JFK Museum and Adams Family Sites

We spent day 5 of our trip drenched in history! We were lucky enough to be in a central location midway between the John Adams and John Quincy Adams family sites, and the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum. We started at the JFK Museum. It was wonderful! JFK is probably Tony's biggest political hero and he just soaked it all up. He hadn't been there for quite a number of years, and much of it was different. I learned a lot about the political situations in the years that he was president. It was very well done. The building itself is right on the water and very beautiful. It's at the U of Mass campus which is a nice area.

We had a light lunch in the cafe there and then had to make a dash for the car as huge drops of rain started falling as soon as we walked out of the library. We were both soaked by the time we got to the car. We drove over to the mall where the National Park Service has the Adams National Historic Park center. You park in the mall parking lot, walk down to the NPS office, get your tickets and reservations, and then a trolley picks you up on the street and drives you around to the various sites.

Gunther Tooties, a cafe across the street from the NPS office. Tony was enthralled that this place actually existed. We had to make an extra drive-by to see if we could get a better pic than this.

Statue of Abigail Adams and her son, John Quincy Adams outside of the church they attended.

We were a little early for our reservations, so we walked across the street to the United First Parish Church where John Adams, his wife, Abigail Adams, their son, John Quincy Adams, and his wife, Louisa Catherine, are interred in the crypt under the church. We went down and saw the graves. None of them were originally buried in the crypt. The current church had not been built yet when John Adams died, though he had contributed money to help build the current church before he died. his son, John Quincy, had John and Abigail disinterred and moved to the crypt. John Quincy's son did the same for his parents, and made the crypt bigger as he did so. It is probably a more impressive site to see them all in the crypt than it would have been in a graveyard. We did a quick tour around the church which is a beautiful example of a period church. We were able to see the Adams Family pew as well.

In the crypt: John Quincy Adams (with US Flag) and his wife, Louisa Catherine Adams

John Adams (with US flag) and Abigail Adams graves in crypt.

It is important to note that "Quincy" was Abigail Adams's maternal family name, and it is also the name of the town that we stayed in where the Adams lived and farmed. This family name is where John Quincy Adams gets his name of course. The interesting thing is that the family name and the city are all pronounced "quin-zee" instead of "quin-see" so if you head up there, make sure you get it right! I had not been to Boston since I was a teenager, and I don't really remember much other than we stayed in Braintree which I thought was such a funny name. It just so happens that Quincy was broken off of Braintree years ago, so it is essentially the same area. I will also say, it is a MUCH cheaper place to stay than downtown Boston. For our purposes, it was exactly central to what we wanted.

We headed back to catch the trolley and it took us to the Adams' birthplace - a pretty spot with two homes on it - one where John Adams was born and raised, and the house next door which John Adams inherited and where John Quincy Adams was born. These are the oldest presidential birthplaces still surviving. Both homes are quite simple and they are called saltbox houses since they were the shape of the saltbox that every family kept on their mantel. The houses became that way when the families put on a sloping addition to the original rectangular box-like structure. The homes were simply decorated inside as well, though none of the furniture, etc., was original to those homes.

The Old House - the Adams family mansion.

The trolley then took us to what the Adams family called "the Old House." Once Abigail had been to Europe with John, their smaller saltbox farmhouse didn't seem quite as alluring. She had visited the "Old House" as a child and remembered it as being very grand. They sent home from Europe for their representative to purchase the house and have it ready when they arrived. Abigail was very sorry when she saw it as an adult since it wasn't nearly as impressive as she remembered. From there, each generation of the family added to the house, so that now it is an impressively large mansion. It holds all Adams' family artifacts with many beautiful pieces of furniture and artwork. In the back of the house is what is essentially the first presidential library, called the Stone Library. John Quincy Adams's son built it to house and protect all of the family's books, about 14,000 volumes. Apparently, John Adams's books were given to the local library when he died and his son later found out that they were not being used, or used appropriately, so he took them back and gave them to a university where they are properly housed now I'm sure.

The Old House gardens - you can see part of the Stone Library on the right side.

I really liked this flower and thought it would be fun to put in our garden. Does anyone know what it is called??

The gardens at the Old House were also very lovely. We took a few pictures there we enjoyed it so much. Oh, and yes, Washington DID sleep at the Old House - as did very many other dignitaries who visited the two presidents on their home turf in Boston. We thoroughly enjoyed our time learning about the Adams family. Our country owes them all a lot. It was also impressive to learn that John Quincy Adams has one of the longest, if not the longest, histories of service to our country. he started at age 10 as a secretary for his father on a trip to France. He was very good at languages and picked up French quickly. 4 years later, he was found to be the only American on European soil that spoke French fluently (French was the official diplomatic language at the time). So he was sent as an emissary to St. Petersburg, Russia. He learned Russian and continued learning various languages until he could read and write in about 14 or so when he died. He was the only president that went back to Washington and served after being president - for about 17 more years of his life. So all told, they said he served our country for 71 years. Now that is commitment! I think he must have had the best of both is mother and his father. (This is mostly from memory, so don't fact-check me!!)

After visiting the homesteads, Tony and I discussed where to go to dinner on our last night of the trip. Tony had been talking about Union Oyster House for about a million years, but it was a dark and rainy night and we were pretty far from downtown so he gave in to my idea to go across the street to a cool looking place called Cathay Pacific (go to the link and click on the pictures to see it!) It had a sweet 60s vibe from the outside, and well, the inside unfortunately just looked like almost every other kind of fancy Chinese restaurant. We probably wouldn't go to it again if we lived across the street, not that it was bad, it just wasn't great. So needless to say, I still haven't heard the end of it (We could have gone to one of the most famous restaurants in the country, and instead we went to Cathay Pacific. Ha ha). You can see what I mean... It's okay. I can handle it!! I still think the outside of that place was sweet! What a great day we had!