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Letter from John Hancock, Harvard College,
to Mrs. Mary Hancock [Perkins?]
Manuscript/ink on paper, May 1, 1754
In May 1754, just a few months before his Harvard graduation, 17-year-old John Hancock (1737–1793) wrote a playful letter to his older sister Mary, asking her to write to him more often. John ended the letter with a postscript:
I give you much Joy, but shall have more reason so to do after receiving a Letter from you.
There are very few extant documents written by Hancock as a young man, and this letter offers one of the earliest examples of the signature that would later appear so famously on the Declaration of Independence.