Adams Birthplaces: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Adams National Historical Park

Brown, Margie; Holder, Kirsten

The Adams birthplaces are located in the City of Quincy, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, approximately eight miles south of Boston. The birthplace homes of two U.S. Presidents stand on neighboring lots at the intersection of Franklin Street and Presidents Avenue, a mile south of Quincy Center. One house is the birthplace of John Adams, the second U.S. President, born on October 30,1735, and the other house is the birthplace of John Quincy Adams, his son and sixth U.S. President, born on July 11, 1767. The Adams birthplaces are part of Adams National Historical Park, which preserves and protects the landscapes, homes, and personal property of four generations of the Adams family. The park includes other sites in Quincy. About one half mile north of Quincy Center is Peace field, a larger home and estate once owned by John and Abigail Adams and three successive generations of Adamses, and the adjacent Beale Estate that preserves the Peace field setting and houses park operations. Approximately halfway between Peace field and the Adams birthplaces in Quincy Center are the United First Parish Church, where both Presidents and the First Ladies are entombed in the Adams family crypt; Hancock Cemetery, where many other Adams family members are buried; and an off-site visitor center. Collectively, the park’s historic properties include eleven historic buildings and structures and a cultural landscape totaling almost fourteen acres. When owned and managed by the Adams family, the birthplaces were part of a large farm, known as Penn’s Hill farm, which at one time extended over 200 acres. The distinctive saltbox homes are now preserved on a .72-acre parcel and set within a maintained lawn with stone walls, wooden split-rail fences, shade trees, and ornamental shrubs. The site offers a bucolic setting in a dense suburban neighborhood of mixed residential and commercial buildings. As the oldest presidential birthplaces and among the oldest homes in the country, the two saltbox buildings are designated National Historic Landmarks. The birthplaces property is composed of three principal spaces: the John Adams birthplace parcel, John Quincy Adams birthplace parcel, and the north lawn area. The John Adams birthplace parcel in the center of the property was once part of a larger farmstead area, but is now bounded on two sides by split-rail fences. A lilac grows in the front yard, and reflects the presence of lilacs described in the writings of Abigail Adams and visible in the earliest illustrations of the property in the 1800s. The John Quincy Adams birthplace parcel was also once part of a larger farmstead area with outbuildings, but is now surrounded by a stone wall. The Quincy Historical Society built the stone wall in 1896 as part of an initiative to protect the homes and open them for public tours the following year. When John Adams and his family owned the land in the 1700s, the north lawn area likely contained sheds and barns as well as vegetable or fruit trees. The north lawn area was subdivided in the 1820s by John Quincy Adams, and by 1887 two large homes stood on small adjacent lots. The City of Quincy purchased the lots and removed the homes in 1958 but left the trees, some of which still shade the lawn. Collectively the three landscape spaces provide an open setting for the historic homes and reflect a commemorative landscape of walls, fences, shade trees, and shrubs that date to the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Adams Birthplaces: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Adams National Historical Park

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