The Sage of Monticello died,
President Palin is born.
Posted on 07/04/2009 6:28:08 AM PDT by Texas Fossil
I don't know why (maybe it's on a lesson plan for schools around the country) but this little question with a quick answer (and one that is quickly found in any ready reference) has been asked of me so often that I finally decided to list the answer here.
The answer is John Adams (second President) and Thomas Jefferson (third President). These two men died on the same day. But that's not all; read on....
The question with an even more interesting answer is, "On which day did they die?"
Both Adams and Jefferson died on July 4, 1826. The fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. As we all know, Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration in committee with John Adams (and Benjamin Franklin).
After George Washington retired from the Presidency, John Adams became President and Thomas Jefferson became Vice-President. The two men had disagreed politically throughout the Washington Administration, and were only both elected because in those days, whomever came in second in the Presidential vote became Vice-President. During the Adams Administration, the two differed on almost every issue, and Jefferson defeated Adams and took the Presidency in 1800. To make a long story short, although they had worked together in the cause for independence, Adams and Jefferson became truly bitter enemies when political parties began to form around each of them.
Luckily, Adams and Jefferson reconciled in their retirement and they became the absolute best of friends as they lived out their final years. Both men were conscious of living to see the fiftieth Fourth of July, and both, despite knowing they were on their death beds, made genuine efforts to hang on to dear life until the day had come.
John Adams's final words were (supposedly), "Thomas Jefferson survives." But he was wrong. Jefferson had died just hours earlier at Monticello.
Five years to the day after Adams and Jefferson died -- on July 4, 1831 -- the fifth President, James Monroe, passed away. So three presidents have died on the same date: July 4th.
One more Presidential fact about the Fourth of July. Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President, was born in Vermont on July 4th, 1872!
Adams and Jefferson
Stephen C. Foster who wrote MY OL KENTUCKY HOME and SWANEE RIVER, both state songs, was born the day they died.
Good reminder of some curious historical anecdotes.
I am in the mists of reading Adam’s biography and the author claims the Declaration of Independence was actually signed on July 2nd.
mists = midst
Michael Jackson?
Read about that A long time ago. Was very interesting to read. Also, some time ago I read about all that signed the DofI and what happened to them and how they died.
Wish I could find it. Was very interesting. Some killed for treason. Farms burned down, etc.
Guess they really had some dedicated British subjects continuing to undermine the United States.
Now we just have so called americans doing that to us now. Beginning with the Kenyan brotha 0.
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! Hopefully not our last.
How accurate is the HBO series — JOHN ADAMS ? Paul Giamatti was absolutely fabulous.
It is an accurate novelization of History. Read the book John Adams which the series is based on, much richer because of more detail.
Thanks, will put on my reading list.
Living in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts doesn’t have many perks these days, but one thing that is VERY cool is the Adams Homestead in Quincy, MA.
I have been there several times, and one cannot help understand that even for his faults, John Adams was a remarkable man. We were fortunate to have men like him at that point in history.
We sure could use him today. Someone who was outspoken and abrasive, physically unattractive and unabashedly patriotic and believed in American Exceptionalism before there was a term to describe it.
Off topic but interesting nonetheless...three presidents in a row (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon) all died on the 22nd day of a month.
The “John Adams” was great! I read it when it first came out . . . maybe it is time I did a re-read.
Adams1 and Jefferson
Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors,and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.
They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.
What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.
Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown , Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.
So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It’s not much to ask for the price they paid.
Remember: freedom is never free!
Thanks, appreciate it. Exactly what I was referring to earlier.
I am currently reading “A Narrative of an American Revolutionary Soldier”. It is a memoir written in 1830 by a former revolutionary soldier, Joseph Plumb Martin (Connecticut Regular).
It is a very compelling look back by a soldier on his campaigns in the revolutionary war. It describes the extreme hardships and the battles and marches, and especially the constant hunger suffered by the soldiers who fought the war.
He described marches completed and battles fought on stomachs which had had no food for 3-4 days.
He told about finding a half-buried bone of a butchered hog in a pig pen which had been overlooked by dogs and varmits. He was so hungry, he took the dirty old hog bone and boiled it and tried to eat it.
He told about eating bark off of a tree while his messmates ate their shoes because there was no food.
He said he never wanted to leave the war just because he was tired or because of the citizens who sided with the British or because of the weariness of the fighting and killing or having to sleep on wet ground or in snow covered fields or the bloody feet they got from walking without shoes over frozen ground or enduring freezing weather half-naked or the dysentary or the smallpox or the lack of pay, but he and his fellow soldiers considered leaving and almost mutined twice due to hunger.
Martin said the Revolutionary soldiers endured misery and starvation to fight for the liberty outlined in the Declaration of Independence because the soldiers loved their country and loved their freedom.
As I have read the book, I have felt so ashamed of many present day Americans and many, many of our leaders.
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