4 July 1826

I just finished David McCullough's biography of John Adams.  I'd like to recommend it, but at 650 pages it is too long for anyone with a social life.  John and Abigail Adams were patriots and public servants the likes of which have not been seen in America before or since.  I'll just leave it at that.  But, the thing that really caught my attention was that both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Maybe everybody else knows this and I just missed it in history class, but it is a very interesting fact (at least, it is if you have no social life).

On the first of July 1826 there were three living signers (out of 56) of the Declaration of Independence:  Adams, Jefferson, and Charles Carroll (about whom I truly know nothing).  Jefferson was the author of the Declaration and Adams was its most powerful proponent in the Continental Congress of 1776.  On the fourth of July 1826, at 1pm, Thomas Jefferson died at Monticello.  On the fourth of July 1826, at 6:20 pm, John Adams died at Quincy, Massachusetts.  That strikes me as a remarkable coincidence.  John Quincy Adams, John Adams son, who was President at the time, did not think it a coincidence, but called it a manifestation of divine favor.  And perhaps it was.