John Hancock

Revolutionary Leader

• Born: January 12, 1737
• Birthplace: North Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts
• Died: October 8, 1793
• Place of death: Quincy, Massachusetts

American politician and businessman

The first signer of the Declaration of Independence, Hancock was a wealthy Boston merchant and a notable example of those aristocratic patriots who invested much money as well as much time in the cause of liberty. Hancock was a leader in Massachusetts colonial politics, president of the Second Continental Congress, and governor of Massachusetts.

Areas of achievement Government and politics, business

Early Life

John Hancock was born in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts, just south of Boston. The gentle hills, streams, and tidal marshes led to coves and beaches of the coastal plain. It was a pleasant place for a young boy to grow up. He started his education in a “dame school,” where he learned the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic. At the age of seven, his life was suddenly altered with the death of his father, the minister of the local congregation.

John, along with his mother and his two siblings—Mary and Ebenezer, ages nine and three—had to vacate the local parsonage, and so went to live with the paternal grandparents in the Lexington parsonage. Both father and grandfather were Congregational (Puritan) ministers, and both were named John Hancock.

Thomas Hancock, the one remaining son and John’s uncle, was a wealthy merchant and the proprietor of the Bible and Three Crowns, a book bindery and retailer for English publications in America. He had no children of his own and, well aware of his responsibilities to his family, adopted his young nephew John and brought him to live in the palatial Hancock mansion on Beacon Hill in Boston. There he was tutored for a year before entering the public Latin School, where he translated from Julius Caesar’s Commentaries and Cicero’s Orations and read history, philosophy, and theology from seven o’clock in the morning until five o’clock in the afternoon. In his spare time he learned the fine art of handwriting, the result of which can be seen in his signature on the Declaration of Independence.

At the age of thirteen, Hancock entered Harvard College. He was described as “graceful and aristocratic” in bearing, of medium height for the time (5 feet, 4 inches), of medium build, and with carefully groomed brown hair, a handsome face, and well-tailored, expensive clothing.

In 1760, Hancock was twenty-three years of age. He had finished college and had worked hard in his uncle’s importing business for six years. It was time, Thomas thought, for his nephew to take an extended business trip to London to learn how the business operated overseas. He needed to become acquainted with British merchants and traders who could help him prosper. He also needed the direct exposure to British culture. The trip took from June 3 to July 10 just to get to London. There followed an entire year of business meetings and social gatherings, and in July, 1761, Hancock returned to the colonies satisfied that he had represented the company well and had expanded its contracts. Hancock maintained the reputation established by his uncle, and his associates in London believed that his uncle would have an able successor.

The succession was to take place sooner than anyone had anticipated. On January 1, 1763, Thomas announced that his nephew was being taken into full partnership in the business. Thomas had just enough time to work a smooth transition of leadership to his nephew before he died in 1764, at the age of sixty-one. The result was that John Hancock was the proprietor of a lucrative business and a very wealthy man. He inherited two-thirds of an estate valued at œ100,000.

Life’s Work

John Hancock’s uncle’s death not only pushed him into management of a large business but also quite naturally prompted him to take a more active role in politics. From 1739 to 1752, his uncle had been a selectman (the equivalent of a city councilman). Involving himself as he did in the various social and political clubs in his uncle’s stead, it was no surprise that Hancock was elected selectman in March, 1765. At the age of twenty-eight, he was the youngest of the five selectmen on the town council.

These events coincided with the beginning of the revolutionary era, which historians usually peg at 1763, with the conclusion of the French and Indian War (1754-1763) and problems of the enlarged British Empire. The Sugar Act was enacted in 1764, the year of Thomas Hancock’s death. The first real crisis of the revolutionary period followed Parliament’s passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, which Boston sharply opposed. The issue was political sovereignty, and the principle was that the colonists could be taxed only by their own assemblies. The Massachusetts General Court called for an intercolonial assembly to meet in New York in October, 1765, as the Stamp Act Congress. The Boston Sons of Liberty intimidated Andrew Oliver, the brother-in-law of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, into resigning his post as stamp master, and a mob demolished the furnishings in Hutchinson’s home.

Meanwhile, Hancock wrote letters to his London correspondents criticizing the Stamp Act. He refused to send his ships to sea “under a stamp,” demanding his rights under the English constitution. He sent his usual orders for goods but with the stipulation that the orders would automatically be canceled if the Stamp Act were not repealed. He and some 250 other Boston merchants joined a nonimportation agreement refusing to buy a long list of British items. Since some of the British merchants were also members of Parliament, the boycott was one of several significant influences in persuading the British government to repeal the hated law. Hancock provided food and wine on the Common, fireworks displays, and the like to encourage a patriotic spirit. He was also generous in extending credit to members of the nonimportation agreement.

In 1766, Hancock was chosen as one of Boston’s representatives to the Massachusetts General Court, the colonial legislature. There he served on some thirty committees besides continuing as a member of the Boston town council and managing one of the largest businesses in the area. In 1767, he was reelected to both political positions.

In the same year, he bought Clark’s Wharf and renamed it Hancock’s Wharf. His was the second largest docking facility in Boston and brought in usage fees and rents of œ150 a year. It was also in the year 1767 that Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, levying revenue tariffs on tea, lead, paper, glass, and paint. Hancock joined with most of the other members of the General Court in declaring these acts to be an infringement on the “natural and constitutional rights” of Americans, since they were not represented in the legislature (Parliament) that created the laws; only local assemblies had the right to tax their constituents. One of the most objectionable portions of the law, however, was that the revenue was to pay the salaries of royal governors, judges, and other Crown appointees in the colonies, thereby making them less dependent on the colonial assemblies.

Hancock’s political involvement made him a special target for British crown officials enforcing the customs laws. He probably did his share of smuggling to avoid what he considered unconstitutional customs duties, but as a good businessman, he kept good records and traded in mostly nontaxable goods. On April 8, 1768, customs officials boarded and seized Hancock’s ship Lydia (named after his aunt and mother by adoption). The colonies, though, were ruled by correct legal procedure, and Attorney General Jonathan Sewell ordered the ship released and the charges dropped because the officials lacked the legal authority to go below deck.

The Liberty incident, however, was not so easily resolved. On May 9, 1768, the Liberty, a small single-masted vessel owned by Hancock, reached the port of Boston inbound from Madeira at sunset. Customs officials had to wait until the next day to board the ship. Under cover of darkness, the crew worked unloading much of the cargo. Oddly enough, the captain collapsed and died on deck, and thus could not testify in the case. When the customs officers boarded the Liberty, they found only twenty-five pipes (very large casks) of wine. Hancock was accused of landing one hundred pipes (12,600 gallons valued at œ3,000). He was further charged in June with loading whale oil and tar without first giving bond that the cargo’s destination was within the limits of the trade laws. Although that was a technical violation of the law, the custom had always been to load first and give bond later before clearing port. Thus, Hancock stood by helplessly while Crown officials sailed the sloop away from his dock and anchored it under the covering guns of a British man-of-war.

Most Americans at the time were so preoccupied with arguing about who was going to levy taxes and under what circumstances that they overlooked the most ominous aspect of the case, namely, that Hancock was tried in an Admiralty court without jury rather than in a common-law court by a jury of his peers. It was almost as if a civilian were being court-martialed. This violated one of the most cherished and important rights of Englishmen who lived in America. Hancock’s defense attorney, John Adams, hammered away at both points: the limitations of legislative authority of Parliament in America and of Admiralty Court jurisdiction in America. Adams was particularly eloquent, charging the British government with attempting to deprive Englishmen living in America of their cherished rights. The presiding judge found against Hancock and ordered the Liberty sold and the proceeds divided one-third to the colony, one-third to Governor Francis Bernard, and one-third to the informers (in this case, the customs officials). Hancock thus lost his vessel and cargo, but not his fortune, his prestige as a patriot, or his influence in Massachusetts.

When the Liberty was put up for sale, not a single person in the colonies bid for it. Not to be outdone, the customs commissioners finally bought it themselves and armed the Liberty as a patrol vessel. The anger, however, had spread far beyond Massachusetts. The Liberty, turned into a coast guard cutter, came into port at Newport, Rhode Island, in July, 1769, and was confronted by a mob that stormed the vessel and burned it to the waterline.

Nervous about the unrest and mob actions in Massachusetts, Governor Bernard sent to General Thomas Gage in New York requesting two regiments of British troops to keep order in Boston. The governor also refused to convene the colonial assembly, so the Boston town meeting called a special convention of all the towns in Massachusetts. Nearly one hundred towns sent delegates to the meeting at Faneuil Hall in Boston on September 22, 1768. The next month tensions were high when twelve hundred British troops occupied the town of Boston, which had only fifteen thousand citizens. Events finally exploded at the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770, when British troops, menaced by a mob, fired into the crowd, killing five and wounding several others. John Adams demonstrated his integrity and fairness in defending the British soldiers. So did the colonial jury, which acquitted them except for minor punishments. That same month, the British parliament repealed the Townshend Acts except for the tax on tea.

In April of 1770, Hancock was reelected to the General Court by an incredible 511-2 vote. In August, he was elected moderator to preside over Boston town meetings. Numerous letters were sent from the assembly stating public positions of the elected representatives. In the fall of 1773, a subcommittee was formed, including Hancock, and submitted to the assembly for unanimous approval the following statement: “We are far from desiring that the connection between Britain and America should be broken. Esto perpetual, is our ardent wish, but upon terms only of Equal Liberty. . . .”

As if he were not already busy enough, Hancock was elected treasurer of Harvard College that same fall. About the same time, four merchant ships, the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, the Beaver, and the William, all heavily loaded with East India tea, were making their way across the Atlantic toward Boston. The Tea Act of 1773 gave the British East India Company (partially owned by the British government) a monopoly on tea sales in America but sharply cut the price of tea. The controversial tea tax (set by the Townshend Acts) would continue to be levied but the actual price, including the tax, paid in America for tea would only be about one-half that paid by a Londoner for his or her tea. For Hancock, the issue was broader than the constitutional one of control over taxation, for it now included the issue of free trade versus monopolies established by government fiat.

In the turmoil over the attempt to land the tea, four hundred Bostonians crowded into Faneuil Hall for a town meeting. Hancock was again elected moderator. So high were emotions running that even he had difficulty maintaining order. Hancock and five other delegates were directed by the town to demand the resignations of the five merchants given the tea monopoly in Boston, including Governor Hutchinson. Unsuccessful in forcing the tea to be returned to England, an unidentified group of colonists thinly disguised as “Indians” dumped thousand of pounds of tea overboard. Hancock’s contribution was to shout, “Let every man do what is right in his own eyes.”

The response of the British parliament in passing the Coercive (or Intolerable) Acts of 1774 inflamed the colonists all along the Atlantic coast in a way that nothing else could have. Four laws were passed: The Boston Port Act closed the port of Boston until the tea was paid for, moving the Custom House to Plymouth and the capital to Salem; the Massachusetts Bay Government Act dealt serious blows to self-government; the Quartering Act gave local authorities the responsibility for housing British troops; and the Administration of Justice Act permitted the governor to send to England for trial Crown officials accused of crime, placing them beyond the reach of local courts. As a final means of control, King George III appointed General Gage as the civil (and military) governor of Massachusetts. Gage promptly dismissed Hancock as commanding colonel of the local militia. Hancock’s company responded by returning the standard to the general and by disbanding.

The Massachusetts assembly met and “resolved themselves” into a Provincial Congress, electing Hancock as president. This was a dramatic step toward self-government in Massachusetts. From October, 1774, to December, 1774, the Provincial Congress met first in Concord and then in Cambridge. The Congress ordered taxes withheld from royal collectors. They organized the Committee of Public Safety, with Hancock as a key member, and formed a militia, the Minutemen. Rumor had it that General Gage was preparing to arrest Hancock.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, the First Continental Congress met. The fifty-six delegates represented all the colonies except Georgia and adopted several resolutions, declaring the new British-controlled government of Massachusetts “tyrannical and unconstitutional.” Similarly, since the Intolerable Acts were a usurpation of power, Americans need not obey them. They urged the boycott of all trade with England and advised the people to “learn the art of war.” In December, 1774, merchants formed the Continental Association, agreeing to import no goods from Great Britain and to halt all exports to Great Britain.

Hancock was with his wife and aunt at his grandfather’s parsonage in Lexington when the shots that set off the American War of Independence were fired on Lexington green. He wanted to fight with the foot soldiers but was persuaded that he had more useful work to do. Several times in the next hectic days he barely escaped capture by the British.

When the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, Hancock was one of the new delegates there. When Peyton Randolph of Virginia returned home suddenly, Hancock was unanimously elected president of the Second Continental Congress. In that capacity he was able to mediate between differing factions and helped secure passage of the “Olive Branch” petition to the king, demonstrating the colonists’ willingness to accept self-governing status within the British Empire. In the midst of all these momentous events, Hancock was married to Dorothy Quincy at Fairfield, Connecticut, on August 28, 1775. Their honeymoon was like their courtship, sandwiched between political and business activities.

On July 4, 1776, “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America,” the Declaration of Independence, was approved by the Second Continental Congress, and John Hancock’s signature was the very first. (In fact, he was the only one who signed on July 4; the other fifty-five signatures came at intervals until November 4.)

In 1777, Hancock retired from Congress to return to Boston. In 1778, he commanded five thousand Massachusetts militiamen in an unsuccessful joint effort with the French fleet to capture Newport, Rhode Island. The fleet withdrew, and so did the militia. In 1779, Boston sent Hancock as a delegate to help write a new state constitution. In the fall of 1780, Hancock was elected the first governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, receiving more than ninety percent of the vote. From 1780 to 1793 (with the exception of two years, 1785-1787), Hancock served as governor. He was not a distinguished leader, but he managed to keep the government running smoothly, reconciling differences and avoiding excessive controversy.

During the war, in 1777, Hancock’s daughter Lydia, not yet one year old, became ill and died. The next year, a son was born, John George Washington Hancock. One Sunday afternoon in January, 1787, when the young John was eight years old, he took his skates to go skating on a nearby pond. He slipped on the ice, struck his head, and died within hours. The trauma for the parents is easy to imagine.

When the debate over ratification of the U.S. Constitution came to Massachusetts, Hancock at first was noncommittal, listening to the debates. As the weeks went by, he finally, with Samuel Adams, proposed the addition of a Bill of Rights and spoke in favor of a national government powerful enough to act for the good of the nation. Even with the support of two of the most influential politicians in Massachusetts, ratification won by only a narrow margin, 187 to 168. Considering how close the vote was in New York and Virginia (after the Massachusetts vote), Hancock’s support for federalism may have been one of his most historically significant decisions.

Hancock’s poor health continued to deteriorate, and five years later he died, at the age of fifty-six, on October 8, 1793. He was survived by his wife, mother, brother, and sister, but no children.

Significance

John Hancock was the right person in the right place at the right time to play one of the key roles in establishing the United States of America as a free and independent republic. He was one of those who pledged their “lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honour” for that one great cause. Although he did not lay down his life, he invested it in the cause of liberty and self-government. He was wealthy and invested much of his fortune to come to the aid of his country. When he died, he had scarcely half the fortune that had been bequeathed to him by his Uncle Thomas.

More than any other state (except possibly Virginia), Massachusetts led the way in opposing British control of the colonies. The leading city in Massachusetts was Boston, and certainly Hancock was one of the leading citizens of Boston. He was much involved in resisting the Stamp Act, in boycotting, in opposing the Townshend Acts, and in forming united intercolonial opposition. His stand in the Liberty incident brought him fame beyond Massachusetts. The king knew who he was, and so did the leading members of Parliament. He was a thorn in the side of the king’s ministers, but a respectable and prestigious rallying point for the common people of Boston as they sought high-placed support in resisting what they considered encroachments on their liberties as free Englishmen.

Further Reading

Allan, Herbert S. John Hancock: Patriot in Purple. New York: Macmillan, 1948. One of several standard works on Hancock. Useful for its full account and picturesque descriptions.

Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967. One of the most useful works for explaining why the war was fought and what motivated the colonists to risk their lives and property for such a cause. Hancock was steeped in the ideological and constitutional questions of the day.

Baxter, W. T. The House of Hancock. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1945. A business history of the Hancock mercantile interest. The book ends with the beginning of the American Revolution.

Brandes, Paul D. John Hancock’s Life and Speeches: A Personalized Vision of the American Revolution, 1763-1793. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1996. Brandes reexamines Hancock’s career by analyzing his papers. Includes reprints of thirty-one of Hancock’s speeches.

Carlton, Mabel M. John Hancock: Great American Patriot. Boston: John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance, 1922. A standard, corporate biography of Hancock.

Fowler, William M., Jr. The Baron of Beacon Hill: A Biography of John Hancock. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980. Although borrowing heavily from earlier works, this biography includes updated interpretive scholarship.

Galvin, John R. Three Men of Boston. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1976. A retelling of the events leading up to the revolution in Boston through the significant roles played by Thomas Hutchinson, James Otis, and Samuel Adams. John Hancock’s involvement also is clearly seen.

Morgan, Edmund S., and Helen Morgan. The Stamp Act Crisis. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953. The definitive work explaining the events surrounding the Stamp Act and opposition to it.

Rakove, Jack N. The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979. Examines the important role of the Congress in the conduct of the American Revolution. Since Hancock was president of the Second Continental Congress, understanding the position of Congress is essential to evaluating Hancock’s place in history.

Sears, Lorenzo. John Hancock: The Picturesque Patriot. Boston: Little, Brown, 1912. Another biography of Hancock written during the Progressive Era.

Unger, Harlow Giles. John Hancock: Merchant King and American Patriot. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000. Unger explains how Hancock, an aristocratic, foppish Anglophile and “the least likely man in Boston to start a rebellion,” became an ardent supporter of the American Revolution.

Woodbury, Ellen C. D. Dorothy Quincy: Wife of John Hancock. Washington, D.C.: Neale, 1901. Looks at Hancock’s life from a perspective quite different from that provided by biographies of the patriot himself.