Quincy Massachusetts.

John Adams Birthplace, Quincy, Massachusetts (3)

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The birthplace of President John Adams at 133 Franklin Street in Quincy, on October 15, 1929. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library; photographed by Leon Abdalian.

The scene in 2019:

As with the photo in the previous post, the first one here was taken in October 1929 by Leon Abdalian, an amateur photographer whose works included a number of images of historic landmarks around the Boston area. He immigrated to the United States from Armenia as a child in 1896, and for many years he worked as a conductor for the Boston Elevated Railway, while also becoming an accomplished photographer. Assuming the date is correct, he took this photograph five days after the one in the previous post, and it features a similar angle of the John Adams birthplace, except this one is shown directly facing the front of the house, and without any costumed interpreters standing out front. Incidentally, this photo was taken exactly two weeks before “Black Tuesday,” the date of the stock market crash that would lead to the Great Depression.

By the time the first photo was taken, the house was already more than 200 years old. It was built in 1722, and John Adams was born here in 1735. It remained in his family until 1940, when it was sold to the city of Quincy, along with the neighboring John Quincy Adams birthplace. Both houses are now owned by the National Park Service, and they comprise part of the Adams National Historical Park, which also includes the Peacefield mansion elsewhere in Quincy. Not much has changed here with this house except for the exterior color. It was painted in the first photo, but now has unpainted clapboards, which likely better reflects the historic appearance of the house.

John Adams Birthplace, Quincy, Massachusetts (2)

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The birthplace of President John Adams at 133 Franklin Street in Quincy, on October 10, 1929. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library; photographed by Leon Abdalian.

The scene in 2019:

As explained in more detail in an earlier post, this house was the birthplace of John Adams, the second president of the United States. The house itself was built in 1722 as the home of the president’s father, Deacon John Adams. In 1734, he married Susanna Boylston, and a year later their son John Adams was born in the east bedroom on the second floor, in the corner of the house closest to the foreground. They would have two more children, Peter and Elihu, who were born over the course of the next few years.

Peter inherited this house after their father’s death in 1761, but the younger John Adams would apparently live here until 1764, when he married Abigail Smith and moved into the house next door, where their son and future president John Quincy Adams would be born in 1767. John later purchased his birthplace from his brother in 1774 and used it as a rental property, and then in 1803 sold both houses to John Quincy Adams. The Adams family would maintain ownership of both houses into the early 20th century, although they were rented to other tenants for most of this time.

By the time the first photo was taken, the birthplace was still owned by the Adams family, but was being operated as a museum by the Adams Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The photo was taken by Leon Abdalian, a photographer who extensively documented historic buildings in and around the Boston area during the early 20th century. His caption does not provide any additional information beyond the location and date, but it seems likely that the three costumed women in the foreground were likely DAR members who worked as guides at the house museum.

Both this house and the adjacent John Quincy Adams birthplace were eventually sold to the city of Quincy in 1940. Then, in 1978 they were transferred to the National Park Service, and they became part of the Adams National Historical Park, which also includes the Peacefield mansion where John Adams lived later in his life. Throughout this time, the birthplace has been well maintained, and today the only significant difference is the lack of paint on the exterior of the house, which was likely done in order to be more historically accurate. Together, these two houses are the only surviving birthplaces of the first eight presidents, and they are also the geographically closest of any two presidential birthplaces, as they stand just 75 feet from each other.

Thomas Crane Public Library, Quincy, Mass

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The Thomas Crane Public Library on Washington Street in Quincy, around 1900-1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The library in 2019:

The Thomas Crane Public Library was established in 1880 by Albert Crane as a memorial to his late father, Thomas Crane. Born in 1803, Thomas grew up in Quincy and began working here as a stonecutter in the granite quarries. He later moved to New York, where he had a successful business career selling Quincy granite in the rapidly-growing city. However, he did not forget Quincy, often spending his summers here, and after his death in 1875 his son decided that a public library would be an appropriate way of honoring his memory.

The building was designed by Henry H. Richardson, one of the nation’s preeminent architects of the 19th century. Richardson pioneered a style known as Richardsonian Romanesque, which typically featured rounded arches, tall narrow windows, and rough exterior walls with contrasting light and dark stone. The vast majority of Richardson’s works were public buildings, including a number of churches and railroad stations, and he also designed several libraries. Despite its relatively small size, this library is generally regarded as one of his finest works, with architectural historian and Richardson biographer Henry-Russell Hitchcock declaring it to be “without question the best library Richardson ever built.”

The library was completed in 1882, with the formal dedication on May 30. Albert Crane and other members of his family attended the event, and he ceremonially handed over the keys of the building to Charles Francis Adams Jr., the grandson and great grandson of Quincy’s two famous presidents. Adams then gave the keynote address, in which he recounted the life of Thomas Crane, with a particular emphasis on his humble origins and his strong personal character and morals.

The building’s architecture was well received, and the Boston Journal published a glowing review of its design as part of its coverage of the dedication ceremony:

It is built in what may be termed free Romanesque style of architecture, and is in the form of a parallelogram, 84 by 41 feet in dimensions. The outer material is of Easton pink-tinted granite trimmed with Longmeadow brown stone. The interior above the basement is occupied by one lofty story and a low studded attic. The southern portion is devoted to a reading room. There are in the large hall 16 alcoves with a capacity of 40,000 volumes, and a small room is specially devoted to books and manuscripts pertaining to local history. The effect of the interior is pleasing. There are seven large windows beautifully decorated in stained glass by La Farge. In the east window of the reading room are the suggestive words; “And his leaves shall not wither.” The principal light is a remarkable piece of work, the design of which is by La Farge, and represents in vivid hues an old philosopher holding a roll in his hand. The finish of the interior is of Southern pine, beautifully decorated. The cost of the structure was $40,000, and the expense of grading and embellishing the grounds will probably reach $10,000 or $15,000 additional.

Despite the large capacity of the original library building, though, it was soon in need of expansion. The first addition came in 1908, with a wing in the rear of the library. Richardson had died more than 20 years earlier, but one of his former employees, William Martin Aiken, designed the addition, which matched the appearance of the original building. A second, more substantial expansion came in 1939, with the construction of a new building immediately to the southeast, connected to the older building by an L-enclosed walkway that is partially visible on the far right side of the present-day scene. As with Aiken’s wing, the architecture of this addition copied Richardson’s style. Then, the last expansion occurred in 2001, with a substantial addition to the east of the 1939 wing that doubled the size of the library.

Today, despite these many additions, the original 1882 Richardson portion of the library has remained essentially unchanged from this view. Its surroundings have changed, and the tower of the 1927 Bethany Congregational Church now looms above the building in the distance, but the old library has survived as an important work by one of the greatest architects in American history. Because of its architectural significance, the library was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, and 15 years later it was designated as a National Historic Landmark, the highest level of federal recognition for a historic property.

United First Parish Church, Quincy (2)

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The United First Parish Church on Hancock Street in Quincy, around 1865-1885. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.

The church in 2019:

Quincy’s United First Parish Church was previously featured in one of the first blog posts on this site, which shows the building from the southwest corner. These two photos here show a similar view of the church, but from the northeast side, from directly in front of Quincy City Hall.

The church was completed in 1828, and it is constructed of locally-quarried Quincy granite, most of which was taken from quarries owned by the Adams family. It features a Greek Revival-style design that was common for New England churches of the era, including columns and a portico at the main entrance, and a multi-stage steeple above it. The design was the work of prominent Boston architect Alexander Parris, who is perhaps best remembered for Quincy Market, which had been completed two years before the church and shares some similar design elements.

At the time of its completion, the most notable parishioner of this church was President John Quincy Adams, whose family had help to finance its construction. His father, President John Adams, had also been a member of the same congregation, although he died in 1826, a year before construction began on this building. Both John and Abigail Adams were subsequently interred here in 1828, in a crypt beneath the church. Then, in 1852, John Quincy Adams and his wife Louisa were also interred in the crypt, giving the church the unusual distinction of being the final resting place of two United States presidents.

The church was formally dedicated on November 12, 1828, less than two weeks after John Quincy Adams lost his re-election bid to Andrew Jackson. Contemporary newspaper accounts observed that the crowd at the dedication ceremony was smaller than expected due to the “uncommon tempestuousness” of the weather, but the Boston Courier nonetheless noted that:

The house was well filled, and the exercises were such as might be expected from the gentlemen who took part in them. The choir were well versed in their pieces, and performed with gratifying precision.

A number of local clergymen participated in the ceremony, and Quincy’s own pastor, the Reverend Peter Whitney, gave the sermon on Genesis 28:17, “This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Among the hymns was one written by noted Boston poet and clergyman John Pierpont, who is probably best remembered today as the grandfather and namesake of Gilded Age financier John Pierpont Morgan. Reverend Pierpont’s hymn included many references to the late John Adams, particularly the final two stanzas, which read:

Here the water of salvation
Long hath gushed a liberal wave;
Here, a Father of our nation
Drank, and felt the strength, it gave.
Here he sleeps, his bed how lowly!
But his aim and trust were high;
And his memory, that is holy;
And his name, it cannot die.

While beneath this Temple’s portal
Rest the relics of the just,
While the light of hope immortal
Shines above his sacred dust,
While the well of life its waters
To the weary here shall give,
Father, may thy Sons and Daughters
Kneeling round it drink and live!

The first photo shows the church as it appeared sometime during the second half of the 19th century, probably around the late 1860s or 1870s. Since then, there have been some changes to this scene. The building in the distant right of the first photo was demolished at some point in the late 19th or early 20th centuries, and in 1924 the old Quincy Patriot Ledger building was constructed on the site. More recently, in the 2010s this section of Hancock Street in front of the church was closed to traffic, and it was reconstructed as a pedestrian-only plaza, as shown in the present-day scene.

Overall, though, remarkably little has changed with the church in the intervening 140 to 150 years, aside from an 1889 addition to the rear of the building, which is not visible in this view. It is still an active Unitarian Universalist congregation, and the building remains well-preserved on both the interior and exterior. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1970, and since 1976 the church has been opened to the public for guided tours, including visits to the Adams family crypt.

Quincy City Hall, Quincy, Mass

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The Quincy City Hall on Hancock Street in Quincy, around 1890-1910. Image courtesy of the Thomas Crane Public Library.

The building in 2019:

The city of Quincy is probably best known and the birthplace and home of both John Adams and John Quincy Adams. They were born 32 years and 75 feet apart from each other, in adjoining houses less than a mile south of here. As such, Quincy is one of only two cities in the country—along with New York City—to have been the birthplace of two presidents. However, at the time Quincy was neither a city, nor was it even its own municipality. Throughout the colonial era, present-day Quincy was the northern part of the town of Braintree, before being split off as a separate town in 1792. From there, it would be nearly a century before Quincy was incorporated as a city in 1888.

During this time, Quincy saw significant growth. From a population of just over a thousand in 1800, it had grown to nearly 3,500 by 1840, and in 1844 the town began construction on a new town hall, which was completed later in the year. It was designed by prominent architect Solomon Willard, who is best-known for the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston. Like the Bunker Hill Monument, it was constructed out of locally-quarried Quincy granite, and it was built only a year after the monument’s dedication in 1843.

Overall, the exterior of the town hall is a good example of Greek Revival architecture, which was common for public buildings of this era. The front facade, shown here in these two photos, features a triangular pediment above four Ionic pilasters. The main entrance is located between the two central pilasters, with the inscription “Town Hall Erected A.D. 1844” inscribed above it. Originally, the ground floor included two storefronts, although these were altered later in the 19th century.

Quincy became a city in 1888, and the old town hall building here became city hall instead. The changes to the front of the building came afterward, and included the addition of a “City Hall” sign above the entrance. The first photo was also taken sometime after these changes occurred, probably around the turn of the 20th century. In this scene, four men stand outside the entrance, with a uniformed police officer standing to the left at the corner of the building. Aside from the modifications to the building, another sign of progress was the trolley line running in front of the building, with the tracks visible in the street and the electric wires above them.

Today, this building remains in use as Quincy City Hall, although it has been significantly expanded with a modern addition behind and to the right of the original structure. Most recently, the building underwent a major restoration that began in 2013. It was damaged by a fire during the project, but the work was ultimately completed in early 2016. This project also coincided with the closure of the portion of Hancock Street in front of city hall, creating a pedestrian-only plaza between it and the United First Parish Church across the street from here. Today, the exterior of the building is not significantly different from its appearance in the first photo, and it stands as a well-preserved example of a mid-19th century municipal building.

Peacefield, Quincy, Mass

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Peacefield, the former home of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, at 135 Adams Street in Quincy, around 1900-1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The house in 2019:

As discussed in the previous post, John Adams was born in a house that still stands a little more than a mile south of here on Franklin Street in Quincy. Then, as an adult, he and his wife Abigail lived in a house next door to his birthplace, where their son John Quincy Adams was born in 1767. Tat modest saltbox-style farmhouse was their home throughout John Adams’s early political career and the American Revolution, although he was frequently away on government business, including spending most of the Revolution overseas as a diplomat.

After the end of the war, Abigail Adams traveled to Europe with Nabby, arriving in 1784 and reuniting with her husband and John Quincy. The family then spent the next four years in Europe, first in Paris and then in London. During this time, they grew accustomed to living in large, fashionable houses in these cities, so in 1787 they decided to upgrade their living situation back home by purchasing this house, including 80 acres of farmland, on modern-day Adams Street. They were still living in Europe at the time, but they moved into the house upon their return to America a year later.

The house itself dated back to 1731, when the original portion of the building was constructed as the home of Leonard Vassall, a sugar plantation owner from Jamaica. He had died in 1737, but his daughter Anna Borland subsequently inherited the property, and she and her husband John used it as a summer residence. However, she was a loyalist, so she fled to England at the start of the war, and the house was empty for most of the Revolution. She later recovered the property, and her son Leonard ultimately sold it to Adams in 1787 for 600 pounds.

The Adamses had apparently recalled the house as having been one of the finest residences in the town, but they were somewhat disappointed after having purchased it sight unseen from overseas. Although its Georgian architecture was an improvement from their old saltbox house, it was still small, consisting of just six rooms in what is now the left side of the front facade of the house. It was also in poor condition after having been vacant for so long, and it required significant work.

Less than a month after their return to America, Abigail wrote a letter to her daughter Nabby, in which she described the rather dismal condition of the house:

But we have come into a house not half repaired, and I own myself most sadly disappointed. In height and breadth, it feels like a wren’s house. Ever since I came, we have had such a swarm of carpenters, masons, farmers, as have almost distracted me—every thing all at once, with miserable assistance. In short, I have been ready to wish I had left all my furniture behind. The length of the voyage and heat of the ship greatly injured it; some we cannot get up, and the shocking state of the house has obliged me to open it in the garret.

Over time, though, the house, which John Adams named Peacefield, became a suitable residence for the family. It was steadily expanded, including a large addition on the right side of the house, and Abigail oversaw much of this work herself, as John Adams spent most of the 1790s in Philadelphia. There, he served as the first vice president from 1789 to 1797, and then as the second president, succeeding George Washington after the strongly-contested 1796 election between himself and political rival Thomas Jefferson.

During his presidency, the United States capital city shifted from Philadelphia to Washington, D. C. As a result, Adams became the first president to live in the White House, moving in on November 1, 1800. However, his say there was short; that fall, he lost the election to Thomas Jefferson, and he left Washington early on the morning of March 4, 1801 bound for Quincy, just hours before his successor was inaugurated.

Adams largely retired from public life once he returned to Quincy, focusing instead on farming his land here at Peacefield. He avoided making public statements in opposition to Jefferson, and the two men ultimately renewed their friendship and began a frequent exchange of letters after the end of Jefferson’s presidency. However, this period was also a time of personal troubles for Adams. His son Charles had died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1800 at the age of 30, and his son Thomas had similar problems with alcoholism. Then, his daughter Nabby died of breast cancer in 1813, and his wife Abigail died of typhoid fever in 1818.

This left John Quincy Adams as his only surviving child. His son technically owned Peacefield, having purchased it from John Adams when his father had financial troubles in 1803. At the time, John Quincy Adams was a U. S. senator from Massachusetts, and he subsequently became Secretary of State under James Monroe, serving from 1817 to 1825. John Adams lived long enough to see his son elected president in 1824, but he ultimately died halfway through John Quincy Adams’s term, on July 4, 1826, at the age of 90. In one of the most unusual coincidences in American history, Thomas Jefferson died on the same day, which also happened to be the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Like his father, John Quincy Adams proved to be a one-term president after losing the election of 1828. He then returned to Peacefield here in Quincy, but his life in politics was hardly over by this point. Despite a relatively average presidency, he went on to have one of the most successful careers of any former president, serving in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1831 until his death in 1848. During this time, he was one of the leading opponents of slavery in Congress, and in his final years one of his colleagues in the House was a young Abraham Lincoln, who served as a pallbearer at Adams’s funeral.

In another more unfortunate parallel between himself and his father, John Quincy Adams also had three sons, two of whom lived troubled lives, struggled with alcoholism, and died young. His oldest son, George Washington Adams, died in 1829 at the age of 28 from an apparent suicide, and his second son, John Adams II, died five years later. Only his youngest son, Charles Francis Adams Sr., outlived him, and he inherited Peacefield after John Quincy Adams’s death.

Charles Francis Adams had a successful career in politics, serving in the state legislature before being elected to the U. S. House of Representatives in 1858. He was re-elected in 1860, but soon resigned after Abraham Lincoln appointed him as ambassador to the United Kingdom, a diplomatic post that both his father and grandfather had once held. In this capacity, Adams played an important role in keeping the United Kingdom neutral during the Civil War, preventing them from giving aid or diplomatic recognition to the Confederacy.

During his time at Peacefield, Adams continued to make improvements, including the construction of the Stone Library adjacent to the main house. This building, which stands just out of view on the far left side of this scene, was built in accordance with John Quincy Adams’s wishes and completed in 1873. Designed to be fireproof, the building houses over 12,000 collected by several generations of the Adams family, along with other important family papers and documents.

Charles Francis Adams died in 1886, and his sons Henry and Brooks were the fourth and last generation to live here at Peacefield. Both were alive when the first photo was taken, and it was around this time that Henry completed his famous memoir, The Education of Henry Adams, although it would not be published until after his death in 1918. In the meantime, Brooks continued to live here until his death in 1927, 140 years after his great grandfather had purchased the property.

During his ownership, Brooks Adams had steadily sold off most of the property, and by the time he died Peacefield consisted of just four acres surrounding the house. He had no children to inherit the house, so the other Adams family descendants formed the Adams Memorial Society, and opened the house to the public as a museum. This organization ran it for nearly 20 years, before ultimately transferring it to the National Park Service in 1946.

Originally named the Adams Mansion National Historic Site, it was later renamed the Adams National Historical Park, and it now includes the nearby birthplaces of John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Throughout this time, Peacefield has remained well-preserved, and today this exterior view looks nearly identical to its appearance more than a century ago, aside from the brick portion of the fence on the right side. Along with both birthplace houses, Peacefield is still open to the public, with guided tours of the main house and the Stone Library.