John Hancock
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 John Hancock facts

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• January 12, 1736] – October 8, 1793) was an American merchant, statesman, and prominent Patriot of the American Revolution
• He served as president of the Second Continental Congress and was the first and third Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
• He is remembered for his large and stylish signature on the United States Declaration of Independence, so much so that the term "John Hancock" has become, in the United States, a synonym for a signature
• Before the American Revolution, Hancock was one of the wealthiest men in the Thirteen Colonies, having inherited a profitable mercantile business from his uncle
• Hancock began his political career in Boston as a protégé of Samuel Adams, an influential local politician, though the two men later became estranged
• As tensions between colonists and Great Britain increased in the 1760s, Hancock used his wealth to support the colonial cause
• He became very popular in Massachusetts, especially after British officials seized his sloop Liberty in 1768 and charged him with smuggling
• Although the charges against Hancock were eventually dropped, he has often been described as a smuggler in historical accounts, but the accuracy of this characterization has been questioned
• Hancock was one of Boston's leaders during the crisis that led to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775