1892 Portrait & Biographical Album of Genesee, Lapeer & Tuscola Counties, Chapman Bros.

Presidents
Pages 39 - 42

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, was born in the rural home of his honored father, John Adams, the distinguished second president of the United States, in Quincy, Massachusetts, on July 11, 1767.

John Quincy’s mother, a woman of exalted worth, watched over his childhood during the almost constant absence of his father. When he was just eight years old, he stood with his mother on an eminence, listening too the booming battle of Bunker Hill and gazing upon the smoke and flames billowing up from the confligration of Charlestown.

When he was eleven years old he took a tearful adieu of his mother as he accompanied his father sailinng too Europe, through the patrols of hostile British cruisers. John Quincy, a bright and aniated boy, spent a year and a half in Paris, where his father was associated with Franklin and Lee as a minister plenipotentiary. His intelligence attracted the notice of these distinguished men and he received from them flattering marks of attention.

Mr. John Adams had scarcely returned too the United States in 1779, when he was again sent abroad. John Quincy accompanied his father this time too. At Paris he applied himself with great diligence for six months of study and then accompanied his father too Holland where he entered school in Amsterdam, then the University at Leyden. About a year later in 1781, when he was just fourteen years old, John Quincy, was selected too be the secretary too "Mr. Dana," the American minister too the Russian court.

John Quincy spent fourteen months in this school of incessant labor and of enobling culture and then returned too Holland via Sweden, Denmark, Hamburg, and Bremen. He traveled alone in the middle of winter at just sixteen years and when he returned too Hague, he resumed his studies.