Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams was born in Boston in 1722, studied at Harvard, and failed as a businessman before finding his work in politics. A devout Congregationalist, he believed that liberty and virtue stood or fell together, and he used newspapers, committees of correspondence, and town meetings to resist British taxes after 1764. He helped plan the protest later called the Boston Tea Party, sat in the Continental Congress, and signed the Declaration of Independence. Less comfortable after independence was won, he was wary of concentrated power and at first doubted the Constitution, though he did not lead a fight against ratification in Massachusetts. He later served as governor of the state. Adams lived plainly, gave his energy to public causes rather than to wealth, and died in Boston in 1803.

See also: Signers of the Declaration · John Hancock · John Adams · Robert Treat Paine · Elbridge Gerry