He died at the age of fifty, on the fourth of July 1808, at five o'clock in the morning, leaving to his family a comfortable property. The news of his death was carried at once to Boston, and Andrew Ritchie, the city orator for that day, alluded to it in this extempore burst: "But, alas! the immortal Ames, who, like Ithuriel, was commissioned to discover the insidious foe, has, like Ithuriel, accomplished his embassy, and on this morning of our independence has ascended to Heaven. Spirit of Demosthenes, couldst thou have been a silent and invisible auditor, how wouldst thou have been delighted to hear from his lips, those strains of eloquence which once from thine, enchanted the assemblies of Greece!" Ames' friends in Boston requested his body for the celebration of funeral rites. It was attended by a large procession from the house of Christopher Gore to King's Chapel, where an oration was pronounced by Samuel Dexter. It was afterwards deposited in the family tomb at Dedham, whence it was removed a few years since, and buried by the side of his wife and children. A plain white monument marks the spot, in the old Dedham grave-yard, behind the Episcopal church, with the simple inscription "FISHER AMES." =John Quincy Adams.= [Illustration: Quincy Adams fac-simile of letter] [Illustration: Birth-place of John Quincy Adams] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. John Quincy Adams was fortunate in the home of his birth and childhood. It was a New England farm, descended from ancestors who were never so poor as to be dependent upon others, nor so rich as to be exempted from dependence upon themselves. It was situated in the town of Quincy, then the first parish of the town of Braintree, and the oldest permanent settlement of Massachusetts proper.[17] The first parish became a town by its present name, twenty-five years after the birth of Mr. Adams, viz. in 1792. It was named in honor of John Quincy, Mr. Adams's maternal great-grandfather, an eminent man. His death, and the transmission of his name to his great-grandson, are thus commemorated by the latter: "He was dying when I was baptized, and his daughter, my grandmother, present at my birth, requested that I should receive his name. The fact, recorded by my father at the time, has connected with that portion of my name a charm of mingled sensibility and devotion. It was filial tenderness that gave the name. It was the name of one passing from earth to immortality. It has been to me a perpetual admonition to do nothing unworthy of it."