Adams Family Houses, Massachusetts

Two adjacent ancient houses in Quincy, south of Boston, stand out as anachronistic anomalies, battered and vacant, on a busy street across from a diner and a funeral home. The unoccupied houses, more than 350 years old, were the birthplaces and childhood homes of two presidents, John Adams, president #2, and John Quincy Adams, president #6. When they lived there, in the 1700s, this was rural farmland on the old coast road between Plymouth and Boston. The houses were immersed in historic events, with revolutionary soldiers marching past, and the Constitution of Massachusetts, which preceded the US Constitution, written inside by John Adams, Samuel Adams, and other patriots. Over the years the farmland was divided into lots, and urban sprawl flowed around them. In 1896, the houses, still owned by descendants, were adopted by historical organizations, and turned into preserved landmarks. Restorations included raising the houses and the ground a few feet, to catch up with the roads and sidewalks that had grown up around them. Though now managed by the National Park Service, the houses still seem frail and beached.