John Adams was Samuel Adams' younger cousin, but they were very different. John Adams was 13 years younger than Samuel Adams.

John Adams was born in 1735 in Braintree, Massachusetts. He became known as the Duke of Braintree because of where he was born. He graduated from Harvard. He taught school for a year but didn't like it. He studied law and became a lawyer. John Adams thought everyone should have a fair trial. He even defended the British soldiers, also known as the Redcoats. He was the lawyer who defended the British soldiers who were accused of murdering Crispus Attucks at the Boston Massacre.

On October 25, 1764 he married Abigail Smith. She tried to read as much as possible and tried to keep up with what was happening in the colonies. When John Adams was away, Abigail Adams and her husband wrote many letters to each other.

In 1775, the Battle of Lexington and Concord made people angry, so some important colonists had a meeting in Philadelphia to discuss it. The meeting was called the Second Continental Congress. John Adams made speeches for independence from England. The Congress voted for independence which meant they were probably choosing to go to war with England. John Adams thought they would need help from the South so the Congress chose George Washington from the Southern state of Virginia to be the General of the Continental Army.

On the 4th of July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted. John Adams was one of the five people who was asked to write the Declaration of Independence, but Thomas Jefferson really wrote most of it. John Adams was one of the 56 men who signed it.

In 1783, after the Revolutionary War, John Adams helped write the peace treaty with England. It was called the Treaty of Paris. In 1789, John Adams became Vice President for George Washington. In 1796, he became the Second President of the United States, and he had more trouble. France got mad because they wanted the U.S. to help them fight against England, not be friends with England. In 1800, the U.S. signed a peace treaty with France. John and Abigail Adams were the parents of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States who was elected in 1825.

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Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died the same day on July 4, 1826--exactly fifty years after the Declaration of Independence was adopted. John Adams was ninety years old when he died of old age. Not knowing that Thomas Jefferson had died too, just a few hours earlier, John Adams said, "Thomas Jefferson still survives."