The statesman and attorney John Adams (1735-1826) was born in Braintree, Massachusetts (now Quincy), and graduated from Harvard College in 1755. In 1758, he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar. He was a delegate to the first and second Continental Congresses (1774-1778) and to the convention that framed the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780. Along with Benjamin Franklin and John Jay, Adams was a negotiator of the 1783 peace treaty with Great Britain, and the U.S.'s minister to Great Britain from 1785 to 1788. In 1789, Adams became the first vice-president of the United States and, in 1797, the second president.