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Nov 21, 2023 · Learn about John Adams' childhood, education, and family. Read about Adams' siblings, his cousin Samuel Adams, and his time at Harvard. Updated: 11/21/2023
- What kind of education did John Adams have?John Adams received a formal education, as most firstborn sons did during this time period. He first attended a dame school followed by Latin prepa...
- How many years of education did John Adams have?From six to fifteen, John Adams attended a dame school, where he was taught reading and writing, and a Latin preparatory school. At fifteen, he was...
- What was John Adams life like when he was young?John Adams grew up on his family's farm. He enjoyed the open space and dreamed of eventually becoming a farmer. He also grew up in a religious hous...
- What was John Adams before he was president?Prior to becoming President, John Adams held a few different jobs. He was a schoolteacher and a lawyer. Following the colonies' victory in the Revo...
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- Early life
John Adams was an advocate of American independence from Britain, a major figure in the Continental Congress (1774–77), the author of the Massachusetts constitution (1780), a signer of the Treaty of Paris (1783), ambassador to the Court of St. James (1785–88), and the first vice president (1789–97) and second president (1797–1801) of the United States.
When did John Adams become president?
Having finished second to George Washington in the first U.S. presidential election in 1789 and serving as Washington’s vice president (1789–97), Adams won a narrow victory over Thomas Jefferson to be elected as the second president of the United States in 1796. He then lost to Jefferson in the 1800 presidential election.
What was John Adams’s family like?
John Adams’s family could trace its lineage to the first generation of Puritan settlers in New England and made major contributions to U.S. political and intellectual life for more than 150 years. His cousin Samuel Adams was, like John Adams, a lynchpin of the American Revolution. John Quincy Adams, like his father, John Adams, served as U.S. president.
What was John Adams’s early life like?
Adams was the eldest of the three sons of Deacon John Adams and Susanna Boylston of Braintree, Massachusetts. His father was only a farmer and shoemaker, but the Adams family could trace its lineage back to the first generation of Puritan settlers in New England. A local selectman and a leader in the community, Deacon Adams encouraged his eldest son to aspire toward a career in the ministry. In keeping with that goal, Adams graduated from Harvard College in 1755. For the next three years, he taught grammar school in Worcester, Massachusetts, while contemplating his future. He eventually chose law rather than the ministry and in 1758 moved back to Braintree, then soon began practicing law in nearby Boston.
In 1764 Adams married Abigail Smith, a minister’s daughter from neighbouring Weymouth. Intelligent, well-read, vivacious, and just as fiercely independent as her new husband, Abigail Adams became a confidante and political partner who helped to stabilize and sustain the ever-irascible and highly volatile Adams throughout his long career. The letters between them afford an extended glimpse into their deepest thoughts and emotions and provide modern readers with the most revealing record of personal intimacy between husband and wife in the revolutionary era. Typical of their epistolary exchange was Abigail’s lament regarding John’s prolonged absence in her letter to him of November 27, 1775:
Colonel Warren returned last week to Plymouth, so that I shall not hear anything from you until he goes back again, which will not be till the last of this month. He damped my spirits greatly by telling me that the court had prolonged your stay another month. I was pleasing myself with the thought that you would soon be upon your return. It is in vain to repine. I hope the public will reap what I sacrifice.
Their first child, Abigail Amelia, was born in 1765. Their first son, John Quincy, arrived two years later. Two other sons, Thomas Boylston and Charles, followed shortly thereafter. (Another child, Susanna, did not survive infancy.)
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Apr 23, 2024 · John Adams' childhood experiences within a family embedded in Puritan tradition and a community that valued piety, education, and moral austerity shaped his personal identity and future contributions as a statesman and thinker. Education and Intellectual Formation.
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Apr 3, 2014 · At age 16, Adams earned a scholarship to attend Harvard University. After graduating in 1755, at age 20, Adams studied law in the office of James Putnam, a prominent lawyer, despite his...
John Adams was born on October 30, 1735, to John Adams Sr. and Susanna Boylston. He had two younger brothers, Peter and Elihu. Adams was born on the family farm in Braintree, Massachusetts. His mother was from a leading medical family of present-day Brookline, Massachusetts.
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He attended a day school, Latin school, and then started his studies at Harvard when he was fifteen. After rejecting a career as a minister, John worked as a teacher before studying law. Once he established his legal practice, he married Abigail Smith in 1764.
As a healthy young boy, John loved the outdoors, frequently skipping school to hunt and fish. He said later that he would have preferred a life as a farmer, but his father insisted that he receive a formal education. His father hoped that he might become a clergyman.
