Theology · Philosophy
Jonathan Edwards
1703 – 1758
⚑ Northampton & Stockbridge, Massachusetts
The towering mind of the Great Awakening, Edwards preached the revival that swept the
Connecticut River Valley and wrote philosophical works—A Faithful Narrative
and Freedom of the Will—that made him colonial America's most original thinker.
He later served as a missionary to the Mohican and Mohawk before becoming president of Princeton.
Legacy
America's first world-class theologian and a founder of the evangelical tradition.
Printing · Science
Benjamin Franklin
1706 – 1790
⚑ Born in Boston, Massachusetts
Boston-born and apprenticed in his brother's printshop—where he wrote as "Silence
Dogood"—Franklin embodied the self-made New England spirit before making his fame in
Philadelphia. In this era he electrified the world with his kite experiment (1752) and built
the intercolonial networks that would knit the colonies together.
Legacy
Printer, scientist, and diplomat whose ideas of civic self-improvement began on Boston's docks.
Politics · Liberty
Samuel Adams
1722 – 1803
⚑ Boston, Massachusetts
The master organizer of colonial resistance, Adams helped found the Sons of Liberty, drove
the response to the Stamp Act and the Townshend duties, and orchestrated the Committees of
Correspondence that linked the towns. His hand lay behind the 1773 Boston Tea Party.
Legacy
The pioneering grassroots political strategist of the American Revolution.
Law · Political Thought
James Otis Jr.
1725 – 1783
⚑ Barnstable & Boston, Massachusetts
In his 1761 argument against the writs of assistance, the lawyer Otis gave the colonies a
rallying cry—popularly distilled as "taxation without representation is tyranny."
John Adams called the speech the moment "the child Independence was born."
Legacy
Articulated the constitutional case for colonial rights a decade before Lexington.
Poetry · Letters
Phillis Wheatley
c. 1753 – 1784
⚑ Boston, Massachusetts
Enslaved as a child and brought to Boston, Wheatley learned Latin and Greek and, in 1773,
became the first African American and one of the first American women to publish a book of
poetry. Her Poems on Various Subjects won transatlantic acclaim and challenged the
era's assumptions about race and intellect.
Legacy
Founder of the African American literary tradition.
Craft · Revolution
Paul Revere
1734 – 1818
⚑ Boston, Massachusetts
A master silversmith and engraver, Revere used his craft in the patriot cause—his
engraving of the 1770 Boston Massacre became powerful propaganda. As an express rider for
the Sons of Liberty, his midnight ride of April 1775 warned that the British were marching.
Legacy
Artisan-patriot who fused skilled craft with revolutionary communication.
History · Drama
Mercy Otis Warren
1728 – 1814
⚑ Barnstable & Plymouth, Massachusetts
Sister of James Otis, Warren wielded a pen where women were barred from the podium. Her
satirical plays skewered the royal governor, and she corresponded with the leading patriots,
later writing one of the first histories of the Revolution by an eyewitness.
Legacy
A pioneering woman of American political letters and historiography.
Education · Mission
Eleazar Wheelock
1711 – 1779
⚑ Connecticut & Hanover, New Hampshire
A revival preacher who turned educator, Wheelock founded a school for Native American and
colonial youth that he relocated to the New Hampshire frontier and chartered in 1769 as
Dartmouth College—planting higher learning in the region's northern woods.
Legacy
Founder of Dartmouth College and a frontier pioneer of education.
Scholarship · Clergy
Ezra Stiles
1727 – 1795
⚑ Newport, Rhode Island & New Haven, Connecticut
One of the most learned men in the colonies, Stiles ministered in Newport—then a hub of
religious tolerance—where he studied Hebrew, science, and the wider world, corresponding
across faiths and continents. He went on to lead Yale College through the Revolution.
Legacy
A model of Enlightenment scholarship and religious curiosity in New England.
Pulpit · Liberty
Jonathan Mayhew
1720 – 1766
⚑ Boston, Massachusetts
From Boston's West Church, the outspoken Mayhew preached that resistance to tyrannical rulers
could be a Christian duty. He is often credited with coining the phrase "no taxation without
representation," shaping the moral vocabulary of the coming rebellion.
Legacy
Gave the resistance its religious and rhetorical foundation.
Commerce · Statecraft
John Hancock
1737 – 1793
⚑ Boston, Massachusetts
One of the wealthiest merchants in New England, Hancock turned his fortune and standing to the
patriot cause, financing resistance and becoming a symbol of colonial defiance after the
seizure of his sloop Liberty. He would later be first to sign the Declaration.
Legacy
The merchant prince who bankrolled and personified the revolution.
Governance · Frontier
Jonathan Trumbull
1710 – 1785
⚑ Lebanon, Connecticut
A merchant and statesman, Trumbull rose to be governor of Connecticut—the only colonial
governor to side wholeheartedly with the patriots. Through the pre-war years he built the
administrative and supply networks that made Connecticut the "Provision State."
Legacy
The steady civic hand who carried a colony from loyalty to independence.