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her ancestors, the C.C. Hart family. She is known throughout the county as editor of Heritage Editions of the Sea Coast Echo.
BY JOE PILET
At an early age our children are taught that Hancock County was named in honor of the great patriot, John Hancock, bold first signer of ’ the Declaration of Independence and a strong leader in the establishment of “a new nation, conceived in Liberty.”
The name Hancock is a familiar household word in Bay St. Louis, Waveland, Kiln and other communities within Hancock County and spilling over into the adjoining counties of Harrison and Pearl River. We have a group of Hancock Banks and travel agencies, streets, courts and business establishments all named in memory of John Hancock.
Ask any school child who John Hancock was and you are likely to get that stereotyped reply: “He was the man who lived a long time ago and signed the Declaration of Independence in great big letters.”
And there begins and ends the average student’s knowledge of the life and works of this man! This is not shocking. No historian ever wrote a biography of John Hancock. He had no children. Heirs and relatives left little information.
century was The Minister of Lexington. A man'of power whose words carried weight.
His son, also named John Hancock, was a minister. A minister with a vision shared by his wife.
They would save money for the education of their son, name him John Hancock, send him to Harvard and he would become a minister...maybe in Boston.
And so our patriot John Hancock had his life cut out for him. Only the plans did not materialize for the good minister died while his son was very young and the widowed mother could not aford the cost of higher education.
However, this youth was a favorite of his uncle Thomas Hancock, reputed to be “the richest merchant in Boston.”
Uncle Thomas legally adopted young John Hancock, dressed him in finery and frills and gave him a more than generous amount of spending money. And spend it he did!
Uncle and foster father, Thomas Hancock, saw his protege through Harvard where his scholastic record wasn’t exceptional. But his social life was filled with dances, entertainments and conviviality.
To groom him for the position he would some day hold, the Harvard