Besides the astronomical observations, Ames published short articles, extracts from the English poets, such as Milton and Pope, and used the same pithy and witty maxims as made the reputation of Franklin, such as: "All men are created equal, but differ greatly in the sequel." He had taste for good literature and considerable wit, though some of it seems a trifle forced today, and the quality rather improved when the almanac was continued by his somewhat abler son, who nevertheless was not the genial gentleman his father was, genuinely liking only farmers and despising printers. Ames, however, undoubtedly did much to bring, if only in brief allusions and extracts, some knowledge of the better English authors to innumerable New England farmhouses. Ames gave rise to an entire industry, and he had many imitators. Among those who followed in his footsteps was Dudley Leavitt of Meredith, New Hampshire, a teacher, newspaper publisher and polymath who published his first Leavitt's Farmers Almanack in 1797. In 1775, during the Siege of Boston, Jabez Fitch, a young officer in the Colonial Army, visited Ames' tomb in the Old Village Cemetery in Dedham. Finding the tomb open, he entered, opened the casket, and examined the decomposing body.