An amazing coincidence. Two former U.S. presidents died on the same day–amazing in itself but even more so given that the one succeeded the other in office. The second president, John Adams, and the third, Thomas Jefferson, were those men. But to make the event almost incredible is the fact that the day of their death was July 4, 1826–the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. While Jefferson had been the principal draftsman of this, America’s most treasured document, Adams was also involved in its final draft.

The following account of their deaths appeared in the July 15, 1826 issue of Niles’ Weekly Register* :

We had hardly announced the decease of the patriot who drafted the Declaration of Independence when news arrived of the death of his venerable compatriot, who, more than any other man, perhaps, urged the adoption of that famous measure, and supported it through every change of time and circumstance himself unchanged.

THOMAS JEFFERSON departed this life between twelve and one o’clock, on the fiftieth anniversary of the declaration of independence, and nearly, if not precisely, at the same hour of the day, when it was first reading before congress; and JOHN ADAMS, who was also of the committee who reported that declaration, left us between five and six o’clock of the same jubilee-anniversary, at nearly, if not precisely, the very hour when the contents of that memorable paper were proclaimed to the people...

But "there were giants in those days." And none were more conspicuous for ardent devotion and unlimited zeal, fixed resolution and steady perseverance, than (Adams and Jefferson)...

Mr. Adams...after two days of suffering by an accumulation of phlegm in the throat, which he had not strength to throw off, he died...and consequently was aged nearly ninety-one years, being older than Mr. Jefferson by about eight years. A short time before his spirit winged its way to those of "the just made perfect," he was roused by the firing of cannon, and, enquiring the cause of it, was told that it was the 4th of July; when he said, "it is a grand and glorious day," and he never spoke more!

And Mr. Jefferson, on asking the day of the month, and being told that it was the third of July, expressed a desire that he might live until the next day!

The venerable fathers in the republic were gratified, and went to sleep on the anniversary of the great and glorious event that joyous millions were then in the act of celebrating and solemnizing...

* Niles Weekly Register was a newspaper published in Baltimore from 1811 to 1836 by Hezekiah Niles, and subsequently by his son, William Ogden Niles until 1839. Afterwards it was continued until 1849 by two other individuals who bought it from Hezekiah’s estate (he died in 1839). Many issues of the paper were later bound in hardback covers, two of which–those from September 1815-March 1816 and March-September 1826–I found some years ago in a musty basement bookstore in downtown Baltimore. The pages have turned a light brown with age and the print is small, but reading them is not difficult.

Originally, Adams, a Federalist, and Jefferson, a Republican, were political opponents, but later found that they had many common interests and corresponded from time to time. (The Federalists were mostly found in the New England states; they dissolved as a national party shortly after the War of 1812. The Republicans later changed their name to Democratic Republicans and, still later, the Democrats, the ancestors of today’s Democratic party.)

The Life and Selected Writings of Jefferson, by Adrienne Koch and William Peden (The Modern Library, New York, 1944) contains twenty letters from Jefferson to Adams, dating from 1787 to 1825. There was a hiatus of such letters between one on December 28, 1796 and the next on January 21, 1812, the reason of which is obvious: Jefferson came in second to Adams in the 1796 presidential election, and thus became his (Adams’s) Vice President (although they not from the same party); Jefferson defeated Adams, who was running for a second term in office, in the presidential election of 1800 as result of a complicated system of vote counting which ended up with the U.S. House of Representatives deciding the issue. Jefferson then served two terms in office through 1808.

Jefferson’s last letter to Adams before the hiatus (the December 28, 1796 one, written from his home at Monticello, between the November 1796 election and Adams’s March 1797 inauguration) started out:

The public and papers have been much occupied lately in placing us in a point of opposition to each other. I trust with confidence that less of it has been felt by ourselves personally.

The next letter to Adams, dated January 21, 1812 from Monticello, some three years after the completion of his (Jefferson’s) second term as President, included the following comment:

A letter from you calls up recollections very dear to my mind. It carries me back to the times when, beset with difficulties and dangers, we were fellow laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is most valuable to man, his right of self-government. Laboring always at the same oar, with some wave ever ahead, threatening to overwhelm us, and yet passing under our bark, we knew not how we rode through the storm with heart and hand, and made a happy port.

Jefferson’s last letter to Adams was on January 8, 1825 from Monticello. In it he refers to a book that he has been reading, calling it "the most extraordinary of all books." It was written by one Flourend (no first name is given nor is he otherwise identified) and raised in Jefferson’s mind what becomes of the soul after death:

Whether... the soul remains in the body, deprived of its essence of thought? or whether it leaves it, as in death, and where it goes?

Realizing that the end of life could not be far away from either of them, he ended the letter by saying:

But all this, you and I shall know better when we meet again in another place...In the meantime...that the anodyne of philosophy may preserve you from all suffering, is my sincere and affectionate prayer.

Jefferson’s last letter, dated June 24, 1826 from Monticello–just ten days before his death–was to a Mr. Roger C. Weightman, who had written to Jefferson to invite him to Washington to participate in a celebration of the 50th anniversary of America’s Independence Day. In it Jefferson says:

I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations personally with the small band, the remnants of that host of worthies, who joined us...in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between submission or the sword...

But he expresses his regret that "ill health forbids me the gratification of an acceptance."

It is, of course, possible that Jefferson wrote other letters to Adams in addition to those in The Life and Selected Writings of Jefferson. That even seems likely inasmuch as he was such an inveterate letter writer.

I wonder how these letters were obtained for publication. Since there was no photocopying or carbon paper in his time, did he make a copy of each letter for his retention? Or were the letters retrieved from Adams’s descendants (and descendants of the many other people to whom he wrote letters which are included in the collection)? The preface to The Life and Selected Writings of Jefferson states that its source was mostly The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, a set of 20 volumes published in 1905 by The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association; however, this still leaves unanswered the question as to how they were obtained for publication in the latter collection.