Peacefield: a shrine, a home, a legacy of the Adams family.

  Photo Courtesy of Lorenzo Deagle

“It is but the farm of a patriot,” are the words inscribed at the main gate of Peacefield at Quincy, Massachusetts, as spoken by the owner of the property John Adams, Founding Father, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and second president of the United States.[1]  The Adams National Park, integrated into the National Park Service at the behest of the descendants of John Adams in 1946 serves not just as a site of historical significance, but also as an open-air and architectural based museum to the ancestral home of John Adams, his son John Quincy Adams and their descendants.   A property which has also served as a Mecca for many Americans on pilgrimages to this site which is not only viewed as historically relevant directly or indirectly to the building of the United States, but also as hallow ground where several historical figures were born, would live and would die.[2]

The Adams National Park is comprised of fours buildings, the birthplace of John Adams, the birthplace of his son John Quincy Adams, Peacefield, and the Stone Library which houses the combined book collections of John Adams and John Quincy Adams.  Located at the base of Penn’s Hill on the coastal road to between Plymouth and Boston, the birthplace of John Adams is a Cape Cod-style saltbox structure, a five-room building “of hand-hewn oak, its inner walls of brick, these finished on the inside with lath and plaster an faced on the exterior with pine clapboard.”[3] Constructed in 1681 as one of two saltbox styled structures, the second building is located forty paces from the first and served as the marital home of John Adams and Abigail Smith following their marriage in October of 1764 and is the birthplace of their first child John Quincy.[4]

In terms of the historical interpretation of the birthplaces of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, both houses are presented in a more traditional manner as house museums frozen in time, the first representing the humble upbringing of John Adams as one of three sons of a shoemaker, and the second as that of a family and household on the rise as John Adams pursued a career as an attorney and politician.  

The Birthplace of John Adams: Photo courtesy of Lorenzo Deagle

However, the Vassall-Borland House, also known as Peacefield, acquired by John and Abigail Adams following their return to the United States from Great Britain in 1788, is a house museum that is multi-generational in its presentation and interpretation of the history of the Adams family.  As a house museum, this building is not only interpreted as the location of John and Abigail Adams’s retirement, but also serves as a museum representing a total of four generations of the Adams family who resided at Peacefield from 1788 until 1927.[5] 

Peacefield: Photo courtesy of Lorenzo Deagle

As property formally owned by Loyalists during the American Revolution, the ownership of Vassall-Borland house was forfeited during the war and purchased by John Adams following the completion of a diplomatic mission to London during which he had served as the first American ambassador to Great Britain.  Today the National Park Services hosts tours of the twenty-seven room mansion in which each room is left exactly how it looked when it was used by a certain member of the Adams family, such as the study where John Adams posed for several portraits, and the bedroom where he would read, write and eventually pass away on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of the United States.  In addition the house contains several additions, including a wing added by Abigail Adams following the home’s purchase, which contains guest rooms, the bedroom where John and Abigail’s daughter Abigail “Nabby” Adams would die of cancer in 1813, and also the childhood room of Henry Adams, the great-grandson of John Adams.[6]   

Overall, the ranger tours offered by the National Park Services are both thorough and detailed oriented, and most importantly the site is still home to a center for historic research and study, the Stone Library located in the gardens of Peacefield.  Constructed in 1870 by Charles Francis Adams, John Adams’s grandson, to house the combined book collections of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, the Stone Library is where Charles Francis’s son, Henry Adams would construct a series of multivolume historiographies and sources relating to his family’s history.[7]  Perhaps most importantly the library is still open for use by appointment for historians and researchers who may find use of the over twelve thousand books in the collection, one of many unique opportunities that can be found at the Adams National Park.  Furthermore, under the guardianship of the National Park Service it is clear that this location is of vital historical significance to the United States and as such the Park Service has made it their mission to, ‘preserve, and protect the grounds, homes, and personal property of four generations of the Adams family and to use these resources to interpret the history they represent and to educate and inspire current and future generations.”[8]

Stone Library: Photo courtesy of Lorenzo Deagle

---

[1] National Park Service: U.S. Department of the Interior, “Adams National Historical Park Massachusetts: The Birthplace of John Adams, John Quincy Adams,” (National Park Ranger Tour. Quincy, MA, October 2, 2015).

[2] The National Park Service, “Learn About the Park:,” The Adams National Park, http://www.nps.gov/adam/learn/index.htm (accessed October 1, 2015).

[3] David McCullough, John Adams. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001.

[4] The National Park Service, “History and Culture: People, Places, and Birthplaces,” The Adams National Park, http://www.nps.gov/adam/learn/index.htm (accessed October 1, 2015).

[5] Ibid,.

[6] Ranger Tour, October 2, 2015.

[7] National Park Service: U.S. Department of the Interior, “Adams National Historical Park Massachusetts: The Birthplace of John Adams, John Quincy Adams,” (National Park Visitor Center Introductory Video). Quincy, MA, October 2, 2015). 

[8] The National Park Service, “History and Culture: Park Mission,” The Adams National Park, http://www.nps.gov/adam/learn/index.htm (accessed October 1, 2015).