John Adams (September 18, 1772 – April 24, 1863) was an American educator noted for organizing several hundred Sunday schools. He was the 4th Principal of Phillips Academy. His life was celebrated by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. in his poem, "The School Boy", which was read at the centennial celebration of Phillips Academy in 1878, thus recalls him:
Uneasy lie the heads of all that rule — His most of all whose kingdom is a school.
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Early life
John Adams was born in 1772 at Canterbury, Connecticut, to Captain John Adams, a farmer of Canterbury and an officer in the American Revolutionary War and Mary Parker, the daughter of Dea. Joshua Parker and Jemima Davenport. He graduated from Yale University in 1795.
Career
From 1800 to 1803, Adams taught at the Plainfield, New Jersey Academy when he took the post as principal of Bacon Academy in Colchester, Connecticut. He remained in that position until 1810, when he started at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He remained there until 1833. He also served as the principal of Monroe Academy in Elbridge, New York.