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• Born: 12 January 1737
• Birthplace: Braintree, Massachusetts
• Died: 8 October 1793
• Best Known As: The Founding Father with the giant signature

John Hancock's flamboyant signature on the Declaration of Independence made him an American legend. A Harvard graduate, Hancock was a prosperous Boston businessman who nonetheless favored American independence from Great Britain. He became a Massachusetts representative to the Continental Congress, and was elected president of the Continental Congress in 1775. As such, Hancock was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence in July of 1776. He wrote his name at the center of the page in extra-large script. Referring to a bounty the British had put on the heads of revolutionaries, he remarked, "The British ministry can read that name without spectacles; let them double their reward." (Hence, "John Hancock" became a slang term for any signature.) Hancock was later elected the first governor of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, serving in that position from 1780-85 and from 1787 until his death in 1793.

Hancock is buried in the Old Granary Burying Ground in Boston, Massachusetts... The John Hancock insurance company is, indeed, named for Hancock.

John Hancock (1737-1793) signed the Declaration of Independence and was a leader of the movementtoward revolution in the American colonies. Later prominent in the Continental Congress, he was elected Massachusetts governor for nine terms.

Born at Braintree, Mass., on Jan. 23, 1737, John Hancock was reared in the piety and penury of a Congregational minister's household. He was 7 when his father died and he became a ward of his uncle, a prominent Boston merchant. Hancock graduated from Harvard in 1754, served for a time in his uncle's office as a clerk, and went to London in 1760 as the firm's representative. In England he witnessed the pageantry unfurled for the new king, George III, but he was not enthralled by life in the imperial capital and returned to his Boston mansion. In 1763 Hancock became a partner in his uncle's prosperous importing and provisioning business.

When his uncle died in 1764, Hancock inherited property worth almost £70, 000. As a merchant prince, he naturally resisted Britain's attempt to restrict colonial trading via the Stamp Act, which was later repealed. But Hancock's mercantile ventures soon led to evasive tactics that were, in fact, smuggling.

Pushed to prominence by more militant men, Hancock was elected to the Massachusetts General Court in 1766. The British seizure of one of his smuggling vessels, the Liberty, became a cause célèbre and made him a popular hero. He received more votes than Samuel Adams in the next General Court election. Meanwhile, he was threatened by the Crown with fines of nearly £100, 000 for the Liberty affair. Though the fines were never collected, neither was Hancock's ship returned.

Growing Anti-British Sentiment

British military and revenue policies after 1768 were exploited by Samuel Adams and other anti-British agitators. The Boston Massacre of 1770 increased colonial animosity and established a tension that was nurtured by the militant patriots. Hancock, for a time, wavered. However, when the tide of public opinion became clear, he announced that he was totally committed to the patriot cause, even if it cost him his life and his fortune. This took some courage.

In the rush of later events, as the Boston Tea Party of 1773 brought on more coercive laws and, finally, the Boston Port Bill of 1774, Hancock's reputation mounted. By 1775 his name was synonymous with American radicalism. How much of this was thoughtful leadership on his part and how far he had been pushed by Adams is uncertain. Hancock and Adams were, after all, the only two Americans denied amnesty when British general Thomas Gage belatedly decided to try for peaceful relations.

Continental Congress

Hancock was elected president of the Continental Congress in May 1775. He longed for command of the army around Boston and was undoubtedly disappointed when George Washington was selected. He voted for, and was the first delegate to sign, the Declaration of Independence. Then Hancock resigned as president in October 1777, pleading ill health.

Meanwhile, Hancock had married Dorothy Quincy in August 1775. Though he stayed on as part of the congressional delegation, he still longed for military glory. However, his one opportunity - in the Rhode Island campaign of 1778 - was undistinguished.

Hancock was embarrassed in 1777, when Harvard College sought to regain its account books and funds. Hancock had been named treasurer of the college in 1773, and he now refused to give accounts or release funds in his care. He was forced to surrender £16, 000 in 1777. In 1785 Hancock admitted that he still owed his alma mater £1, 054 - a sum eventually paid by his heirs.

Like most public men, Hancock had enemies. Though his detractors insisted that Hancock was a shallow man who lacked conviction and was merely an opportunist, they could not prevent his election as the first governor of Massachusetts, in 1780. He was reelected repeatedly, until an impending financial crisis coincided with his voluntary retirement in 1785. Though he claimed that his retirement was based on illness, Hancock's enemies asserted that he had seen the coming storm, which was caused in part by his ineptitude in fiscal matters. After Shays' Rebellion (1786), Hancock was reelected governor.

In 1788, elected president of the Massachusetts State Convention to ratify the new Federal Constitution, Hancock was approached by Federalists who recommended a set of amendments, hinting that - if he presented them, and if Washington declined the presidency - Hancock himself might be in line for the nation's first office. Perhaps the story is unfair, but more than one witness attested to its truth. Hancock did offer the amendments, and Massachusetts ratified the Constitution. Perhaps Hancock waited for a call that never came.

Thereafter, Hancock remained as Massachusetts governor, his popularity unchallenged. He died in office on Oct. 8, 1793.

Further Reading

The best biography of Hancock is Herbert S. Allan, John Hancock: Patriot in Purple (1948). William T. Baxter, The House of Hancock: Business in Boston, 1724-1775 (1945), is a specialized study. For general background John Richard Alden, A History of the American Revolution (1969), is recommended. Hancock's own preserved papers are few.

For more information on John Hancock, visit Britannica.com.

(1737-1793), merchant and American revolutionary political leader. Although best known for his bold signature on the Declaration of Independence, Hancock's historical importance rests chiefly on his leadership of Massachusetts before, during, and after the Revolution. Descended from two generations of Congregational clergymen, Hancock was taken in after his father's death by his uncle, a prominent Boston merchant, who put him through Harvard, sent him to London, and then made him his partner and principal heir. When his uncle died in 1764, John Hancock became one of Boston's richest men.

Hancock's public career began with election to the office of Boston selectman in 1765. He then aligned himself with Samuel Adams and the Patriot opposition to the Stamp Act. When his sloop, Liberty, was seized for smuggling during the opposition to the Townshend Acts in 1768, Hancock stood up as a champion of resistance to British measures. The following year Boston elected Hancock as one of its representatives to the Massachusetts legislature. Thereafter he was reputed to be the chief financial backer of the Patriot group, and in 1774 he delivered a rousing oration commemorating the Boston Massacre (1770). When, following the Coercive Acts, the Massachusetts legislature transformed itself into a Provincial Congress (1774), Hancock was elected its president and chairman of the Committee of Safety, a body empowered to call out the militia against the British. Consequently, he was charged with treason. When the British troops marched to Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, one of their missions was to capture Hancock and Samuel Adams.

Hancock's steadfast service to Massachusetts led to his being sent in 1775 to the Second Continental Congress, where he was elected its president but, to his dismay, passed over as commander of the Continental army in favor of George Washington. Hancock then served the American cause at both state and national levels, spending over two years in Baltimore and Philadelphia laboring at supplying the American forces and creating a navy.

In 1780 he was elected the first governor of Massachusetts under its new constitution and thereafter was easily reelected whenever he chose to run. Hancock's gubernatorial career was marked by his inability to prevent a fiscal and currency crisis in the mid-1780s. Faced with poor health and a political stalemate, he declined to run in 1785 and again in 1786 when Shays' Rebellion shook Massachusetts. In 1787, however, he was persuaded again to seek the governorship, which he won in a landslide. His policy of moderation toward the former followers of Shays and his gesture of donating part of his salary to the state helped restore public confidence.

When the time came to ratify the U.S. Constitution (1788), Hancock played a crucial role. Elected to preside at the state convention, he kept his own counsel until, near the end of the proceedings, he offered his qualified support for the Constitution, urging that it be ratified with the addition of a bill of rights. His leadership and conciliatory speech resulted in a narrow victory for the Constitution. When Hancock died in office at the age of fifty-six, he was the foremost popular politician in Massachusetts.

Bibliography:

Herbert S. Allen, John Hancock (1948); William M. Fowler, Jr., The Baron of Beacon Hill: A Biography of John Hancock (1980).

Author:

Richard D. Brown

See also Boston Massacre; Continental Congresses; Ratification of the Constitution; Revolution; Shays' Rebellion; Stamp Act.

1737–93, political leader in the American Revolution, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Braintree, Mass. From an uncle he inherited Boston's leading mercantile firm, and naturally he opposed the Stamp Act (1765) and other British trade restrictions. In 1768 his ship Liberty was seized as a smuggler and confiscated by the crown. A riot ensued, and later the ship was burned. Hancock was hailed as a martyr and elected (1766) to the legislature, where he joined Samuel Adams in advocating resistance to England. In 1775, Gen. Thomas Gage issued a warrant for their arrest, but they escaped. Hancock was a member (1775–80, 1785–86) and president (1775–77, 1785–86) of the Continental Congress. His name appears first (and largest) on the Declaration of Independence, and the term “John Hancock” is often used to mean a signature. He was governor of Massachusetts (1780–85, 1787–93).

Bibliography

See biographies by L. Sears (1912, repr. 1972), W. T. Baxter (1945), H. S. Allan (1948), and F. Wagner (1964).

A political leader of the eighteenth century. He was president of the Continental Congress when the Declaration of Independence was signed, and was the first to sign it, which he did with a large, flamboyant signature.

A “John Hancock” is a signature.

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