The sum total of the average collegiate’s knowledge of founding father Samuel Adams may be that his visage appears on one of their favorite beers. More’s the pity.

For one thing, he may have been the first of the founders to call for a day of Thanksgiving, after the Battle of Saratoga. Also, he retired as governor of Massachusetts to serve his church: He was a Congregationalist Christian.

Ira Stoll, author of Samuel Adams: A Life, regaled the audience at the Family Research Council with tales of his subject on February 29, 2012. “He was so poor that when he went to Congress, his constituents got a collection together to buy him a new suit,” Stoll said.

Stoll is also the founder and editor of The Future Of Capitalism web site. “Alas, he was not a free market purist,” Stoll said of Adams. “He called for price controls in Boston.”

The price of “halibut with entrails,” for example, was frozen at 9 cents.

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

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