John Hancock: The Forgotten American Patriot

**Sanitized Transcript:**

Just before we get started, I will say that this video is sponsored by Quincy 400. If you ask the average American who John Hancock was, you’re most likely going to get a bunch of vague answers—something about signing a name or an insurance company, or if they paid attention in high school, someone involved with the American Revolution. In short, hardly anybody nowadays knows who he is or what he accomplished. This is in stark contrast to 250 years ago when everyone in America knew John Hancock. He was a hero to the cause of independence from Great Britain, one of the most important members of the Continental Congress, and yes, he had a rather bold signature which he put very prominently on one of the most famous documents in world history. He was also quite wealthy and always made sure everyone knew it, riding around town in the grandest carriage anyone in Boston had ever seen, dressed in the finest clothes and accompanied by an entourage that would make anyone jealous. His ostentatious displays of wealth only made him more popular with the masses, and had circumstances been different, he might have been elected president of the United States. Without John Hancock, the course of the American Revolution and the country it helped found would have been very different.

John Hancock III was born on January 12, 1737, in Braintree, Massachusetts, a prosperous farming town 15 miles south of Boston. Both his father and grandfather, the first of two John Hancocks, were church ministers in the Puritan tradition, and as the eldest son, it is likely he would have followed in their footsteps had his father not died in 1744 when John was seven years old. Young John’s life took a dramatic turn at this point. His uncle, Thomas Hancock, arrived on the scene. Thomas had rejected a ministerial career and gone into business for himself, founding the trading company, the House of Hancock, in 1724. His company shipped fish, whale oil, and rum to London and brought back manufactured goods that were sold in stores in Boston. It was well known in the city that if you wanted something, Hancock was the man to visit, and if he didn’t have it in stock, he could get it for you—for a price, of course. The House of Hancock quickly became one of the biggest trading firms in America, and Thomas Hancock became fabulously rich, perhaps the wealthiest man in the colonies. He and his wife Lydia lived in a huge manor house on Beacon Hill in Boston, and their lives were filled with everything they could possibly need, with one notable exception: they had been unable to conceive a child. Thomas Hancock wanted an heir, someone he could train up and leave the business he had painstakingly built from the ground up to after he died. Thomas made a deal with his brother’s widow; she would be provided for, and her children ensured of a good education in exchange for allowing Thomas to adopt her eldest son and raise him in Boston as his own. And so it was that young John, the humble preacher’s son, was transported into a world of luxury and commerce that he would reside in for the rest of his life. His aunt and uncle doted on him and provided him with the best education possible in Massachusetts, culminating in a degree from Harvard College in 1754. His uncle then started grooming him to become a partner in the House of Hancock, teaching him all the tricks of the trade of transatlantic commerce, including sending him abroad to Europe for a year to meet Thomas’s business contacts.

During this time, the House of Hancock prospered even more thanks to the outbreak of war between Great Britain and France. The conflict known as the Seven Years’ War in Europe and the French and Indian War in America saw the British emerge as the undisputed masters of North America as they captured all of French Canada and forced the French to cede Louisiana to the Spanish. Thomas Hancock had secured lucrative government contracts to provide food and supplies to British troops in America. In 1764, Thomas Hancock died of a stroke, leaving most of his vast estate to 27-year-old John, who was now one of the richest men in the colonies.

The French and Indian War came to an end around the time that John Hancock was inheriting his fortune from his uncle. Great Britain had won the war and had spent vast sums of money doing so, leaving the government in debt. Parliament was scrambling for any new source of revenue that it could find to refill their empty treasury, and soon they turned their eyes to the American colonies, which up to that point had never been directly taxed by the crown. The trouble began in 1765 with the passage of the Stamp Act. This act required almost all documents, from birth certificates to playing cards, to be printed on special paper that carried a revenue stamp. The stamps were expected to raise about £60,000 a year—less than a shilling per day for each colonist—hardly an oppressive tax burden. But the colonists believed that the increase in taxes represented an attempt by Great Britain to exercise greater control over the colonies, and merchants like Hancock opposed it because they feared the new tax would cut into their profit margin and stifle trade—an alarming prospect in the midst of an economic depression that had followed the end of the war. Boston politician Samuel Adams, however, successfully framed the tax issue as a fundamental constitutional argument that put America on the road to independence. Adams and his confederates, who eventually came to be called the Sons of Liberty, argued that because the American colonies did not send representatives to Parliament, Parliament did not have the authority to tax them—only their locally elected colonial legislatures did. The popular slogan “No taxation without representation” was coined and became a rallying cry for the Sons of Liberty.

One would think that a wealthy merchant like John Hancock would have kept well away from the Stamp Act controversy. Good relations with another country were what made him rich, and considering that Britain banned direct trade between the colonies and other foreign nations, keeping those good relations would be essential for the success of his business in the future. So how then did Hancock emerge as one of the most prominent opponents of the Stamp Act? Well, he was driven by two factors, neither of them particularly idealistic. He didn’t want Parliament to put their hands in his pocket and take his money, no matter how much it actually ended up being, and perhaps more importantly, he didn’t want a mob to descend on his mansion and burn it to the ground, as happened to other merchants who indicated their support for the act. Hancock joined with Adams as a leading figure in the struggle against the Stamp Act. His prominence as one of Boston’s leading merchants lent credibility to the rest of the group, and his bankroll provided much-needed financial support to the cause. Hancock joined a large-scale boycott of British goods in protest of the act, hoping that a significant dip in trade revenues would force Parliament to repeal it. It worked. After four months of devastating losses on the part of British merchants, who suffered the most under the boycott, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act. They had not collected so much as a penny in taxes from the colonies over it.

Parliament refused to concede defeat, having passed a Declaratory Act the day after repealing the Stamp Act that asserted their right to pass laws with respect to the American colonies and expect to have them enforced, including the right to tax the colonists. In June 1767, they would try again to raise revenue from the colonies by passing the Townsend Acts, a series of new import duties on American goods as well as new measures to deter smuggling. The colonies exploded in outrage at the Townsend Acts, and once again Boston was the center of resistance. John Hancock, who had parlayed his opposition to the Stamp Act into election to Boston’s town legislature, quickly emerged as one of Boston’s leading voices in the wake of the Townsend Acts. His wealth and influence ensured that when he spoke, people paid attention. He straddled a unique position in Massachusetts society, being equally popular with the wealthy merchant class, who saw him as a moderating force against the radical elements within the patriot cause, and the middle and lower classes, who knew him as a philanthropist that really seemed to care about their welfare. He would occupy this strange dual role for the remainder of his life.

Hancock became a national figure in 1768 when British customs officials seized one of his trading ships, the Liberty, after they accused it of smuggling wine. They were supported by a British warship that threatened to fire on the town if they interfered. This only incited the Bostonians further. Parliament sent 1,200 British troops to occupy the town, attempting to restore order and enforce the customs regulations. Hancock was arrested, and the royal governor attempted to bankrupt him with a long and expensive trial that ultimately went nowhere, as the charges were eventually dropped for lack of evidence. Hancock had lost a ship, but it gained status continent-wide as a martyr for the patriot cause, which he used to his full advantage.

By 1770, the situation in Boston threatened to spill out of control. The British troops, universally hated by the colonists, adopted a siege mentality as they were constantly harassed and attacked by mobs of angry young men. On the night of March 5th, the fuse was finally lit when a group of panicked soldiers fired into a crowd pelting them with rocks and ice, killing five colonists. Though all but two of the soldiers would eventually be acquitted in a subsequent trial, the Boston Massacre, as it became known, provided the perfect propaganda fuel for the Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams, to rouse the entire country into a furor over the heavy-handedness of Britain’s dealings with the colonies. In the aftermath of the Boston Massacre, Parliament repealed all but one of the Townsend Acts—a small import duty on British tea. The repeal had the effect of cooling tempers in Boston and elsewhere in the colonies, and trade resumed without further incidents. It seemed things were going back to normal in America, and Hancock began to turn his eye away from politics and back towards his massive business interests, as well as beginning to court a lady that had caught his eye, Miss Dorothy Quincy. Swaggering around town in his expensive clothes and even more expensive carriage, Hancock gave off the appearance of a European nobleman, though one that never lost the common touch and had no trouble retaining political office as his popularity soared.

However, in 1773, Parliament misstepped again by passing the Tea Act, which gave the East India Company exclusive rights to sell tea in the American colonies, allowing them to sell tea far cheaper than anyone else. This would drive hundreds of local merchants out of business since tea was America’s most popular beverage, and many depended on importing it for their livelihoods. For many colonists, this was the last straw. The Tea Act was almost universally seen as an undemocratic measure that would abridge free trade and potentially set up other government monopolies in America. In December, three ships loaded with East India tea docked in Boston, and locals refused to allow the owner to unload their cargo. But the royal governor threatened to sink the ships if they returned to London with the tea still on board, so they were stuck. On December 16, an angry crowd marched to the docks, and a small group of 50 men, disguised as Mohawk Indians, went onboard the ships, seized the chests of tea, and threw them into Boston Harbor. Over 300 chests were destroyed, a value of over a million dollars in today’s money, in what became known as the Boston Tea Party. Parliament and the king were furious; they declared Boston a city of traitors and passed decrees that would put the city under martial law, closing Boston Harbor to all trade and stationing four regiments of soldiers in the city to try and bring the rebellious colonists to heel. The crown also charged John Hancock and Samuel Adams with treason and offered them to be brought to England to face trial. What had started as a monetary dispute over taxes was now marching towards war as colonists spent 1774 stockpiling arms and ammunition and organizing bands of minutemen—militia units that could be called into action at a minute’s notice. Hancock was in the thick of it, smuggling arms into the countryside and paying for more with his own funds as required.

On April 18, 1775, the British army, commanded by General Thomas Gage, marched out of Boston. Their primary goal was to seize the arms being stockpiled in the town of Concord, 17 miles west of Boston. On the way, they passed through Lexington, where Samuel Adams and John Hancock were staying. Had they still been there when the soldiers arrived, it’s certain they would have been arrested and hanged as traitors. Messengers made runs throughout the night to warn the countryside that the British were coming. The minutemen were called out and began to assemble. Hancock wanted to be with them, but Adams convinced him that his skills were needed as a political leader and not as a soldier. The two of them left Lexington just in time, as the sun rose on April 19th. They heard shots coming from the direction they had just fled from, signaling the start of the Revolutionary War.

Adams and Hancock left Massachusetts and headed to Philadelphia, where the Second Continental Congress was convening. That Congress brought colonial leaders from all across America together to decide on what to do about Great Britain’s actions against them. There was hardly universal agreement on anything. Many of the more moderate delegates, especially those from southern colonies, accused New England of dragging them all into war and favored attempts at reconciliation with the crown. Others wanted a total break with Britain to declare themselves an independent country. In order to moderate between all the factions, a universally known figure was needed to be elected president—one respected by both North and South, patrician and plebeian. John Hancock was a hero by this point, and he fit the bill perfectly. He was elected unanimously, what Hancock would later call the greatest honor of his life.

One of Congress’s first tasks was to assume control of the army of patriots that were laid siege to by the British troops in Boston. Virginia planter George Washington was appointed commander-in-chief of what was called the Continental Army and dispatched to Boston to assume command. Washington was the obvious choice, not only because of his military experience in the French and Indian War but because as a Southerner, he would promote the fact that this was an intercolonial effort and not just a private war between New England and the crown. Samuel Adams, who by this point had essentially broken with Hancock over his moderate stance, would write that Hancock craved the command for himself, though there is little objective evidence to support this. Hancock would support Washington as commanding general for the rest of the war, even when attempts were made by others to replace him.

As president, Hancock had to play referee between the competing interests of different regions, colonies, and individual delegates while also supervising the construction of a new continental government. Neither of these were easy tasks. Even after King George III declared the American colonies to be in open rebellion, there was still disagreement over whether independence should be declared. But the continuous pressure of events would not slow down further debate. In March 1776, Washington’s army forced the British to evacuate Boston, returning Hancock’s beloved hometown to patriot control. Meanwhile, overtures were being made to other European powers, primarily Britain’s chief rival, France, for aid to the colonies. But realistically, they couldn’t expect help from outside unless they made formal steps towards becoming an independent nation.

In June, while Congress continued to argue the question of independence, Hancock formed a committee of five delegates headed by Thomas Jefferson to draft a declaration of independence from Great Britain. The thought was that once Congress finally settled the question, a formal document would be needed anyway, so they might as well get started working on it now. On June 28th, the committee submitted a draft, mostly written by Jefferson, of a document that would eventually become one of the most influential in world history. On July 4th, the declaration was adopted by Congress, and at the end of that day’s session, Hancock signed it. His signature had always been bold, but the one he scrawled on the Declaration of Independence is particularly impressive, done in the fluent calligraphy he learned at Harvard. It was far larger and more legible than the signatures of the other delegates and would probably become the most famous signature in American history. It’s so well known that even today, putting your “John Hancock” on something is a slang term for signing your name.

In October 1777, Hancock left the position as president of Congress, now temporarily relocated to York, Pennsylvania, because the British had occupied Philadelphia. He had spent more than two years shaping the destiny of this new nation and needed a break. He also wanted to put his personal stamp on the future politics of his home state as Massachusetts worked to establish their new post-colonial state government. He took up the mantle of commanding general of the Massachusetts state militia and led his troops in an assault on the British-held port of Newport, Rhode Island. His efforts at soldiery were rather less successful than his endeavors in Congress, however, as the expedition proved a disaster and almost cost the Americans their hard-won alliance with the French. Hancock was able to repair the damage through skilled diplomacy, and the French would go on to provide a crucial role in the final defeat of the British at Yorktown in 1781. The victory would ensure American independence, as it was a stipulation for the Treaty of Paris that ended the war in 1783.

Hancock, meanwhile, celebrated from his opulent mansion on Beacon Hill, having been elected the first governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1780. He was in charge of a state that was in the grips of an increasingly desperate economic crisis, having gone into huge amounts of debt to pay for the costs of the war, and printed currency being virtually worthless. Hancock managed the issue as best he could while also increasingly suffering from gout, a debilitating condition that causes painful swelling of the joints. Finally, in January 1785, he’d had enough, resigning his post and apparently retiring from the political scene. You would think that the ailing man had earned it after 20 years of political activity, especially since winning America’s independence had cost him his business. The House of Hancock had never really recovered from the effects of the war, and a good part of his fortune was lost.

But events would conspire against his retirement as western Massachusetts farmers erupted in rebellion, fed up with high taxes and land seizures by state officials. Hancock’s successor, James Bowdoin, faced the brunt of the criticism for his mismanagement of both the state’s finances and the crisis itself, and in 1787, he was soundly defeated at the polls and replaced with a reluctant John Hancock. Hancock returned to the governorship a much diminished man. His nine-year-old son had died in January after a fall while ice skating, leaving him and his wife Dolly childless. His gout also flared up with increasing regularity. Despite this, he managed the state as best he could, including ensuring that Massachusetts ratified the new United States Constitution in February of 1788. Had he been in better health, there was even some talk about nominating him for president of the United States and the expectation that he would serve as George Washington’s vice president. But it