Hancock, John (1737-1793)

John Hancock (1737-1793)

Merchant and statesman

Sources

The House of Hancock. John Hancock was born in Braintree, Massachusetts, a son of the Reverend John Hancock and the former Mary Hawke. When his father died, the boy was adopted by his childless uncle, Thomas, Boston’s richest merchant. After graduating from Harvard College in 1754, John entered his uncle’s mercantile firm. Like many young merchants being groomed to take over the family business, John was sent for a short period to England to complete his commercial education. John returned to Boston in 1761 and two years later became a partner in Thomas Hancock and Company. In 1764 Thomas Hancock died, leaving the twenty-seven-year-old John as head of the firm and heir to the bulk of his uncle’s £70,000 fortune.

Revolutionary Leader. The wealthy young merchant led a life of ease and luxury. He traveled with six horses and several servants, set a fine table, and was partial to imported goods such as Madeira wine. Like many commercial men, he became involved in Massachusetts politics, which in the 1760s revolved around the colony’s discontent with Parliament. In 1765 Hancock protested to his English correspondents against the Stamp Act. When Parliament’s new commissioners arrived in late 1767 to tighten enforcement of the customs laws, Hancock refused to allow the militia unit that he commanded to participate in the welcoming ceremonies. He became even more of a public patriotic figure in 1768, when Massachusetts was in the midst of mob violence following the imposition of the Townshend duties. Tensions with the customs officials worsened, and in April, Hancock had his men forcibly remove two minor officials from his brig Lydia for going below decks without a warrant. In response the commissioners instructed the Massachusetts attorney general to file a criminal charge against Hancock, but the charges were eventually dropped. Meanwhile customs officials, harassed by the colonial mobs, had sent a plea to England for military help. When the British warship Romney arrived in June, the officials saw their chance to send a clear message that they would no longer tolerate smuggling and other acts of noncompliance. The authorities tried to make an example of Hancock by seizing another of his ships, the Liberty and charging him with a technical violation of the Sugar Act of 1764. Instead of subduing the colonists, however, the action provoked one of the worst riots in Boston’s history. A mob of several hundred roamed the town’s streets hunting for and harassing customs officials. Hancock refused to capitulate. He was defended in court by his friend John Adams, and the suit was dropped after a few months. The incident convinced Parliament to send troops into Boston; it also enhanced Hancock’s prestige among patriots. In 1769 Hancock was elected to the Massachusetts General Court and following the Boston Massacre in 1770 was appointed head of the town committee. As relations with Britain improved in the early 1770s, Hancock’s radicalism subsided somewhat. But in 1773 the Tea Act once again threw Boston into an uproar. Hancock was one of the few substantial merchants who supported radical action, and he was elected chairman of the town meeting protesting the new tax. In 1774 Hancock was chosen to deliver the oration on the fourth anniversary of the Boston Massacre. He exhorted his listeners “if necessary” to “fight and even die for the prosperity of our Jerusalem.” Later that year Hancock was elected president of the new Massachusetts provincial Congress and chairman of the committee of safety.

Congress. In late 1774 Hancock was made a delegate to the Second Continental Congress that was to meet in Philadelphia the following June. Hancock’s radicalism marked him as a serious troublemaker in the eyes of the British, and in April 1775 Gen. Thomas Gage attempted to seize him and Samuel Adams for high treason. Both men were staying in Thomas Hancock’s former home in Lexington, Massachusetts, along with Dorothy Quincy, whom John Hancock married later that year. Warned by Paul Revere, Hancock and Adams escaped just as the battles of Lexington and Concord began. They made their way to Philadelphia to attend the Second Continental Congress and were cheered as heroes in towns along the way. Adams and Hancock had become so notorious that General Gage specifically exempted them from the British offer of general amnesty, part of an attempt to restore peace. Hancock later became president of Congress, and he was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776. He did it boldly and with characteristic flourish, and today his signature is recognized the world over as a symbol of the American Revolution. Hancock hoped to be made commander in chief of the army, but Congress chose George Washington instead. Feeling slighted and perhaps sensing that other political figures were overshadowing him, Hancock resigned as president in October 1777 and was succeeded by Henry Laurens of South Carolina.

Massachusetts Politics. Hancock had ceased to be actively involved in his firm’s business upon being elected to the Massachusetts provincial congress in 1774. After resigning from the Continental Congress in 1777, he began to spend much of his time in Boston devoting himself to Massachusetts politics and expending his money on public works. In 1780 he was a member of the Massachusetts constitutional convention and later that year was elected the first governor of the state. He served until early 1785, when an attack of gout forced him to resign just when rural debtors were revolting against the government. Hancock stood for the governorship again after the trouble subsided, eventually serving a total of nine terms. In 1788 he presided at the state convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution. Hancock had been reluctant to support the Constitution, but at a crucial moment he offered amendments that satisfied the AntiFederalists, and Massachusetts ratified. Hancock never matched the business talents of his uncle. Upon his death the fortune left to him by Thomas Hancock was considerably diminished by years of inattention to the firm’s business. Yet it was a respectable fortune, having been considerably augmented by large tracts of frontier land given to John Hancock in recognition of his services to the new country. He was serving as governor of Massachusetts when he died in 1793 at age fifty-six.

Sources

W. T. Baxter, The House of Hancock. Business in Boston, 1724-1775 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1945);

William M. Fowler, The Baron of Beacon Hill: A Biography of John Hancock (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980).