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Renew Deal

(81,803 posts)
Sat Nov 14, 2020, 09:10 PM Nov 2020

Jefferson and Adams die hours apart, July 4, 1826

I didn't know this before today...

On this day in 1826, which marked the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died within hours of each other. Adams was 90; Jefferson was 83.

Both while they worked together to forge the successful American Revolution and, subsequently, as political rivals, they had helped shape the nation’s early years. Adams went on to serve a term as the second U.S. president; Jefferson followed him into the Executive Mansion with two terms.

Adams was a New England Federalist who believed in a strong central government. Jefferson was an agrarian Virginia aristocrat. Adams was a political animal to the core. Jefferson remained uncomfortable in the new capital along the Potomac; he would much rather spend his days at Monticello, the classically proportioned mansion that he had designed. And yet, as historian Joseph Ellis has observed, they each in their way “came to embody the American dialogue.”

Abagail Adams, who had died in 1818, had intervened to break their estrangement. Now, well into their retirement years, they resumed writing to each other. “You and I ought not to die,” Adams wrote Jefferson, “before we have explained ourselves to each other.”


https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/two-founding-fathers-die-hours-apart-july-4-1826-224943

Another weird thing is that three presidents in a row died on July 4.

1826: Adams and Jefferson
1831: Monroe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_by_age

4 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Jefferson and Adams die hours apart, July 4, 1826 (Original Post) Renew Deal Nov 2020 OP
ONE of the TRULY remarkable facts about the United States. elleng Nov 2020 #1
Is it weird I don't think of the founding fathers as dead? joshcryer Nov 2020 #2
Interesting MustLoveBeagles Nov 2020 #3
Actually often mentioned left-of-center2012 Nov 2020 #4

joshcryer

(62,265 posts)
2. Is it weird I don't think of the founding fathers as dead?
Sat Nov 14, 2020, 09:23 PM
Nov 2020

I think they still live on somehow, different characters, different aspects of the same foundational theory. It's weird.

left-of-center2012

(34,195 posts)
4. Actually often mentioned
Sat Nov 14, 2020, 10:32 PM
Nov 2020

Books have mentioned it and C-Span often mentions it.

Maybe one has to be a history junkie?

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