Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/41

ADAMS.ADAMS. and Mary" and "Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia." He was secretary of the American Historical Association from its organization in 1884, and edited its published papers. His work is highly valued by historical students. He made a report to the U.S. bureau of education on summer schools in Europe in 1896. He resigned the chair of American and institutional history at Johns Hopkins university in December, 1900, to take effect in February, 1901, and then visited Florida, returning to his home in Amherst, Mass. He was a member of the New England historic-genealogical society, 1881-86; received the degree LL.D. from the University of Alabama in 1891, and from Amherst in 1899, and wrote "Life and Writings of Jared Sparks" (2 vols., 1893). He died at Amherst, Mass., July 30, 1901. ADAMS, Isaac, inventor, was born in Rochester, N. H., 1803. He had little opportunity for education, and when a boy went early to work in a factory. Later he learned the trade of a cabinet-maker, which he abandoned to go to Boston, where he became employed in a machine shop. In 1828 he invented the Adams printing press, which he improved in 1834, and as then improved the press continues to be sold in thirty different sizes and was universally used for book work in America for more than a quarter of a century. By the manufacture of these presses he accumulated considerable wealth. In 1840 he was elected to the Massachusetts senate. He died July 19, 1883. ADAMS, James Hopkins, statesman, was born in South Carolina about 1811. At the age of twenty he was graduated from Yale college, and the following year was elected to the state senate. In 1855 he was chosen governor, and after his state had seceded he was one of the commissioners appointed to negotiate with the president regarding the disposal of the United States property in South Carolina. He died on his plantation near Columbia, S. C., July 27, 1861. ADAMS, Jasper, educator, was born in Medway, Mass., Aug. 27, 1793; son of Maj. Jasper and Emma (Rounds) Adams, and a direct descendant from Henry Adams. He was graduated at Brown in 1815, studied at Andover theological seminary, 1816-'17; was tutor at Brown, 1818-'19, and professor there, 1819-'24. He was ordained in the Protestant Episcopal church, deacon, Sept. 2, 1819, and priest, Aug. 4, 1820; was president of the College of Charleston, S.C, 1824-'26, and in 1828-'36; president of Geneva, N. Y., college, 1826-'28; U.S. chaplain and professor of geography, history and ethics, West Point, N.Y., 1838-'40; and principal of the seminary at Pendleton, S.C, 1840-'41. He received the degree of A.M. from Yale in 1819 and that of S.T.D. from Columbia in 1827. He died at Pendleton, S.C., Oct. 25, 1841. ADAMS, John, second President of the United States, was born at Braintree (Quincy), Mass., Oct. 19 (O. S.) 1735, son of John and Susanna Boylston Adams. His first American ancestor, Henry Adams, Puritan, emigrated from Devonshire, Eng., in 1636, he having been granted a tract of land embracing forty acres at Braintree in the province of Massachusetts. He brought over with, him eight sons and was one of the original proprietors of the town of Braintree. It was the custom of the Adams family to educate the eldest son of each generation for some profession, and John was carefully prepared for Harvard college, which he entered in 1751, graduating thence a bachelor of arts, in 1755. While at college a great future was predicted for him, the acuteness and originality of his mind, and the frankness and independence of his character, being fully recognized even at that early date. Immediately after his graduation he received and accepted an invitation to take charge of the grammar school at Worcester, Mass. The occupation of teaching did not prove at all congenial to the high-spirited and ambitious youth. In a letter dated at Worcester, Sept. 2, 1755, he thus facetiously describes, for the edification of his friend Robert Cranch, "the situation" of his "mind": "When the nimble hours have tackled Apollo's courses, and the gay deity mounts the eastern sky, the gloomy pedagogue arises, frowning and lowering like a black cloud begrimed with uncommon wrath, to blast a devoted land. When the destined time arrives he enters upon action, and, as a haughty monarch ascends his throne, the pedagogue mounts his awful great chair and dispenses right and justice through his empire. His obsequious subjects execute the imperial mandates with cheerfulness, and think it their high happiness to be employed in the service of the emperor. Sometimes paper, sometimes pen-knife, now birch, now arithmetic, now a ferule, then A, B, C, then scolding, then flattering, then thwacking, calls for the pedagogue's attention. At length, his spirits all exhausted, down comes pedagogue from his throne and walks out in awful solemnity through a cringing multitude. In the afternoon he passes through the same dreadful