John Hanson
Encyclopedia
John Hanson was a merchant and public official from Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

 during the era of the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

. After serving in a variety of roles for the Patriot
Patriot (American Revolution)
Patriots is a name often used to describe the colonists of the British Thirteen United Colonies who rebelled against British control during the American Revolution. It was their leading figures who, in July 1776, declared the United States of America an independent nation...

 cause in Maryland, in 1779 Hanson was elected as a delegate to the Continental Congress
Continental Congress
The Continental Congress was a convention of delegates called together from the Thirteen Colonies that became the governing body of the United States during the American Revolution....

. He signed the Articles of Confederation
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 founding states that legally established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution...

 in 1781 after Maryland finally joined the other states in ratifying them. In November 1781, he was the first person to be elected as the presiding officer, leading some historians to claim he was the first President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

. Stiverson (2000) states that Hanson was little more than the first among equals in Congress and had no executive power. His duties were largely ceremonial, and his correct title was President of the Continental Congress
President of the Continental Congress
The President of the Continental Congress was the presiding officer of the Continental Congress, the convention of delegates that emerged as the first national government of the United States during the American Revolution...

.

Early life

John Hanson, Jr. was born at "Mulberry Grove" in Port Tobacco Parish
Port Tobacco Village, Maryland
Port Tobacco, officially Port Tobacco Village, is a town in Charles County, Maryland, United States. The population was 15 at the 2000 census, making Port Tobacco the smallest incorporated town in Maryland....

 in Charles County
Charles County, Maryland
Charles County is a county in the south central portion of the U.S. state of Maryland.As of 2010, the population was 146,551. Its county seat is La Plata. This county was named for Charles Calvert , third Baron Baltimore....

 in the British Province of Maryland
Province of Maryland
The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies in rebellion against Great Britain and became the U.S...

. The American National Biography lists Hanson's birth date as April 3, 1721, which in the modern calendar system
Old Style and New Style dates
Old Style and New Style are used in English language historical studies either to indicate that the start of the Julian year has been adjusted to start on 1 January even though documents written at the time use a different start of year ; or to indicate that a date conforms to the Julian...

 is equivalent to April 14, although the older Dictionary of American Biography gives the date as April 13, 1721. Some older sources list a birth year of 1715. Hanson's parents were Samuel and Elizabeth (Story) Hanson. Samuel Hanson was a planter
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...

 who owned more than 1000 acres (4 km²), and held a variety of political offices, including serving two terms in the Maryland General Assembly
Maryland General Assembly
The Maryland General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland. It is a bicameral body. The upper chamber, the Maryland State Senate, has 47 representatives and the lower chamber, the Maryland House of Delegates, has 141 representatives...

.

John Hanson was of English ancestry; his grandfather, also named John, came to Charles County, Maryland, as an indentured servant
Indentured servant
Indentured servitude refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture. Usually the father made the arrangements and signed...

 around 1661. In 1876, a writer named George Hanson placed John Hanson in his family tree of Swedish Americans descended from four Swedish brothers who emigrated to New Sweden
New Sweden
New Sweden was a Swedish colony along the Delaware River on the Mid-Atlantic coast of North America from 1638 to 1655. Fort Christina, now in Wilmington, Delaware, was the first settlement. New Sweden included parts of the present-day American states of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania....

 in 1642. This story was often repeated over the next century, but scholarly research in the late 20th century suggested that John Hanson was of English heritage and not related to these Swedish American Hansons.

Hanson had no extended formal education while growing up in Maryland, but he read broadly in both English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 and Latin. He followed the family tradition as a planter, extending and improving his holdings. About 1744 he married Jane Contee, with whom he would have eight children. Their son Alexander Contee Hanson, Sr. (1749–1806) was a notable essayist. Alexander Hanson is sometimes confused with his son, Alexander Contee Hanson, Jr.
Alexander Contee Hanson
Alexander Contee Hanson was an American lawyer, publisher, and statesman. He represented the third district of Maryland in the U.S. House, and the state of Maryland in the U.S. Senate....

 (1786–1819), who became a newspaper editor and US Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

.

Political career

Hanson's career in public service began in 1750, when he was appointed sheriff of Charles County. In 1757 he was elected to represent Charles County in the lower house of the Maryland General Assembly, where he served over the next twelve years, sitting on many important committees. Maryland was a proprietary colony
Proprietary colony
A proprietary colony was a colony in which one or more individuals, usually land owners, remaining subject to their parent state's sanctions, retained rights that are today regarded as the privilege of the state, and in all cases eventually became so....

, and Hanson aligned himself with the "popular" or "country" party, which opposed any expansion of the power of the proprietary governors at the expense of the popularly elected lower house. He was a leading opponent of the 1765 Stamp Act
Stamp Act 1765
The Stamp Act 1765 was a direct tax imposed by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America. The act required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp...

, chairing the committee that drafted the instructions for Maryland's delegates to the Stamp Act Congress
Stamp Act Congress
The Stamp Act Congress was a meeting on October 19, 1765 in New York City of representatives from some of the British colonies of North America. They discussed and acted upon the Stamp Act recently passed by the governing Parliament of Great Britain overseas, which did not include any...

. In protest of the Townshend Acts
Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts were a series of laws passed beginning in 1767 by the Parliament of Great Britain relating to the British colonies in North America. The acts are named after Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who proposed the program...

, in 1769 Hanson was one of the signers of a nonimportation resolution that boycotted British imports until the acts were repealed.

Hanson changed course in 1769, apparently to better pursue his business interests. He resigned from the General Assembly, sold his land in Charles County, and moved to Frederick County
Frederick County, Maryland
Frederick County is a county located in the western part of the U.S. state of Maryland, bordering the southern border of Pennsylvania and the northeastern border of Virginia. As of the 2010 Census, the population was 233,385....

 in western Maryland
Western Maryland
Western Maryland is the portion of the U.S. state of Maryland that consists of Frederick, Washington, Allegany, and Garrett counties. The region is bounded by the Mason-Dixon line to the north, Preston County, West Virginia to the west, and the Potomac River to the south. There is dispute over the...

. There he held a variety of offices, including deputy surveyor, sheriff, and county treasurer.

When relations between Great Britain and the colonies became a crisis in 1774, Hanson became one of Frederick County's leading Patriots
Patriot (American Revolution)
Patriots is a name often used to describe the colonists of the British Thirteen United Colonies who rebelled against British control during the American Revolution. It was their leading figures who, in July 1776, declared the United States of America an independent nation...

. He chaired a town meeting that passed a resolution opposing the Boston Port Act
Boston Port Act
The Boston Port Act is an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which became law on March 30, 1774, and is one of the measures that were designed to secure Great Britain's jurisdictions over her American dominions.A response to the Boston Tea Party, it outlawed the use...

. In 1775, he was a delegate to the Maryland Convention, an extralegal body convened after the colonial assembly had been prorogued. With the other delegates, he signed the Association of Freemen on July 26, 1775, which expressed hope for reconciliation with Great Britain, but also called for military resistance to enforcement of the Intolerable Acts
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts or the Coercive Acts are names used to describe a series of laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Britain's colonies in North America...

.

With hostilities underway, Hanson chaired the Frederick County committee of observation, part of the Patriot organization that assumed control of local governance. Responsible for recruiting and arming soldiers, Hanson proved to be an excellent organizer, and Frederick County sent the first southern troops to join George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

's army.

Hanson was elected to the newly reformed Maryland House of Delegates
Maryland House of Delegates
The Maryland House of Delegates is the lower house of the General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland, and is composed of 141 Delegates elected from 47 districts. The House chamber is located in the state capitol building on State Circle in Annapolis...

 in 1777, the first of five annual terms. In December 1779, the House of Delegates named Hanson as one of its delegates to the Second Continental Congress
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met briefly during 1774,...

. He began those duties when he took his seat in Philadelphia on June 14, 1780, serving until 1782. While Hanson was in Congress, the Articles of Confederation
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 founding states that legally established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution...

 were at last ratified by all the states. When the Congress received notice of this on March 1, 1781, he joined Daniel Carroll
Daniel Carroll
Daniel Carroll was a politician and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was a prominent member of one of the United States' great colonial Catholic families, whose members included his younger brother Archbishop John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States and...

 in endorsing them for Maryland.

President of Congress

In November 1781, Hanson became the first President of the Continental Congress to be elected for an annual term as specified in the Articles of Confederation, although Samuel Huntington
Samuel Huntington (statesman)
Samuel Huntington was a jurist, statesman, and Patriot in the American Revolution from Connecticut. As a delegate to the Continental Congress, he signed the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation...

 and Thomas McKean
Thomas McKean
Thomas McKean was an American lawyer and politician from New Castle, in New Castle County, Delaware and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the American Revolution he was a delegate to the Continental Congress where he signed the United States Declaration of Independence and the Articles of...

 had served in that office after the ratification of the Articles. Under the Articles of Confederation, the United States had no executive branch; the President of Congress was a mostly ceremonial position within the Confederation Congress
Congress of the Confederation
The Congress of the Confederation or the United States in Congress Assembled was the governing body of the United States of America that existed from March 1, 1781, to March 4, 1789. It comprised delegates appointed by the legislatures of the states. It was the immediate successor to the Second...

, but the office did require Hanson to handle a good deal of correspondence and sign official documents. Hanson found the work tedious and wished to resign, but his departure would have left Congress without a quorum
Quorum
A quorum is the minimum number of members of a deliberative assembly necessary to conduct the business of that group...

 to select a successor, and so, out of a sense of duty, he remained in office.

Because Hanson was the first president elected under the Articles of Confederation, one of his grandsons later promoted him as the first President of the United States. This ultimately resulted in Hanson's statue being one of two representing Maryland in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol, even though, according to historian Gregory Stiverson, Hanson was not one of Maryland's foremost leaders of the Revolutionary era. The idea that Hanson was the forgotten first President of the United States was further promoted in a 1932 biography of Hanson by journalist Seymour Wemyss Smith. Smith's book asserts that the American Revolution had two primary leaders: George Washington in the military sphere, and John Hanson in politics. This idea is sometimes paired with the claim that Hanson was actually a black man, using a photograph of Senator John Hanson of Liberia to support the claim.

Death and legacy

Hanson retired from public office after his one-year term as President of Congress. In poor health, he died a year later at his nephew's plantation Oxon Hill Manor
Oxon Hill Manor
-External links:*, including photo in 1995, at Maryland Historical Trust website* *: 28 photos and 14 data pages, at Historic American Building Survey*: 6 photos and 1 data page, at Historic American Building Survey...

 in Prince George's County, Maryland
Prince George's County, Maryland
Prince George's County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland, immediately north, east, and south of Washington, DC. As of 2010, it has a population of 863,420 and is the wealthiest African-American majority county in the nation....

, on November 22, 1783. The grave site is lost.

Maryland law specifies that "the Governor annually shall proclaim April 13 as John Hanson's birthday and dedicate that day to the statesman."
Also, U.S. Route 50 between Washington D.C. and Annapolis is named the John Hanson Highway in his honor. There are also middle schools located in Oxon Hill, Maryland
Oxon Hill, Maryland
Oxon Hill is part of the Oxon Hill-Glassmanor census-designated place in southern Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. Oxon Hill is a suburb of Washington, DC located southeast of the downtown district and east of Alexandria, Virginia...

, and Waldorf, Maryland
Waldorf, Maryland
Waldorf, Maryland is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Charles County, Maryland, United States. It is south-southeast of Washington, D.C. The population of the census-designated area only was 67,752 at the 2010 census...

, named after him. A former savings bank named for him was merged in the 1990s with Industrial Bank of Washington, D.C. A namesake, John Hanson Briscoe, was a circuit judge and Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates.

In 1903 the state of Maryland donated a bronze statue by Richard E. Brooks to the United States Capitol
United States Capitol
The United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall...

's National Statuary Hall Collection
National Statuary Hall Collection
The National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol comprises statues donated by individual states to honor persons notable in their history...

. It is currently located on the 2nd floor of the Senate connecting corridor. A maquette of the Hanson statue by Brooks resides on the President's dais in the Senate Chamber of the Maryland State House.

Further reading

Scholarly
  • Levering, Ralph B. "John Hanson, Public Servant". Maryland Historical Magazine 71 (Summer 1976): 113–33.
  • Papenfuse, Edward C., et al. A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635–1789. 1:405-6. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979. ISBN 0801819954.
  • Russel, George Ely. "John Hanson of Maryland: A Swedish Heritage Disproved". The American Genealogist 63, no. 4 (October 1988).


Popular
  • Kremer, J. Bruce. John Hanson of Mulberry Grove. New York: A. & C. Boni, 1938.
  • Nelson, Jacob A. John Hanson and the inseparable union: an authentic biography of a revolutionary leader, patriot and statesman. Boston: Meador Publishing Company, 1939.
  • Smith, Seymour Wemyss. John Hanson, our first president. New York: Brewer, Warren & Putnam, 1932.
  • Thomas, Douglas H. John Hanson, President of the United States in Congress Assembled, 1781–1782. 1898. According to the American National Biography, the biographies of Hanson are not "adequate," though this is one, written by Hanson's grandson, is "perhaps the most satisfactory" of the lot.

External links

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