By modern standards there is something unlikeable about John Hancock. His type of patriotism and charity is as obsolete as his brocaded dressing-gowns and jewelled buttons. He was one of those men who curiously go in and out of style. Once they are out they are hard to value. ‘The golden showers of guineas’ that marked his almost royal progress, his big speeches, like ‘burn Boston and make John Hancock a beggar if the public good requires it,’ do not arouse in us the same genuine enthusiasm they did in his contemporaries. Such men as Paul Revere, [Royal Governor Thomas] Hutchinson, Joseph Warren, or Sam Adams never are in style or out. Their personalities exist quite independently from the accident of their birth in the first half of the eighteenth century. This is not quite true of John Hancock.
Jay, John
Philadelphia, PA — Completed in 1770, this Georgian building was the meeting place of the First Continental Congress in 1774.
Katonah, NY — Jay, who was the first U.S. Chief Justice, moved into the renovated and expanded 24-room farmhouse in 1801, where he lived until his death. The house is restored to the period of Jay's occupancy and includes extensive grounds with a formal garden and related farm structures.
Philadelphia, PA — Completed in 1791 for use by the city, the U.S. Supreme Court shared its space with the mayor until 1800; access is available through park ranger tour.
Paul Revere & The World He Lived In (1942)