John Adams was born on October 30, 1735 to John Adams Sr. and Susanna Boylston Adams. He was the eldest of three brothers and lived in Braintree, Massachusetts. His father was a farmer, deacon and city councilor. The Adamses were not very wealthy and John Adams' father knew he could only send one son and wanted to send the eldest. However, John Adams told his father, "I am not fond of books, and I wish you would put aside the thought of sending me to college." His father asked him in response: “What would you do, child? To be a farmer?" John insisted that he wanted to be a farmer and not a scholar. The next day his father took him to work in the fields. Farming was strenuous work and was most likely hard on the hands and back of John. The night after the long day of farm work, his father asked him, "Well, John, are you satisfied with being a farmer?" John Adams refused to admit that his father was right, but John Adams Sr. said, " I don't like [farming] so well, so you'll go to school." John Adams and his father found a compromise: John would go to a tutor who challenged his students instead of the town teacher, which was unbearably easy. Adams excelled under the tutor's teaching and was accepted into Harvard in 1751. His father wanted him to study to be a minister, but John desired to find another vocation. He liked rhetoric and public speaking and thought about becoming a lawyer but did not he thought he was capable of it. He graduated from Harvard in 1755 with a bachelor's degree. He began working as a school teacher in Worcester, Massachusetts. He then began studying law with James Putman after Putman took Adams to court. He studied law at night and taught during the day. He was admitted to the Braintree bar in 1758 and later opened his... middle of paper...omas Jefferson. Although their different political views had made them political enemies, they both began writing to each other and became close friends. As John Adams lay dying, some of his last words are said to have been "at least Jefferson lives." What he didn't know was that Jefferson had died just hours earlier. On July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died. Works Cited Behrman, Carol H. “John Adams.” Lerner Publications Company, 2004. Print http://www.history.com/topics/john-adams http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/adams_j.htm http://www.whitehouse.gov/about /presidents/johnadams Schlesinger Jr., Arthur M.; Marcovitz, Hal. “John Adam”, p6. 2003. Article McCullough, David. “John Adams”. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001. Print