John Hancock

Welcome to Did You Know a video series about Massachusetts where we take a look at interesting tidbits of state history? Each video will cover a different part of Massachusetts history and culture. Today, our topic is founding father and patriot John Hancock. Did you know that Hancock was the first elected governor of Massachusetts? Let's find out more. John Hancock is known today mostly for his large signature on the Declaration of Independence, but he has a much greater role in history.

He was a leading patriot in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War, and his work on the Continental Congress helped create the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. He's also important to the state of Massachusetts and served as its second longest serving governor. Today, we will learn about John Hancock.

John Hancock was born on January 23rd, 1737, in a part of Braintree that would later become the city of Quincy. Hancock's father died in 1744 when John was seven years old, and he was sent to live with his uncle, Thomas Hancock, and his wife, Lydia Hancock, who had no other children. Thomas was a successful merchant who ran the house of Hancock, a merchant firm that imported British goods and exported valuable products like whale oil and rum, making him one of the richest men in Boston at the time.

John attended Boston Latin School and graduated from Harvard College in 1754, starting work in his uncle's merchant house. John learned much from his apprenticeship and gained a taste for fine clothes and expensive goods. John became a partner in the business in 1763 and inherited it and his family's Hancock Manor. When Thomas Hancock died in 1764, making John one of the richest men in Boston.

John was opposed to the taxes the British government levied on the American colonies following the French and Indian War and joined a boycott of British goods under the Stamp Act in 1765. Raising his stature in politics. He stood out in supporting the Patriot cause as a wealthy man, as most established wealthy families in Massachusetts at the time were loyalists.

John was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1766, where he became friends with fellow politician Samuel Adams. John was more involved in resistance to the Townsend Act in 1767, as British Customs officials suspected Hancock of smuggling and violating the new customs duties. In April of 1768, Customs officials attempted to examine the hold of Hancock's Blake Lydia, but Hancock prevented them from examining it, since the officials did not have search papers.

About a month later, on May 9th, 1768, Hancock ship Liberty arrived in Boston with a cargo of Madeira wine. The wine was unloaded legally, but in June, a customs agent, Thomas Kirk, claimed Hancock had unloaded part of his cargo illegally without paying the duty. Hancock was charged with smuggling and his ship was seized by British customs agents, triggering a riot when officials seized the Liberty and hold it out to the British ship HMS Romney docked in Boston Harbor.

The trial against Hancock lasted for five months, after which the charges were dropped due to a lack of substantial evidence. Hancock continue to be a prominent Patriot figure in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. After the Boston massacre in 1770, Hancock led a committee to remove British troops from Boston and hold Governor Thomas Hutchinson and British officer Colonel William Dalrymple that thousands of armed colonists would march on their troops if they did not leave with the troops already threatened by popular unrest.

Hutchinson recalled the regiment's two Castle William, making Hancock a local hero in 1773. Hancock vocally criticized the Tea Act and was present at the meeting on December 16, 1773, that led to the Boston Tea Party. Although Hancock did not participate in the Teas destruction as tensions grew following the enactment of the coercive act meant to punish Boston for the Tea Party, General Thomas Gage canceled the sessions of the Massachusetts General Court.

The Massachusetts House, which reorganized into the Massachusetts provincial Congress to continue to resist British control with Hancock selected as its president in December of 1774. Hancock was elected as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress to be held in Philadelphia the following May, After attending the provincial Congress held in Concord in April. Hancock and Samuel Adams decided to stay at Hancock's grandfather's house in Lexington since it was unsafe in Boston around midnight on April 19th, 1775.

Paul Revere stopped to warn Hancock and Adams to leave as they might be arrested by British troops. The two fled shortly before the Battle of Lexington. Hancock was elected president of the Continental Congress on May 24th, 1775. That August, John married Dorothy Dolley Quincy, and the two would have two children, though sadly, neither survived to adulthood. Hancock served in the Continental Congress as it moved from state to state during the war due to British occupation of New York and later Philadelphia.

He worked tirelessly to raise funds and gather supplies for George Washington's army and served on the Marine committee to create a small fleet of ships. John Hancock's and the clerk's printed names were the only ones on the original copy of the Declaration of Independence that was said to be printed on July 4th, 1776. The signed version of the Declaration with Hancock's famous signature was handwritten on July 19th and signed on August 2nd.

Although Hancock did not write the signature a large so King George could see it without his glasses. The flamboyant signature has made the phrase John Hancock another word for a signature. Hancock would return to Boston in 1777 after taking leave from his post as president of the Continental Congress. He returned to Philadelphia in 1778 but lost his position as president and got along poorly with Samuel Adams as the two had fallen out.

In August of 1778, Hancock was ordered to participate in a function Continental Army attack on Newport, Rhode Island, as he had been appointed senior major general of the Massachusetts militia in 1776. The battle went poorly, but Hancock did not suffer much damage to his reputation from this incident. Hancock became the first elected governor of Massachusetts under the constant fusion of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Lytton, and ratified in 1780 and ultimately served 11 one year terms.

Hancock resigned his position for a short time in 1785 due to ill health, though he may have also wish to avoid dealing with a country rebellion in Massachusetts that evolved into Shays Rebellion. His successor, James Bodin, did not handle the rebellion well and was an unpopular figure in politics. Hancock won back his position as governor in the 1787 election and continued to serve until his death in early 1788.

Hancock was elected president of the Massachusetts convention to ratify the U.S. Constitution during the debates over if the state would ratify. Hancock made a speech to the committee supporting the ratification and proposing the addition of a Bill of Rights to it. Hancock was announced as a candidate for U.S. president in the 1789 election, but he received only four electoral votes and was beaten by George Washington in the second place finisher John Adams, who became the first U.S. vice president.

Hancock died on October 8th, 1793, and received a grand funeral. Similarly to Hancock's importance in early U.S. history, his house, Hancock Manor, was a prominent and beautiful mansion showcasing the Hancock family wealth, the mansion located where the West Wing of the Massachusetts State House currently stands, was built between 1734 and 1737 by Joshua Blanchard for Thomas Hancock, and at the time was the only house on the hill and the westernmost one on Beacon Street.

This mansion's placement let it have ample land for cattle grazing and other buildings, including gardens, outbuildings and stables. The mansion was used as John's permanent home for the rest of his life. It was occupied by British soldiers, including General Henry Clinton and some of the King's troops during the siege of Boston until they left the city on March 17th, 1776, also known as Evacuation Day.

The mansion continued to serve as a place of entertainment and hosting through the revolutionary years. Two years after John Hancock's death in 1795, the Massachusetts State government purchased most of the estate for £4,000 and used the pasture land as the site for the new state house. John Hancock had intended to give the manor to the Massachusetts state government but died before his will could be fully drawn up.

The House was left to Dorothy Quincy, who returned to it after the death of her second husband, Captain James Scott, in 1809 and lived there until 1816. John Hancock's nephew John took over the house after Dorothy Quincy moved out and only until his death in 1859. That year, Governor Nathaniel Banks proposed using the Hancock Mansion as the governor's mansion.

But the state legislature turned down the $100,000 price to buy it from Hancock's family. Other proposals for use of the House, including as a historical museum, fell through as well. The land the Hancock Manor stood on was sold in February of 1863 and was a museum for a short time as the heirs tried to figure out strategies to save it.

When an offer by the Hancock family to move the building if the Commonwealth paid $12,000 was also rejected. Thomas Oliver Hazard Perry Burnham published a pamphlet on June 5th urging the owners who had bought the land to save the house. Ultimately, the house was sold by John Hancock Glenn nephew Charles Lowell Hancock on June 16th, 1863 for $230 and demolished in ten days to make way for two brownstone mansions owned by wealthy Bostonians James Madison, Beebe's and Gardiner Blue.

The mansion's destruction, along with public outcry against it, led to efforts to preserve many of the other historical buildings in Boston, including the old statehouse and the old South meeting house. There are many parts of the Hancock Mansion which outlasted demolition and survive today in various museums, houses and parks, including a staircase near the site of the now demolished pine baked mansion in Jamaica Plain and inside the Shark Smith Estate in Manchester by the sea of replica of the Hancock Mansion was built in 1926 by philanthropist Horace Moses in Ticonderoga, New York, now used as the headquarters of the Ticonderoga Historical Society.

Moses had the replica built in the same Georgian style as the original mansion and use the original architectural drawings by architect John Hubbard Sturges collected before the Hancock Mansion was torn down. The door of the Hancock Mansion is held by the Bostonian Society today and was used in a 2018 exhibit at the Old State House titled Through the Keyhole.

Students from the North Bennett Street School used restoration techniques and the original plans to clean the door and construct a replica of the doorframe and entryway of the Hancock Mansion, bringing a glimpse of the real house into the present. The life of John Hancock is tied to both Boston, an American history, even today, making him a prominent figure in the state of Massachusetts.

Thanks for joining me to learn about John Hancock. If you'd like to know more, check out these resource. Thank you for watching.