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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJefferson 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 nations 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
elleng
(130,156 posts)joshcryer
(62,265 posts)I think they still live on somehow, different characters, different aspects of the same foundational theory. It's weird.
MustLoveBeagles
(11,563 posts)Thanks for posting
left-of-center2012
(34,195 posts)Books have mentioned it and C-Span often mentions it.
Maybe one has to be a history junkie?