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John Hancock Biography

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HANCOCK, JOHN (1737-93). An American patriot of the Revolutionary period, president of the Continental Congress, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the first Governor of the State of Massachusetts. He was born at Braintree, Mass., Jan. 23, 1737, graduated at Harvard in 1754, and was adopted by an uncle, Thomas Hancock, who in 1764 left him a fortune of about £80,000, and to whose large mercantile business he succeeded. After his graduation he spent some time in England. He was for several years one of the selectmen of Boston, and after 1766 was repeatedly elected to the Massachusetts General Court, where he steadily resisted the encroachments of the British ministry. After the "Boston Massacre" (q.v.), in 1770, Hancock was a member of the committee which was appointed by the people of Boston to demand of Governor Hutchinson the removal of the. British troops from Boston, and on the fourth anniversary of the "massacre" he delivered the customary commemorative oration, and by his boldness and eloquence attracted attention to himself anew as one of the leaders of the Patriot, or Whig, party. In June, 1774, he was appointed by the General Court, of which he was a member, one of the representatives of Massachusetts in the first Continental Congress, and in October he was appointed chairman (later President) of the first Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, which adjourned on December 10. He was likewise President of the second Provincial Congress, which assembled at Cambridge in February of the following year, and by his activity in this and other extra-legal proceedings incurred with Samuel Adams, the bitter hostility of Governor Cage, whose expedition to Lexington and Concord on April 18-19 (see LEXINGTON) was sent out in part to secure the capture of these two leaders, and who when issuing his proclamation of pardon on June 12, expressly excepted Hancock and Adams, "whose offenses," he said, "are of too flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration than that of condign punishment." In defiance of the known hostility towards Hancock of the British ministry, and partly, no doubt, with a view to winning over members of the wealthier and more aristocratic families in New England, who as a class were inclined to conservatism and were disposed to remain loyal to the home government, Hancock was elected President of the Continental Congress in May, 1775. Though he resigned this position in October, 1777 he remained a member of the Congress until 1780, and served again in that body in 1785-86. In 1778, as major general of Massachusetts militia he commanded the State troops in the Rhode Island expedition. In 1780 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention of Massachusetts, and upon the adoption of the constitution there framed was elected first Governor of the State, in which position he was retained by annual reelections until 1785. After an intermission of two years he was again Governor from 1787 until his death. Though at first thought to be opposed to the Federal Constitution as drawn up by the convention at Philadelphia in 1787, he presided over the Massachusetts convention which ratified that document in 1788 and used his influence to win over those who favored rejection. Concerning Hancock's character and the extent of his influence there has been much difference of opinion among historical writers; but he is now generally considered to have been a man of undoubted patriotism and of considerable ability, whose usefulness at times was impaired by his vanity and his jealous disposition. There is no adequate biography of Hancock, but considerable material bearing upon his life may be found in Abraham E. Brown, John Hancock, his Book (Boston, 1898) . Consult also L. Sears, John Hancock, the Picturesque Patriot (ib., 1912).