Browsing: Diary of John Adams, Volume 1

1. These pieces appeared from time to time in both the Boston Evening Post and the Boston Gazette, Nov. 1765–Jan. 1766. They have decidedly lost their savor, if they ever had any. James Lovell (1737–1814), Harvard 1756, a teacher in the South Grammar School in Boston, achieved local celebrity by delivering the earliest of the anniversary orations on the “Boston Massacre,” 1771. A zealous patriot, he was elected to the Continental Congress late in 1776, where he served for five years on (and for long periods as) the Committee for Foreign Affairs, distinguishing himself equally, according to Edmund C. Burnett, by his diligence and his love of intrigue and mystification. In both his official capacity and as a family friend, Lovell corresponded voluminously with JA and AA, indiscriminately mixing international and personal affairs and views in his always lively letters. Burnett’s short account of Lovell in DAB is masterly, but a more comprehensive biography, drawing on his widely dispersed papers, is badly needed.