Born: 1744
Died: 1818

Abigail Smith and John Adams had much in common. Both were New Englanders steeped in the Puritan ethic, with strong political views. Abigail came from a respected Massachusetts family, her father a Congregational minister, her grandfather a judge. Since formal education was reserved for men, Abigail went to her family’s library to study government and philosophy — interests she shared with young lawyer John Adams. The two wed in 1764 when John was 29 and Abigail 20. Devoted partners for 54 years, they had five children, including future President John Quincy Adams.

The revolutionary cause often separated John from his family. While he served in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, and later in diplomatic posts abroad, Abigail raised the children and ran their Quincy, Massachusetts farm, at one point not seeing John for over four years. But the two kept up a vivid correspondence, with Abigail advocating the abolition of slavery and equal rights for women. In 1784 Abigail joined her husband in Europe, returning to America when he became Vice President. Though she liked and admired Martha Washington, Abigail steered a different course when she became First Lady. She freely expressed her political views, prompting critics to call her “Mrs. President.” But she was also an able hostess, and enjoyed entertaining in the new, albeit unfinished, White House.

Second President
John Adams

Born: 1735, Quincy, MA
Died: 1826

John Adams, a staunch New Englander, seems a bit of an anomaly surrounded by the “Virginia planter” Presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. Reserved and dour, Adams embodied the Puritan ethic. He studied law at Harvard College, and argued eloquently against the British Stamp Act and taxation without Parliamentary representation. Always pressing for the colonies to unite against Britain, “honest John” served as a member of the First and Second Continental Congresses, and in 1776 helped Thomas Jefferson draft the Declaration of Independence. He furthered the cause as a diplomat in Europe during the Revolutionary War, and later helped negotiate the peace treaty with Britain.

A two-term Vice-President under George Washington, Adams presided over the tumultuous birth of a two-party system. Alexander Hamilton’s Federalists believed in a strong central government drawing power from the commercial wealth of the North. Thomas Jefferson’s Republicans favored agricultural interests and states’ rights. Adams narrowly defeated Jefferson in the Presidential race of 1796, but his rival became Vice President and the two forged an effective if volatile partnership, completing the Franco-American Convention of 1800.

Second President
Federalist