A Son of the Revolution

Dark clouds of smoke spiraled into the sky over Breed's Hill as cannon roared.

- By Duane Damon

A patriot force clung grimly to the hill's heights as red-jacketed British troops charged up the slope. Not far away, Charlestown lay in flames. Seven-year-old John Quincy Adams watched in fearful awe. He and his mother, Abigail Adams, had a distant view of the raging battle from a hill near their home in Braintree, Massachusetts.

It was June 1775. Friends and relatives soon fled Boston to take refuge in the Adams home. John Quincy was too young to fight in the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), but he was old enough to understand that for the Americans to succeed, sacrifices would be necessary. For the Adamses, those sacrifices started at home.

John Quincy Adams was born on July 11, 1767, in Braintree. His father, John Adams, was a leading American patriot. As a young attorney, John had become involved in Boston politics. He was a strong supporter of American independence from Great Britain. In 1774, he represented Massachusetts as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. His work with the other colonists was dangerous. They all risked being hanged for treason.

Although John often was away from home, he always made time to oversee his children's education from afar. "Take care that they don't go astray," he wrote to Abigail. "Cultivate their minds. . . fix their attention upon great and glorious objects." Under his mother's careful tutoring, John Quincy explored mathematics, history, science, poetry, and Latin.