July 4th, 1776 may be the most famous 4th. But there’s a close second. On July 4th, 1826, Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson passed away in his native Virginia. According to legend, his final words were “Is it the 4th?”. After receiving confirmation, our nation’s third President quietly slipped away.
The legend is untrue. But what is true is that Jefferson had company that day. On July 4th, 1826, John Adams also passed away. Adams, our nation’s second President, was a bitter political rival of Jefferson during the election of 1800, when Jefferson topped Adams to secure the Presidency. But the two later reconciled in old age after Jefferson’s retirement to Virginia. The song “Election of 1800” from the musical “Hamilton” tells the story.
The July 4th, 1826 passing of Jefferson and Adams was announced to the nation by the U.S. President at the time: the son of Adams, John Quincy Adams. The son remarked on the timing of their deaths on the nation’s birthday, saying that the events were “visible and palpable remarks of divine favor” for the United States.
July 4th, 1826 was a Tuesday. Five days later, President John Quincy Adams walked five blocks from the White House to attend Sunday services at his New York Avenue Presbyterian church. Vicious American politics in the 1820s could be briefly tabled at this church to the Presidents, where political rivals such as John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson (who would later defeat Adams in the Election of 1828) would both arrive on opposite sides of the aisle to listen to the powerful words of New York Presbyterian Reverend Daniel Baker.
Daniel Baker had become an ordained Presbyterian minister in 1818, after graduation from Presbyterian Princeton College in New Jersey. At the time of his graduation ceremony, former Jefferson Vice President Aaron Burr was a Trustee of Princeton and may have been in attendance. After Princeton, Baker embarked on the first of many missionary works. He left in 1820 to take part in a “missionary tour in the western part of Virginia,” passing by the Monticello of a retired Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson’s primary task in the 1820s was the creation of his beloved University of Virginia.
Baker’s work in Virginia later led to his appointment at New York Presbyterian in the early 1820s, where his sermons were heard weekly by Washington’s most powerful. President John Quincy Adams was specifically called by Baker as “one of the best friends I ever had.” According to Baker, Adams “never failed to be in his pew on Sabbath afternoon, whatever might be the weather, and was a most attentive hearer.” It’s likely Baker and Adams chatted at New York Presbyterian about the passing of the President’s father and his long-time political rival Jefferson soon after July 4th, 1826.
That same year however, Baker began to tire of preaching to the powerful in Washington. He left D.C. to embark on another missionary trip, making his way from north to south. By 1840, he arrived in the republic of Texas, with the expressed desire to found the first Presbyterian college in his adopted republic. That effort bore fruit, as Baker and his Presbyterian colleagues met in 1845 to officially propose the establishment of that college.
Four years later, with Baker in attendance, little Austin College was born.
As always, a tip of the cap to “Austin College: A Sesquicentennial History,” by Dr. Light Cummins.
