Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/89



,, second president of the United States, born in that part of the town of Braintree, Mass., which has since been set off as the town of Quincy, October 31, 1735; died there, July 4, 1826. His great-grandfather, Henry Adams, received a grant of about 40 acres of land in Braintree in 1636, and soon afterward emigrated from Devonshire, England, with his eight sons. John Adams, the subject of this sketch, was the eldest son of John Adams and Susanna Boylston, daughter of Peter Boylston, of Brookline. His father, one of the selectmen of Braintree and a deacon of the church, was a thrifty farmer, and at his death in 1760 his estate was appraised at 1,330 9s. 6d., which in those days might have been regarded as a moderate competence. It was the custom of the family to send the eldest son to college, and accordingly John was graduated at Harvard in 1755. Previous to 1773 the graduates of Harvard were arranged in lists, not alphabetically or in order of merit, but according to the social standing of their parents. In a class of twenty- four members John thus stood fourteenth. One of his classmates