednesday and Saturday evening to see Abigail Smith, the minister's daughter, his father, the worthy shoemaker, told him that when he got married he could have the other house for himself.

John was a bright young lawyer then, a graduate of Harvard, where he had been sent in hopes that he would become a minister, for one-half the students then at Harvard were embryo preachers. But John did not take to theology.

He had witnessed ecclesiastical tennis and theological pitch and toss in Braintree that had nearly split the town, and he decided on the law. One thing sure, he could not work: he was not strong enough for that—everybody said so. And right here seems a good place to call attention to the fact that weak men, like those who are threatened, live long. John Adams' letters to his wife reveal a very frequent reference to liver complaint, lung trouble, and that tired feeling, yet he lived to be ninety-two.

The Reverend Mr. Smith did not at first favor the idea of his daughter Abigail marrying John Adams. The Adams family were only farmers (and shoemakers when it rained), while the Smiths had aristocracy on their side. He said lawyers were men who got bad folks out of trouble and good folks in. But Abigail said that this lawyer was different; and as Mr. Smith saw it was a love-match, and such things being difficult to combat successfully, he decided he would do the next best thing—give the young couple his blessing. Yet the neighbors were quite scandalized to think that their pastor's daughter should hold converse over the gate with a lawyer, and they let the clergyman know it as neighbors then did, and sometimes do now. Then did the Reverend Mr. Smith announce that he would preach a sermon on the sin of meddling with other folk's business. As his text he took the passage from Luke, seventh chapter, thirty-third verse: "For John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, he hath a devil."

The neighbors saw the point, for a short time before, when the eldest daughter, Mary, had married Richard Cranch (the man who was to achieve a post-office), the community had entered a protest, and the Reverend Mr. Smith had preached from Luke, tenth chapter, forty-second verse: "And Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her." So there, now!

And John and Abigail were married one evening at early candlelight, in the church at Weymouth. The good father performed the ceremony, and nearly broke down during it, they say, and then he kissed both bride and groom.

The neighbors had repaired to the parsonage and were eating and drinking and making merry when John and Abigail slipped out by the back gate, and made their way, hand in hand, in the starlight, down the road that ran through the woods to Braintree. When near the village they cut across the pasture-lot and reached their cottage, which for several weeks they had been putting in order. John unlocked the front door, and they entered over the big, flat stone at the entry, and over which you may enter now, all sunken and worn by generations of men gone. Some whose feet have pressed that doorstep we count as the salt of the earth, for their names are written large on history's page. Washington rode out there on horseback, and while his aide held his horse, he visited and drank mulled cider and ate doughnuts within. Hancock came often, and Otis, Samuel Adams and Loring used to enter without plying the knocker.

Through the earnest work of William G. Spear, the cottage has now been restored and fully furnished, as near like it was then as knowledge, fancy and imagination can devise.

When we reached Quincy we saw a benevolent-looking old Puritan, and June said, "Ask him!"

"Can you tell me where we can find Mr. Spear, the antiquarian?" I inquired.

"The which?" said the son of Priscilla Mullins.

"Mr. Spear, the antiquarian," I repeated.

"It's not Bill Spear who keeps a secondhand-shop, you want, mebbe?"

"Yes; I think that is the man."

And so we were directed to the "secondhand-shop," which proved to be the rooms of the Quincy Historical Society. And there we saw such a wondrous collection of secondhand stuff that, as we looked and looked, and Mr. Spear explained, and gave large slices of Colonial history, June, who is a Daughter of the American Revolution, gushed a trifle more than was meet.

Nothing short of a hundred years will set the seal of value on an article for Mr. Spear, and one hundred fifty is more like it. On his walls are hats, caps, spurs, boots and accouterments used in the Revolutionary War. Then there are candlesticks, snuffers, spectacles, butter-molds, bonnets, dresses, shoes, baby-stockings, cradles, rattles, aprons, butter-tubs made out of a solid piece, shovels to match, andirons, pokers, skillets and blue china galore.

"Bill Spear" himself is quite a curiosity. He traces a lineage to the well-known Lieutenant Seth Spear, of Revolutionary fame, and back of that to John Alden, who spoke for himself. The bark on the antiquarian, is rather rough; and I regret to say that he makes use of a few words I can not find in the "Century Dictionary," but as June was not shocked I managed to stand it. On further acquaintance I concluded that Mr. Spear's bruskness was assumed, and that beneath the tough husk there beats a very tender heart. He is one of those queer fellows who do good by stealth and abuse you roundly if accused of it.

For twenty-five years Mr. Spear has been doing little else but studying Colonial history, and making love to old ladies who own clocks and skillets given them by their great-grandmammas. There is no doubt that Spear has dictated clauses in a hundred wills devising that William G. Spear, Custodian of the Quincy Historical Society, shall have snuffers and biscuit-molds.

At first, Mr. Spear collected for his own amusement and benefit, but the trouble grew upon him until it became chronic, and one fine day he realized that he was not immortal, and when he should die, all his collection, which had taken years to accumulate, would be scattered. And so he founded the Quincy Historical Society, incorporated by a perpetual charter, with Charles Francis Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, as first president.

Then, the next thing was to secure the cottage where John and Abigail Adams began housekeeping, and where John Quincy was born. This house has been in the Adams family all these years and been rented to the firm of Tom, Dick and Harry, and any of their tribe who would agree to pay ten dollars a month for its use and abuse. Just across the road from the cottage lives a fine old soul by the name of John Crane. Mr. Crane is somewhere between seventy and a hundred years old, but he has a young heart, a face like Gladstone and a memory like a copy-book. Mr. Crane was on very good terms with John Quincy Adams, knew him well and had often seen him come here to collect rent. He told me that during his recollection the Adams place had been occupied by full forty families. But now, thanks to "Bill Spear," it is no longer for rent.

The house has been raised from the ground, new sills placed under it, and while every part—scantling, rafter, joist, crossbeam, lath and weatherboard—of the original house has been retained, it has been put in such order that it is no longer going to ruin.

From the ample stores of his various antiquarian depositories Mr. Spear has refurnished it; and with a ripe knowledge and rare good taste and restraining imagination, the cottage is now shown to us as a Colonial farmhouse of the year Seventeen Hundred Fifty. The wonder to me is that Mr. Spear, being human, did not move his "secondhand-shop" down here and make of the place a curiosity-shop. But he has done better.

As you step across the doorsill and pass from the little entry into the "living-room," you pause and murmur, "Excuse me." For there is a fire on the hearth, the tea-kettle sings softly, and on the back of a chair hangs a sunbonnet. And over there on the table is an open Bible, and on the open page is a pair of spectacles and a red, crumpled handkerchief. Yes, the folks are at home: they have just stepped into the next room—perhaps are eating dinner. And so you sit down in an old hickory chair, or in the high settle that stands against the wall by the fireplace, and wait, expecting every moment that the kitchen-door will creak on its wooden hinges, and Abigail, smiling and gentle, will enter to greet you. Mr. Spear understands, and, disappearing, leaves you to your thoughts—and June's.

John and Abigail were lovers their lifetime through. Their published letters show a oneness of thought and sentiment that, viewed across the years, moves us to tears to think that such as they should at last feebly totter, and then turn to dust. But here they came in the joyous springtime of their lives; upon this floor you tread the ways their feet have trod; these walls have echoed to their singing voices, listened to their counsels, and seen love's caress.

There is no surplus furniture nor display nor setting forth of useless things. Every article you see has its use. The little shelf of books, well-thumbed, displays no "Trilby" nor "Quest of the Golden Girl"—not an anachronism any where. Curtains, chairs, tables, and the one or two pictures—all ring true. In the kitchen are washtubs and butter-ladles and bowls; and the lantern hanging by the chimney, with a dipped candle inside, has a carefully scraped horn face. It is a lanthorn. In the cupboard across the corner are blue china and pewter spoons and steel knives, with just a little polished-brass stuff sent from England. Down in the cellar, with its dirt walls, are apples, yellow pumpkins and potatoes—each in its proper place, for Abigail was a rare good housekeeper. Then there is a barrel of cider, with a hickory spigot and an inviting gourd. All tells of economy, thrift, industry and the cunning of woman's hands.

In the kitchen is a funny cradle, hooded, and cut out of a great pine log. The little mattress and the coverlet seem disturbed, and you would declare the baby had just been lifted out, and you listen for its cry. The rocker is worn by the feet of mothers whose hands were busy with needles or wheel as they rocked and sang. And from the fact that it is in the kitchen, you know that the servant-girl problem then had no terrors.

Overhead hang ears of corn, bunches of dried catnip, pennyroyal and boneset, and festooned across the corner are strings of dried apples.

Then you go upstairs, with conscience pricking a bit for thus visiting the house of honest folks when they are away, for you know how all good housewives dislike to have people prying about, especially in the upper chambers—at least June said so!

The room to the right was Abigail's own. You would know it was a woman's room. There is a faint odor of lavender and thyme about it, and the white and blue draperies around the little mirror, and the little feminine nothings on the dresser, reveal the lady who would appear well before the man she loves.

The bed is a high, draped four-poster, plain and solid, evidently made by a ship-carpenter who had ambitions. The coverlet is light blue, and matches the draperies of windows, dresser and mirror. On the pillow is a nightcap, in which even a homely woman would be beautiful.

There is a clothespress in the corner, into which Mr. Spear says we may look. On the door is a slippery-elm button, and within, hanging on wooden pegs, are dainty dresses; stiff, curiously embroidered gowns they are, that came from across the sea, sent, perhaps, by John Adams when he went to France, and left Abigail here to farm and sew and weave and teach the children. June examined the dresses carefully, and said the embroidery was handmade, and must have taken months and months to complete. On a high shelf of the closet are bandboxes, in which are bonnets, astonishing bonnets, with prodigious flaring fronts. Mr. Spear insisted that June should try one on, and when she did we stood off and declared the effect was a vision of loveliness. Outside the clothespress, on a peg, hangs a linsey-woolsey every-day gown that shows marks of wear. The waist came just under June's arms, and the bottom of the dress to her shoe-tops.

We asked Mr. Spear the price of it, but the custodian is not commercial. In a corner of the room is a cedar chest containing hand-woven linen.

By the front window is a little, low desk, with a leaf that opens out for a writing-shelf. And here you see quill-pens, fresh nibbed, and ink in a curious well made from horn. Here it was that Abigail wrote those letters to her lover-husband when he attended those first and second Congresses in Philadelphia; and then when he was in France and England, those letters in which we see affection, loyalty, tales of babies with colic, brave, political good sense, and all those foolish trifles that go to fill up love-letters, and, at the last, are their divine essence and charm.

Here, she wrote the letter telling of going with their seven-year-old boy, John Quincy, to Penn's Hill to watch the burning of Charlestown; and saw the flashing of cannons and rising smoke that marked the battle of Bunker Hill. Here she wrote to her husband when he was minister to England, "This little cottage has more comfort and satisfaction for you than the courts of royalty."

But of all the letters written by that brave woman none reveals her true nobility better than the one written to her husband the day he became President of the United States. Here it is entire:

Quincy, 8 February, 1797

"The sun is dressed in brightest beams, To give thy honors to the day."

"And may it prove an auspicious prelude to each ensuing season. You have this day to declare yourself head of a Nation. And now, O Lord, my God, Thou hast made Thy servant ruler over the people. Give unto him an understanding heart, that he may know how to go out and come in before this great people; that he may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge this Thy so great a people, were the words of a royal Sovereign; and not less applicable to him who is invested with the Chief Magistracy of a nation, though he wear not a crown, nor the robes of royalty.

"My thoughts and my meditations are with you, though personally absent; and my petitions to Heaven are that the things which make for peace may not be hidden from your eyes. My feelings are not those of pride or ostentation upon the occasion.

"They are solemnized by a sense of the obligations, the important trusts, and numerous duties connected with it. That you may be enabled to discharge them with honor to yourself, with justice and impartiality to your country, and with satisfaction to this great people, shall be the daily prayer of your

"A.A."

It was in this room that Abigail waited while British soldiers ransacked the rooms below and made bullets of the best pewter spoons. Here her son who was to be President was born.

John Quincy Adams was six years old when his father kissed him good-by and rode away for Philadelphia with John Hancock and Samuel Adams (who rode a horse loaned him by John Adams). Abigail stood in the doorway holding the baby, and watched them disappear in the curve of the road. This was in August, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four. Most of the rest of that year Abigail was alone with her babies on the little farm. It was the same next year, and in Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six, too, when John Adams wrote home that he had made the formal move for Independency and also nominated George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the army; and he hoped things would soon be better.