Samuel Adams: A Short Biography Architect of the American Revolution

By Doug West

The son of a Boston Congregationalist deacon, Samuel Adams was educated at Harvard and took over his father’s malt house business and failed. Adams admitted that he wasn’t good at business, revolutionary agitator was more his game. He was one of the first American patriots to call for independence from England. Thomas Jefferson wrote of Adams “truly the man of the revolution.” Adams loved to write and made a fiery newspaper editor, producing an onslaught of articles denouncing the British control of the colonies and calling for a new independent nation. A very religious man, he believed that God had intervened for the cause of the Americans in their fight for liberty. Adams played a key role in rallying the colonist against the British after the Boston Massacre and helped plan the Boston Tea Party – two incidents that helped spark the conflict between the American colonists and their mother country. He was ever the man of action, playing a pivotal role in the events that led up to the bloody confrontation between the British red-coats and the colonial militia at the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Adams spent most of his adult life in service to his country, from the early days of the Continental Congress to helping build a new nation with his work on the Massachusetts Constitution and then becoming governor of the state.

“Samuel Adams: A Short Biography” reveals the life and times of a true American revolutionary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Doug West
• Release date: Aug 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463974094

Doug West

Doug West is a retired engineer, small business owner, and an experienced non-fiction writer with several books to his credit. His writing interests are general, with expertise in science, history, biographies, numismatics, and “How to” topics. Doug has a B.S. in Physics from the Missouri School of Science and Technology and a Ph.D. in General Engineering from Oklahoma State University. He lives with his wife and little dog “Millie” near Kansas City, Missouri.

Book preview

Samuel Adams: A Short Biography

Architect of the American Revolution

By Doug West, Ph.D.

Samuel Adams: A Short Biography

Architect of the American Revolution

Copyright © 2019 Doug West

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews.

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For my sweet granddaughter Abigail

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 – Early Years

Chapter 2 – Political Life Begins

Chapter 3 – The Occupation of Boston by the British

Chapter 4 – The Continental Congress Meets

Chapter 5 – The American Revolution

Chapter 6 – Governor of Massachusetts

Timeline of Samuel Adams

Biographical Sketches

Notes

References and Further Reading

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Additional Books by Doug West

Preface

Welcome to the book, Samuel Adams: A Short Biography. This book is volume 40 of the 30 Minute Book Series and, as the name of the series implies, if you are an average reader this book will take less than an hour to read. Since this short book is not meant to be an all-encompassing biography of Samuel Adams, you may want to know more about this man and his accomplishments. To help you with this, there are several good references at the end of this book. I have also provided a Timeline, in order to link together the important events in Mr. Adams’ life, and a section titled Biographical Sketches, which includes brief biographies of some of the key individuals in the book.

Thank you for purchasing this book, and I hope you enjoy your time reading about this American patriot.

Doug West

August 2019

Introduction

Like Samuel Adams, everyone presents many faces to the world depending on their circumstances. To a friend, spouse, child, or colleague, we reveal different aspects of ourselves. For those long departed we have to rely on what they left behind in their words or what others have written about them. In the case of Samuel Adams, he loved to write and was known to work late into the night with pen in hand. Others, such as John Adams, Samuel’s second cousin, wrote of him, I pity Mr. Sam. Adams for he was born a Rebel. His strict Puritan upbringing and his strong belief in the rights of man may have lit a revolutionary fire within him. Samuel had many strengths and some shortcomings, as John Adams attested to in this diary entry: He is a man of refined policy, steadfast integrity, exquisite humanity, genteel erudition, obliging, engaging manners, real as well as professed piety, and a universal good character, unless it should be admitted that he is too attentive to the public and not enough so to himself and his family.

Samuel Adams showed little interest