sister enjoyed the
usual life of a child in the country. When he was seven years old his
father died, leaving very little money for the support of the widow
and three children. Thomas Hancock, his uncle, was at that time the
richest merchant in Boston, and had also married a daughter of a
prosperous bookseller who was heir to no small fortune herself. The
couple being childless, at the death of John Hancock's father they
adopted the boy, who was at once taken from the simple parsonage to
Thomas Hancock's mansion on Beacon Hill, which must have seemed like a
fairy palace to the minister's son, as he "climbed the grand steps and
entered the paneled hall with its broad staircase, carved balusters,
and a chiming clock surmounted with carved figures, gilt with
burnished gold." There were also portraits of dignitaries on the walls
of the great drawing-room, which were very impressive in their lace
ruffles and velvet costumes of the period, and many articles of
furniture of which the country boy did not even know the names.

As a matter of course, he was sent to the Boston Public Latin School,
and later to Harvard College, from which he graduated on July 17,
1754, when he was seventeen years old--at a time when pretty Dorothy
Quincy was a child of seven.

From the time of his adoption of his nephew, Thomas Hancock had
determined to have him as his successor in the shipping business he
had so successfully built up, and so, fresh from college, the young
man entered into the business life of Boston, and as the adopted son
of a rich and influential merchant, was sought after by mothers with
marriageable daughters, and by the daughters themselves, to whose
charms he was strangely indifferent.

For six years he worked faithfully and with a good judgment that
pleased his uncle, while at the same time he took part in the
amusements of the young people of Boston who belonged to the wealthy
class, and who copied their diversions from those in vogue among young
folk in London. The brilliant and fine-looking young man was in
constant demand for riding, hunting, and skating parties, or often in
winter for a sleigh-ride to some country tavern, followed by supper
and a dance; or in summer for an excursion down the harbor, a picnic
on the islands, or a tea-party in the country and a homeward drive by
moonlight. Besides these gaieties there were frequent musters of
militia, of which Hancock was a member, and he was very fond of
shooting a