John Adams, the first vice president under George Washington and the second President of the United States, accompanied the growing country through some of its most serious tribulations. He became the first President to live in the White House, and was also the first chief executive whose son also served as president. Adams played a major role in the adoption and in the signing of the historic document, The Declaration of Independence. Adams barely earned popularity during his long political career. He was not a cold-hearted man, but his bluntness, impatience, and vanity made him more enemies than friends. Also, his clumsiness in human relations often caused him to be misunderstood.

John Adams was born in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts, on October 30, 1735. His father, also John Adams, was a farmer, a deacon, and a militia officer. His mother, Susanna Boylston Adams, came from a prestige family of Brookline and Boston merchants and physicians. When Adams was young he helped with the chores on the farm, and studied hard in the village school. He didn’t like to read books in particular.

Adams graduated from Harvard College in 1755. He was ranked number fourteen in a class of twenty-four, based on social position, not intelligence. Adams was actually one of the best scholars in his class. After teaching schooling for a short period, Adams studied law with James Putnam in Worcester, Massachusetts. He moved to Boston ten years later, where he became a leading attorney of the Massachusetts colony.

In 1764, Adams married Abigail Smith (1744-1818), a minister’s daughter, in Weymouth, Massachusetts. John Quincy Adams, their oldest son, became the sixth President of the United States the year before his father died. (more…)