Josiah Quincy II (; February 23, 1744April 26, 1775) was an American lawyer and patriot. He was a principal spokesman for the Sons of Liberty in Boston prior to the Revolution and was

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before Presidency of John Adams, his presidency, he was a leader of ...

' co-counsel during the trials of Captain Thomas Preston and the soldiers involved in the

Boston Massacre The Boston Massacre, known in Great Britain as the Incident on King Street, was a confrontation, on March 5, 1770, during the American Revolution in Boston in what was then the colonial-era Province of Massachusetts Bay. In the confrontati ...

Family

Quincy was the son of Josiah Quincy I and the father of the

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

president and

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

mayor

Josiah Quincy III Josiah Quincy III (; February 4, 1772 – July 1, 1864) was an American educator and political figure. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1805–1813), mayor of Boston (1823–1828), and President of Harvard University (182 ...

. He was a descendant of Edmund Quincy, who emigrated to Massachusetts in 1633. His first cousin once removed was

Dorothy Quincy Dorothy Quincy Hancock Scott (; May 21 (May 10 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) 1747 – February 3, 1830) was an American hostess, daughter of Justice Edmund Quincy (1703–1788), Edmund Quincy of Braintree, Massachusetts, Braintree and Bos ...

, wife of Governor

John Hancock John Hancock ( – October 8, 1793) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father, merchant, statesman, and prominent Patriot (American Revolution), Patriot of the American Revolution. He was the longest-serving Presi ...

. He was also a distant relative of

John Quincy Adams John Quincy Adams (; July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was the sixth president of the United States, serving from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States secretary of state from 1817 to 1825. During his long diploma ...

through the sixth President's mother, Abigail Smith Adams.

Life

Quincy was born in

in 1744, to Colonel Josiah Quincy and Hannah Sturgis Quincy. In 1756, shortly after the death of his mother, he moved with his father and other siblings to their ancestral homestead in Braintree. In 1763, he graduated from

and began studying law in the office of Oxenbridge Thacher (died 1765), a top Boston attorney, whose practice he would take over in 1765. A gifted orator, in 1766 he delivered an impassioned address in English "on liberty," or as others would recall it, on the meaning of being "a patriot," at Harvard's commencement upon receiving his Masters. The speech caught the attention of Boston's patriot leadership, and by 1767, he was contributing regularly to

Samuel Adams Samuel Adams (, 1722 – October 2, 1803) was an American statesman, Political philosophy, political philosopher, and a Founding Father of the United States. He was a politician in Province of Massachusetts Bay, colonial Massachusetts, a le ...

' ''

Boston Gazette The ''Boston Gazette'' (1719–1798) was a newspaper published in Boston, in the British North American colonies. It was a weekly newspaper established by William Brooker, who was just appointed Postmaster of Boston, with its first issue releas ...

''. Published initially under the name " Hyperion", his essays were notable for their colorful rhetoric and denouncement of British oppression. On February 12, 1770, he published in the ''Gazette'' a call to his countrymen "to break off all social intercourse with those whose commerce contaminates, whose luxuries poison, whose avarice is insatiable, and whose unnatural oppressions are not to be borne." He used the signatures Mentor, Callisthenes, Marchmont Needham, Edward Sexby, &c., in later letters to the ''Boston Gazette.'' After the

(March 5, 1770) he and John Adams defended Captain Preston and the accused soldiers and secured their acquittal. Prosecuting the case were Robert Treat Paine and Josiah's older brother Samuel Quincy, who shortly after was named solicitor general. He traveled for his health in the South in 1773, and left in his journal an interesting account of his travels and of society in

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

; this journey was important in that it brought Southern patriots into closer relations with the popular leaders in Massachusetts. Perhaps seeking to enhance his standing in advance of the selection of delegates to the

First Continental Congress The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates of twelve of the Thirteen Colonies held from September 5 to October 26, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia at the beginning of the American Revolution. The meeting was organized b ...

, in May 1774 he published ''Observations on the Act of Parliament, commonly called The Boston Port Bill, with Thoughts on Civil Society and Standing Armies'', in which he urged patriots and heroes to form a compact for opposition and for vengeance. In September 1774 he secretly left for England, where he argued the American cause to British politicians who were sympathetic to the colonies. On March 16, 1775, he started back, but he died of

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

on April 26, 1775, on a boat within sight of the Massachusetts shore.Page 21 ''The life of Josiah Quincy II'', by Edmund Quincy, Little, Brown and Company Boston 1874 6th Edition

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Quincy, Josiah 1744 births 1775 deaths 18th-century American lawyers 18th-century Christian universalists 18th-century deaths from tuberculosis Harvard University alumni Members of the Universalist Church of America Lawyers from Boston People from Braintree, Massachusetts People of Massachusetts in the American Revolution People from colonial Boston Quincy family Tuberculosis deaths in Massachusetts

Family

Life

See also

References

Sources

External links