The Jefferson – Adams Mediator Benjamin Rush
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Another Founding Father, eager to reunite the two statesmen, hatched a plan to bring them back together. Benjamin Rush, a civic leader and fellow Declaration signer, wrote to both men, saying the other wanted to rekindle their friendship. (And thus a timeless comedy trope was born).
Rush sealed the deal by telling them he had a dream in which they revitalized their friendship through letter-writing before they later “sunk into the grave nearly at the same time, full of years and rich in the gratitude and praises of their country.”
He kind of nailed it.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson are perhaps America’s most famous pair of feuding friends. Their storied relationship began in 1775 and ended abruptly on July 4, 1826, when the two ex-presidents died within hours of each other – on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
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