John Adams (September 18, 1772 – April 24, 1863) was an American educator noted for organizing several hundred Sunday schools. He was the 4th Principal of Phillips Academy. His life was celebrated by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. in his poem, "The School Boy", which was read at the centennial celebration of Phillips Academy in 1878, thus recalls him:
Uneasy lie the heads of all that rule — His most of all whose kingdom is a school.
Early life
John Adams was born in 1772 at Canterbury, Connecticut, to Captain John Adams, a farmer of Canterbury and an officer in the American Revolutionary War and Mary Parker, the daughter of Dea. Joshua Parker and Jemima Davenport. He graduated from Yale University in 1795.[1]
John Adams married his first wife Elizabeth Ripley on May 8, 1798,[1][6] with whom he had ten children. She was born on March 12, 1776, and died on February 23, 1829. She was a daughter of Gamaliel Ripley and Judith Perkins and was a great-great-granddaughter of Governor William Bradford (1590–1657) of the Plymouth Colony and a passenger on the Mayflower.
Mehitable/Mabel married as her first husband at Williamstown, Berkshire County, Massachusetts on April 12, 1798, Ely Burritt, born March 12, 1773, at Pound Ridge, Westchester County, New York. He died September 1, 1823, in Troy, Rensselaer County, New York. He graduated from Williams College in 1800, and was licensed to practice medicine at Troy, New York, on March 29, 1802, and quickly gained recognition for his medical skills. He was the eldest son of the Rev. Mr. Blackleach Burritt[1]Yale College 1765 (a great-great-grandson of William Leete, a governor of the Colony of Connecticut)[7] and Martha Welles (a great-great-granddaughter of Thomas Welles, the fourth governor of the Colony of Connecticut).[8]
His daughter, Mary Elizabeth Adams, married on November 9, 1864, John Crosby Brown[11] (1838–1909), the son of James Brown and Eliza Maria Coe. James Brown was a well known banker and founder of the family company Brown Bros. & Co. James and Eliza lost several of their children when the steamship SS Arctic sank in 1854.[12]
A son of John and Mary Brown's was William Adams Brown[13] (1865–1943). He was born in New York City and was educated privately at first, and then he went to St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He received from Yale University an A.B. degree in 1886, an A.M. degree in 1888 and a Ph.D. in 1901. He graduated from the Union Theological Seminary in 1890, and studied at the University of Berlin from 1890 to 1892. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1893. He was a member of the Yale Corporation from 1917 to 1934, and was acting president of Yale University from 1919 to 1920.
Who Was Who in America: Historical Volume, 1607-1896. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1963.
William Bradford of the Mayflower and his Descendants for Four Generations. compiled by Robert S. Wakefield, FASG and Published by the Gen. Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2001.
^ abBetty Carlson Kay; Gary Jack Barwick; Vernon R.Q. Fernandes; Bob Garner (2009). "Jacksonville - History of the City". Official City of Jacksonville Web Site. Archived from the original on 2012-02-09. Retrieved 2009-06-30.
