Join us for a dramatic, in-pereson event with actor George Baker.
In “John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Their Historic 50 Year Friendship,” Adams describes how he and Jefferson first met in 1775 at the Continental Congress, one a delegate from Massachusetts, the other a delegate from Virginia. They were the principal moving forces which convinced the Continental Congress to vote for independence in 1776. After the Revolutionary War, they were fellow ambassadors from the United States with Adams serving in England at the Court of St. James’s and Jefferson in Paris. In 1796 and 1800 they competed as presidential candidates, Adams a Federalist and Jefferson a Republican. Adams won the election of 1796 but lost to Jefferson in the election of 1800 which was marred by a rough campaign where each candidate was personally attacked in the press. Though the bitter feelings from that campaign affected their friendship, they were finally reconciled in the last fourteen years of their lives during which time they wrote 155 letters to one another. Both died on July 4, 1826, the 50 th anniversary of the United States, an unparalleled historical coincidence.
Since 2008, George Baker has portrayed the character of President John Adams in a one-man show throughout the country at national conventions and venues like Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Kansas, the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library in Texas, the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Missouri, the New-York Historical Society and was featured as John Adams on National Public Radio’s weekend program, Studio 360. A graduate of Columbia College and Columbia Law School, George practiced law in Connecticut from 1973 to 2024. John Adams was born in Braintree, Massachusetts in 1735 and practiced law in Boston where he represented fourteen British soldiers charged with murder in the Boston Massacre of March 1770, a case which is the first recorded instance in Colonial America that the judge instructed the jury that they cannot convict unless they are convinced of the defendants’ guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.” In 1774 he was chosen to be one of the five delegates from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia. In 1776, he was one of the Congress’ most strenuous advocates for American independence from Great Britain. Later he served as ambassador from the Continental Congress to Paris, Holland and London and was Vice President in the administration of President George Washington. In 1796, he was elected the second President of the United States.
Please register so we can set the community room up with appropriate seating.
This event is appropriate for ages 12+
Sponsored by the Avon Library, Avon Historical Society, and Avon Senior Center.