Samuel Adams came from a prominent family

The first position on the list of interesting facts about Samuel Adams is that he came from a prominent family. Adams was born to a wealthy Puritan family on September 27, 1722, in Boston. His father, Samuel Adams Sr., was a well-known local businessman, a church deacon, and a political activist. His mother, Mary Adams, was a local businessman's daughter.

John Adams, who would go on to become the second president of the United States, and Samuel Adams were second cousins, and the Adams family was a very politically engaged one in Boston. Samuel was the tenth kid out of a total of twelve, making the family quite large. Only two siblings, sadly, made it past childhood.

Following his time at Boston Latin School, Adams attended Harvard College. The teachings of John Locke, an Enlightenment philosopher who believed that all individuals were born with certain rights that could not be taken away and that governments exist by the consent of the people, were presented to Adams there. Adams was profoundly affected by the concept and used it as the basis for his 1743 Harvard master's thesis on the legitimacy of defying British rule.