The Massachusetts family that gave the young republic two presidents, a founding mother, and generations of statesmen.
John Adams was a leader of the American Revolution and became the second President of the United States; his wife, Abigail Adams, was a formidable adviser and letter-writer whose words still shape our picture of the founding.
Their son John Quincy Adams became the sixth President and a fierce antislavery congressman. Later generations, the diplomat Charles Francis Adams and the historian Henry Adams, kept the family at the center of American public life.
No family did more to found and steer the early United States. The Adamses' letters and papers are a national treasure, and their Quincy homestead is preserved as a national historical park.
They set the model of the American public-service dynasty.
The Adams family is based in Massachusetts. America's first great political dynasty, from the Revolution onward
1700s.
John Adams: 2nd President of the United States
Curious about your own family's story? We trace it through the public record and write it up as a documented history.
This profile presents only publicly reported facts, drawn from the sources above. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the family or its companies.
Portrait: Wikimedia Commons (public domain or freely licensed).