Abigail Adams
(1744-1818)
BIRTH
November 22, 1744
Weymouth, Massachusetts
Abigail Smith
BROTHER
John Adams Sr.
(1691-1761)
BROTHER
John Adams
(1735-1826)
SISTER
Louisa Adams
(1775-1852)
SISTER
Caroline Amelia Smith de Windt
(1795-1852)
BROTHER
George Washington Adams
(1801-1829)
SISTER
Abigail Smith Adams Angier
(1806-1845)
SISTER
Elizabeth Coombs Adams
(1808-1903)
HUSBAND
John Adams
(1735-1826)
Children
Abigail Adams Smith
(1765-1813)
Children
Susanna Adams
(1768-1770)
Children
Thomas Boylston Adams
(1772-1832)
Children
John Quincy Adams
(1767-1848)
Children
Charles Adams
(1770-1800)
First Lady of the United States
1797-1801
Second Lady of the United States
1789-1797
Abigail Adams was John Adams's wife and close adviser, and the mother of John Quincy Adams. Born Abigail Smith in Weymouth, Massachusetts, she joined her husband at his diplomatic post in Paris in 1784 and later lived with him in London. Returning home in 1788, she enlarged their home at Peacefield. As the second U.S. first lady, she became the first president's wife to live in the White House, arriving in November 1800 near the end of John's term.
BORN
Abigail Smith
Weymouth, Massachusetts
NICKNAMES
Portia; Diana; Miss Adorable
Married Name
Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams Birthplace
180 Norton St, Weymouth, MA 02191
Abigail Adams was born here in 1744. During the Revolution, her letters documented the home front, political change, shortages, and war while John Adams served Congress and diplomacy. The birthplace commemorates an influential witness and adviser of the founding era.
MUSEUM
Surviving Structures, Tours, Exhibits
Abigail Adams was born at the North Parish Congregational Church in Weymouth, Massachusetts, to William Smith and Elizabeth (née Quincy) Smith. On her mother's side, she was descended from the Quincy family, a well-known political family in the Massachusetts colony. Through her mother she was a cousin of Dorothy Quincy, who was married to John Hancock.
John Adams Peacefield
1250 Hancock St, Quincy, MA 02169
MUSEUM
Abigail Adams's public influence developed through household management, correspondence and close participation in John Adams's political life. During his legal work and service in the Continental Congress, she managed the family farm, finances and children's education in Massachusetts. Letters carried information about wartime conditions, prices, local opinion and family affairs, while giving John a trusted source of criticism and counsel. She held no elected office, but her surviving correspondence records sustained engagement with public questions.
In 1776 she urged John to remember women's interests when designing new laws and challenged the unchecked authority husbands exercised over wives. She also expressed opposition to slavery and pressed the inconsistency between claims of liberty and the denial of freedom to others. These views did not become a comprehensive modern programme of equality, but reveal that she tested revolutionary principles against established social relations. Her advice could be forceful and independent, and the letters should not be reduced to sentimental evidence of an unusually close marriage.
She joined John in Europe in 1784, taking part in the social obligations associated with his diplomatic posts in Paris and London. Managing residences, receiving visitors and observing European society expanded her experience of the new republic's international position. After their return in 1788, she directed improvements at Peacefield in Quincy. John's vice presidency and presidency brought residence in successive national capitals. As first lady from 1797 to 1801 she hosted guests, maintained political connections and advised him amid intense partisan conflict and an undeclared naval war with France.
Abigail supported the Alien and Sedition Acts, showing that her commitment to liberty coexisted with support for restrictions on opponents she considered dangerous. Critics resented her perceived political influence and used it to attack the president. In November 1800 she became the first president's wife to live in the White House, occupying it during the final months of John's term. Retirement in 1801 returned the couple to Quincy, where she remained active in family finances, correspondence and the advancement of John Quincy Adams's career. She died in 1818. Her letters preserve a substantial account of a woman's political judgement, domestic labour and participation in the founding generation's public life.
CAREER
DEATH
Abigail Adams became ill during her final years. She died in her home on October 28, 1818, of typhoid fever. She was buried in what was to become the family crypt, which now also holds her husband John, their son John Quincy, and John Quincy's wife Louisa, located in the United First Parish Church (also known as the "Church of the Presidents") in Quincy, Massachusetts. She was 73 years old, exactly two weeks shy of her 74th birthday. I am ready to go. He was buried next to her in the family crypt in the United First Parish Church. Abigail's final illness developed at the family home in Quincy, where the Adamses had spent their later retirement. She died on October 28, 1818, aged 73, with the illness traditionally identified as typhoid fever. That historical diagnosis should not be treated as equivalent to a modern laboratory confirmation, but it is more specific than assigning death to age alone. Her husband John survived her for almost eight years, so their deaths should not be compressed into a shared final period. The extensive correspondence she left records family and political life in great detail, yet does not supply a complete modern clinical history of the last attack. The supported account is a fatal febrile illness at home.
United First Parish Church
1306 Hancock St, Quincy, MA 02169
GRAVE
Abigail Adams Was Here
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