The occasion, fellow-citizens, requires some account of the lives and
services of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. This duty must necessarily
be performed with great brevity, and in the discharge of it I shall be
obliged to confine myself, principally, to those parts of their history
and character which belonged to them as public men.
John Adams was born at Quincy, then part of the ancient town of
Braintree, on the 19th of October, (old style,) 1735. He was a
descendant of the Puritans, his ancestors having early emigrated from
England, and settled in Massachusetts. Discovering early a strong love
of reading and of knowledge, together with the marks of great strength
and activity of mind, proper care was taken by his worthy father to
provide for his education. He pursued his youthful studies in Braintree,
under Mr. Marsh, a teacher whose fortune it was that Josiah Quincy, Jr.,
as well as the subject of these remarks, should receive from him his
instruction in the rudiments of classical literature. Having been
admitted, in 1751, a member of Harvard College, Mr. Adams was graduated,
in course, in 1755; and on the catalogue of that institution, his name,
at the time of his death, was second among the living alumni, being
preceded only by that of the venerable Holyoke.
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