John Adams died in Quincy, Massachusetts, on July 4, 1826, the Declaration’s 50th anniversary.
Adams was a leading Revolutionary politician, diplomat, vice president, and the second president of the United States. He strongly supported independence and served on the Committee of Five that helped review the Declaration, although he did not write its main draft.
Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration’s principal author and Adams’s longtime political rival and friend, died on the same day at Monticello, Virginia. Jefferson died several hours before Adams, who reportedly said, “Thomas Jefferson survives,” unaware of his friend’s death.
The coincidence became one of the most memorable episodes in early U.S. history. Both men had helped shape the independence movement, served as presidents, and later renewed their friendship through a lengthy correspondence. July 4, 1826, was the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration’s adoption, not the anniversary of the Constitution or the Revolutionary War’s end.