HERE LIES BURIED

SAMUEL ADAMS

SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

GOVERNOR OF THIS COMMONWEALTH

A LEADER OF MEN AND AN ARDENT PATRIOT

BORN 1722 DIED 1803

Sam Adams (1722-1803) was a firebrand who as much as anyone inspired and led men to cast off the British monarchy.  His revolutionary credentials were so well known Thomas Jefferson called him, “The Man of the Revolution”.

During his lifetime Sam Adams was well known to every American as a patriot but lost favor with historians and the story of his influence and participation during the war became less emphasized and written about.  Then in the 1980s, Jim Koch founded a Boston-based brewing company naming his signature great-tasting beer after Sam Adams.  Sam Adams was once again on the lips of Americans!

Sam Adams is buried in the Granary Burying Ground at Boston.  His large rock marker is slightly to the right of the main gate and in the front, visible from the fence surrounding the burial ground.  The plaque on his grave was placed there by the Massachusetts Society and the Sons of the American Revolution.  The docents who give tours through the cemetery take visitors past the venerated Sam Adams’ grave.  One wag was heard to remark, “You can go across the street to the tavern and have a cold Sam Adams, and look across the street at a cold Sam Adams!”

While the beer was named after Sam Adams and honors him, his family most likely never were brewers.  They did, however, make malt a main ingredient in beer.  Even Sam worked as a maltster, though there is no evidence he was a brewer.