John Adams, Esq. and Husband
John Adams was not cut out to be a schoolteacher. His
pupils were "little runtlings" who hardly knew the alphabet, let
alone the advanced subjects like philosophy, which so intrigued
their teacher. Adams was highly opinionated and fascinated with
studying his fellow humans, their actions, their demeanors, and
their features. He wrote, "I amof the opinion that men ought to
avow their opinions and defend them with boldness." The vain and
intense young man found himself stifled at the Worcester Grammar
School. That being said, his students liked him, for he was a colorful
teacher and not much of a disciplinarian.
The big benefit Adams reaped from teaching was his introduction
to the world of the intellectual elite in Worcester, including most
importantly, the prominent lawyer John Putnam. Putnam endlessly
debated and probed Adams' thoughts and ideas. Putnam encouraged
Adams as he searched for a more permanent career. During the summer
after Adams' first year as a teacher, he entered into an apprenticeship
contract with Putnam to study law for two years.
In the days before widespread law schools existed, it
was customary for law students to study with an established lawyer
before starting out on their own. Very few would-be lawyers studied
at the Inns of Court in England, especially few from the colonies.
Adams began his apprenticeship with the customary clerk work, filing papers,
attending court cases, reading law books in his spare time, and
even occasionally working with Putnam on a case directly. Here,
Adams' deep interests in history and philosophy showed through,
as he traced laws back to their roots in Roman history or English
precedent. Putnam, a rich well- established lawyer, had an extensive
library for Adams to peruse, ranging from feudal days to the present.
Adams made a special, deep study of "civil law," which had largely
been handed down by the Romans. Also, Adams learned much of "natural
law," theories which would help him later in life as he participated
in the Revolution.
When his study of law under Putnam was complete, Adams moved
back to his native Braintree and since there were no lawyers on
Massachusetts's South Shore, Adams filled a needed niche. Due to
an oversight, however, Adams had not been admitted to the Worcester
bar association before he left and so he had to fight harder than
usual to be admitted to the Suffolk County bar, normally an easy
process. He spent several hours being interviewed by the head of
the bar, Jeremiah Gridley, before Gridley finally pronounced his
studies fit. Gridley recommended that Adams return later to take
the oath of a lawyer.
Now that Adams had officially joined the Suffolk Country
Inferior Court, he began what amounted to a large and very prosperous law
career. He would later join the Suffolk Superior Court in 1761. The
job of a lawyer was primarily to try cases, since scribes and notaries
handled much of the work of buying land and writing wills. Adams'
work kept him constantly at the forefront of his field and required
him to constantly study and read the law.
It was no coincidence that Adams and other lawyers would
soon take the lead in the American Revolution. England's law system
had grown up around precedent and common law, and it was this training
that would help nudge the Americans toward independence. The Magna
Charta and other British charters and bills of rights had built
up a steady foundation of guaranteed rights for Englishmen–rights
that the colonists transported to the New World when they emigrated.
Additionally, and perhaps more presciently, they believed in the
importance of disavowing illegal laws–the precedent for which had
been set when the Privy Council in England was authorized to strike
colonial laws that violated the colonial charters.
Thus, when the Revolution began, few trained colonial
lawyers like John Adams saw it as a revolution; the movement would
be more aptly described as reinstating the traditional rules and
laws that had slowly been whittled away. Only when England and
its Parliament failed to address colonial grievances by law were
the colonists forced to resort to arms.
As his law career prospered, John Adams was falling in
love. The death of his father in 1761 had left him with a substantial
inheritance of land and a house in Quincy, and he had also begun
traveling with a friend, Richard Cranch, to the nearby house of
William Smith and Smith's three daughters: Mary, Abigail and Eliza.
While Cranch courted Mary, Adams was falling for Abigail–nine years
his junior but an amazing young woman. Highly educated for the times,
Abigail shared Adams' love for reading and philosophy–and never
passed up the opportunity to share her opinions. Adams referred
to his "saucy" love as "Nabby." On October 25, 1764, the two were
married. Adams had found his life's mate. They would be married
for fifty-four years
