Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-08-04
ATTRACTIONS OF QUINCY
Where Two Presidents of the United
States Lived.
ONCE RECEIVED LAFAYETTE
Mansions Built Before the Revolu-
tionary War Still Remain, the
Object Of Veneration.
By WILLIAM z. CURTIS
Special Correspondence OF The Star and the
Chicago Record Herald.

Chicago Record Herald.
QUINCY, Mass, July 81, 1911.
Quincy is sacred, because 1t was the
birthplace and the home Of John Adams
John Quincy Adams. John Hancock, Dor
othy Quincy Hancock. Josiah Quincy and
other patriots and statesmen. The name
of the town is pronounced as if it were
spelled 'Quinzey,' and the natives can
always detect a stranger by the way he
handles the word.
There are many places of interest In
Quincy-the First Church, of which I
wrote you yesterday, with its tombs of
two Presidents and their wives; the old
cemetery, in which many famous men are
buried; the birthplaces and the homes of
John Adams and John Quincy Adams !;
the Adams Academy, which occupies the
site of the birthplace of John Hancock;
the Quincy homestead, built in 1886; the
Josiah Quincy mansion. the Adams man
sion. built in 1871, now the home of
Brooks Adams; the cairn erected by the
Daughters of the Revolution on the spot
where Abigail Adams and her son John
Quincy the future President. watched the
smoke from the battle of Bunker Hill,
and various other historic spots.
The house in which John Adams was
born Is plain two-story frame farm
windows without blinds. 1t stands close
to the roadside, behind a low wall of
boulders with garden In the background.
The farm was sold off in town lots long
ago, and is quite thickly built over. The
outside of the house is painted dull
red, said to be the same color that it was
when the second President of the United
States was born there. 1t still belongs to
the Adams family, but has been intrusted
to the care of the Adams Chapter of the
Daughters Of the Revolution, and has
been filled with furniture and utensils of
the period when 1t was built, which are
carefully labeled and arranged with
taste. The custodian is oblging and adds
to the interest of the objects by her in
telligent explanations.
In the same yard, forty or fifty feet
distant, hugging the roadside. is almost
a duplicate Of the same plain and homely
design and dimensions painted the same
color. which was built for John Adams
by his father. Joseph Adams. In which
the former was married in 1874. That
also belongs to that family and Is in
trusted to the care of the Quincy Histori-
cal Society, which holds its meetings and
keeps its records there.
There is a we'll with long sweep a
few old-fashioned shrubs. a market gar
den and the usual features of the farm
house Of that period The trees are ven
cradle and cast q deep and faf-reaching
shadow over the street. During the sum-
mer months a stream Of pilgrims is all
ways going to this sacred spot, and the
houses are kept open all day. In winter
the attendance is less, which Is natural
The little fee Of % cents pays the expense
of keeping up the place.
Arrival of Henry Adams in 1882.
Henry Adams. Of good old English stock
came to Massachusetts, Bay colony In
1852 with the party of that renowned
minister. Rev. Thomas Cooper. who left
Braintree Essex county. England, and
sat down. at Mount Wollaston, as the
shore of Massachusetts bay. between Bos-
ton and Weymouth, was then called
Henry Adams brought with him his wife
eight sons and one daughter, and al
Braintree took up a farm. OF his eight
sons, four took up land in the neighbor-
hood as they came to mans estate"
four of them were officers of militia, one
was a deacon in the church, four settled
in Concord and vicinity. Joseph. the sew
enth son. assisted his father on the farm
and married Abigail Baxter. daughter OF
a neighbor. by whom he had twelve chill
dren. Henry Adams, the eldest son OF
Joseph, married Elizabeth Paine, daugh-
ter OF Moses Paine, who became the sec
ond husband Of Judith Quincy, widow OF
Edmund Quincy. Thus, at the beginnings
of the colony, the Adamses and the
Quincys became connected by marriage
ties. as they were in almost every genera
Henry Adams, ''the immigrant" died
in 1916. Joseph succeeded to the estate
and prospered. He was the first brewer
in the town. and his beer had an excel
lent reputation. He served as selectman
for twenty years, which shows that his
character was as good as his beer. Al
of his twelve children did we'll in life and
brought credit to the family. We are
most interested. however. In his second
son, who married Hannah Bass. daugh-
ter of John Bass of Braintree and Ruth
Alden Bass, a daughter of John and Pris-
ella Alden. through whom the Adamses
inherited another strain of fine blood.
Joseph Adams was beloved, esteemed
and repered by all who knew him. Nc
formal and feckless deacon he, but a
manly and militant one, made lieutenan,
in the militia and serving the town as
selectman for many years, almost all the
business of the town being managed by
him.
Joseph and Hannah Adams had seven
children. and they prospered to a suffi-
cient extent to enable them to send their
first born, John Adams to Harvard Col
lege, where he distinguished himself as a
student and became a lawyer. When he
was admitted to the bar John Adams
married Abigail Smith, the 25th of Octo
Der, 1764 She was a daughter of Rev
William Smith, the minister at Wey.
mouth, and Elizabeth Quincy, and there
the two families are united again.
A Famous Pulpit Wit.
Parson Smith was a famous wit and
1,'& &-A~ It'd, 1t