Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams
In this c. 1772 portrait by John Singleton Copley, Adams points at the Massachusetts Charter, which he viewed as a constitution that protected the peoples' rights.
4th Governor of Massachusetts
In office October 8, 1794 – June 2, 1797
Lieutenant	Moses Gill
Preceded by	John Hancock
Succeeded by	Increase Sumner
3rd Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts
In office 1789 – 1794 Acting Governor October 8, 1793 – 1794
Governor	John Hancock
Preceded by	Benjamin Lincoln
Succeeded by	Moses Gill
President of the Massachusetts Senate
In office 1782–1785 1787–1788
Delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress
In office 1774–1781
Clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
In office 1766–1774
Personal details
Born	September 27 [O.S. September 16] 1722 Boston, Massachusetts Bay
Died	October 2, 1803(1803-10-02) (aged 81) Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Resting place	Granary Burying Ground, Boston
Political party	Democratic-Republican (1790s)
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Checkley Elizabeth Wells
Religion	Congregationalist
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Samuel Adams (September 27 [O.S. September 16] 1722 – October 2, 1803) was an American statesman, political philosopher, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was a politician in colonial Massachusetts, a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, and one of the architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped the political culture of the United States. He was a second cousin to President John Adams.

Adams was born in Boston, brought up in a religious and politically active family. A graduate of Harvard College, he was an unsuccessful businessman and tax collector before concentrating on politics. He was an influential official of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Boston Town Meeting in the 1760s, and he became a part of a movement opposed to the British Parliament's efforts to tax the British American colonies without their consent. His 1768 Massachusetts Circular Letter calling for colonial non-cooperation prompted the occupation of Boston by British soldiers, eventually resulting in the Boston Massacre of 1770. Adams and his colleagues devised a committee of correspondence system in 1772 to help coordinate resistance to what he saw as the British government's attempts to violate the British Constitution at the expense of the colonies, which linked like-minded Patriots throughout the Thirteen Colonies. Continued resistance to British policy resulted in the 1773 Boston Tea Party and the coming of the American Revolution.