- NAME – John Adams
- NICKNAME(S) – His Rotundity
- BIRTH / DEATH – Oct. 30, 1735 – Braintree (later Quincy), Mass. / Quincy, Mass.
- FATHER – deacon, farmer, local official
- MOTHER – housewife
- COLLEGE – Harvard (started at age 15); studied to be a teacher
- WIFE – Abigail
- KIDS – 2 girls, 3 boys / one girl died at age two
- PETS – dogs (Juno, Mark, Satan)
- RELIGION – Unitarian
- ANCESTRY – English
- AGE – 61
FIRSTS:
– first to live in the White House
MA AND PA: His mother and father were very religious and strict.
BACKGROUND:
– taught school
– became a lawyer
– Massachusetts legislature
– First and Second Continental Congress
– helped write the Declaration of Independence
– envoy to France and the Netherlands
– U.S. Minister to Britain
– Vice President
FIRST LADY: She was the daughter of a wealthy minister. She was intelligent and independent. Her father taught her to read. She and her son John Quincy watched the Battle of Bunker Hill. When John went abroad as an envoy, she did not see him for five years until she joined him in London. She and her husband exchanged around 2,000 letters.
RETIREMENT: He retired to Quincy. In retirement, he patched up his friendship with Jefferson. He died on the fiftieth anniversary of independence – July 4, 1826. His last words were: “Thomas Jefferson lives.” But Jefferson had died earlier in the day.
TRIVIA:
– he was warm, witty, and cranky
– as a boy, he hated school and often played hooky to hunt or fish
- he criticized men who drank and was especially critical of all the toasting he witnessed at diplomatic dinners in Europe, plus the general public’s love of liquor in France and England; and yet, he had a glass of hard cider every morning with breakfast