John Hancock
John Hancock, born January 12 1737 at Braintree (Mass.) where he died on 8 October 1793 , was president of the Second Continental Congress , during which he signed the first Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. From 1780 to 1785 , he was the first governor of the State of Massachusetts.
Summary |
John Hancock was born in Braintree (Mass.) in a neighborhood that is now part of the city of Quincy. Very young, he lost his father and was adopted by his paternal uncle, Thomas Hancock, a wealthy merchant of New England. After following the course of the Boston Latin School , he entered Harvard where he graduated in 1754 at age 17. He then worked for his uncle. From 1760 to 1764 , Hancock lives in New England where he builds relationships with customers and suppliers of the shipyards of his uncle. Shortly after his return from England, his uncle dies and he inherits his fortune and his business, becoming one of the richest men in New England at that time. At the death of his aunt in 1776 , he also inherits the Hancock Manor.
Hancock married Dorothy Quincy (the aunt of Dorothy Quincy, who bore the same name as her niece was the great grandmother of the American poet Oliver Wendell Holmes ) with whom they have two children, Lydia Hancock, in 1777 , who will live 10 months that George Washington and John Hancock in 1778 , who will not see his ninth birthday.
Because of the fame of Hancock and the frequency of its name, many Americans still believe they are his descendants, among them include the writer Ernest Hemingway Beginning of his revolutionary career As a member of the executive of the city of Boston , representing the legislature of Massachusetts and a wealthy merchant, Hancock, naturally has to resist the Stamp Act of 1765 , which imposes a tax on all commercial contracts. The Stamp Act is rejected, but new laws (like the Townshend Acts ) lead to the taxation of consumer goods. Hancock begins to integrate the practice of smuggling of glass, lead, paper and tea, in his business. In 1768 , when returning to England, his sloop Liberty was seized by British customs for violating the law on customs duties. A riot, triggered by Bostonians expecting those goods, then explodes. Its business activities are legal and less acceptable to fund the resistance to British authority in the region, leading to a joke by the people of Boston said: While being the financier of the rebellion, Hancock later became a critic of how influential British government. On 5 March 1774 , the fourth anniversary of the Boston Massacre , he made a speech strongly condemning the British. The same year he was unanimously elected president of the Provisional Congress of Massachusetts ( English : Provisional Congress of Massachusetts), and he chairs its Security Council. Under the chairmanship of Hancock, Massachusetts raises troops Minutemen and launched a boycott of tea imported by the British East India Company , leading to the famous Boston Tea Party. In April 1775 , the British intentions are obvious, Hancock and Samuel Adams Boston leave to avoid being arrested, then they reside in Hancock-Clarke House in Lexington , Massachusetts. This is where Paul Revere comes to search around midnight before the arrival of British troops for the Battle of Lexington and Concord. It was then that on General Thomas Gage ordered the arrest of Hancock and Adams for treason. After the battle, a proclamation promising pardon to all those who demonstrate their loyalty to the Crown, except Hancock and Adams. On 24 May 1775 , Hancock was elected president of the Second Continental Congress , succeeding Peyton Randolph. He held this office until 30 October 1777 , when he will succeed Henry Laurens. During the first months of his presidency, 19 June 1775 , Hancock commissioned George Washington as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. A year later, he sent Washington a copy of the resolution of Congress, July 4 1776 , calling for independence ( Lee Resolution ) and a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Hancock is the only one to sign the Declaration of Independence on July 4, the other 55 members of Congress do not sign the August 2. He also asked Washington to read the statement to the Continental Army. According to popular legend, he signed his name in large and clearly as possible to ensure that King George III could read it without his spectacles, which made its name in the United States an eponym for " signature ". However, other sources show that Hancock always signed the same way. From 1780 to 1785 , he was governor of Massachusetts. The eloquence of Hancock are the admiration of his contemporaries, but during the revolution, he was best known for his ability to raise money and get supplies for U.S. troops. Despite his business talent, however he had some difficulties to ensure urgent requests, livestock, the Continental Congress to feed the hungry mouths of the Army. On 19 January 1781 , General Washington warned Hancock: A major skyscrapers in Chicago (the John Hancock Center ) and a tower of Boston (the John Hancock Tower ) currently bear his name. He was also a member of Freemasonry . In the American film Hancock (2008), the film's hero, played by Will Smith , is named Hancock. We learn in the film that the hero, amnesia, chose this name when, as he was leaving the hospital, the nurse asked him to sign her release form, telling him to affix his "Hancock" expression is common in the U.S. to designate a signature, a reference to John Hancock's signing of the Declaration of Independence. This expression does not exist in French, the translated version makes him say that, when signing the register, he saw a portrait of John Hancock on the wall, he decided to make his name (sequence visible to the forty-ninth minute of film). 
The American Revolution
Posthumous Tributes and Anecdotes
Bibliography
References
Loading ...