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Quincy Homestead
39 Butler St.
(617) 742-3190
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Built in the
1600s and enlarged in 1706, this Georgian
Colonial is the childhood home of Dorothy
Quincy, who married John Hancock in 1775. The
businessman and patriot is believed to have
declared his love for Dorothy here.
Tours by appointment May to mid-Oct. |
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Quincy Historical Society
8 Adams St.
(617) 773-1144
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The historical society has an
extensive library and worthwhile displays
about many aspects of Quincy life, but the
site is more notable as the place where John
Hancock was born in 1737. Hancock served
nine terms as Massachusetts governor but
goes down in history for being the first to
sign his name on the Declaration of
Independence. The John Hancock Mutual Life
Insurance company celebrated his birthday in
1951 by giving the town a large bust with
Hancock’s likeness for the property.
In 1822, John Adams sold the
town this land for construction of Adams
Academy, on the condition proceeds be used
to build the First United Parish Church,
where his body now lies. The school opened
in 1872 and operated for 38 years. The
historical society, which was founded by
Adams’ grandson Charles Francis Adams in
1893, restored the building after acquiring
a long-term lease on it in 1972.
Museum and gift shop hours 9
am – 4 pm
Library hours Mon. and Wed. 9
am – noon, Tues. 1 pm to 4 pm and by
appointment
Weekend hours vary
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Adams National Historical Park
National Park Service Visitor
Center
1250 Hancock St.
(617) 770-1175
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The visitor
center sits in a business and retail complex
called Presidents Place Galleria. The complex
has a parking garage off Saville Avenue. Parking
tickets can be validated at the visitor center
by purchasing tickets to the Adams National
Historical Park tour or making another purchase.
The MBTA's Redline also stops at the nearby
Quincy Center station. The visitor center is
open seven days a week from April 19 – Nov. 10
and opens daily at 9 am. The tour of the birth
places of John Adams and John Quincy Adams and
the Old House lasts approximately 2 ˝ hours. |
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| Birthplaces |
 The
oldest presidential birthplaces in America,
the John Adams and John Quincy Adams
birthplaces stand just 75 feet apart.
John Adams was born in the
brown house on Oct. 30, 1735. After
initially studying to be a priest at
Harvard, he turned to education and
graduated with a two-year contract to teach
in Worcester. Adams disliked it, instead
finding joy in the nearby courthouse, where
he passed many days studying while putting
the smartest student in charge of his class.
He returned to Quincy and married Abigail
Adams in 1754, a bond that lasted 54 years
and produced their famous son, John Quincy
Adams.
Quincy Adams, who also served
as Secretary of State and in Congress, was
born in the house next door to his father on
July 11, 1767. John Adams kept a first-floor
law office in the home and is said to have
written the Massachusetts Constitution there
with his second cousin Samuel Adams and
James Bowdoin.
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The Old House |
 Filled
with paintings, china, and thousands of
other artifacts, the Old House reveals much
about the Adams family. Four generations of
the Adams family lived here, starting with
John and Abigail Adams, who moved into the
1731 farmhouse in 1788 after returning from
Europe, where John Adams was performing
diplomatic work.
The seven-room farmhouse
didn’t quite live up to Abigail Adams’
hopes, though, and she set out on an
expansion. One of her complaints was the
ceilings were too low and the expansion sits
two feet lower than the original house
because she was told she couldn’t raise the
original roof.
Rare artifacts in the home
include John Quincy Adams’ copy of the
Declaration of Independence with his
father's signature, Edward Savage paintings
of George and Martha Washington and a John
Singleton Copley painting of Joseph Warren.
Warren was John and Abigail Adams’ doctor
and lost his life at age 34 in the Battle of
Bunker Hill. The chair where John Adams died
also remains on display. Adams died in the
home on July 4, 1826, the same day as his
friend Thomas Jefferson and 50 years to the
day the Declaration of Independence was
adopted.
Out back sits the Stone
Library, built in 1873 to house John Quincy
Adams’ 14,000 books after his death.
Surrounding it is a beautiful garden that
must be walked.
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United First Parish Church
1306 Hancock
St.
(617) 773-0062
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 This
church holds the Adams family crypt, where
John Adams and his wife, Abigail Adams, and
their son, John Quincy Adams, and his wife,
Louisa Catherine Adams, are buried.
The United First Parish was
formed in 1639 and met in several buildings
before John Quincy Adams helped build this
Greek Revival church in 1828. The bodies of
John and Abigail Adams were moved to the
Unitarian-Universalist church when it opened
in 1828, replacing the Hancock Meeting
House. The bodies of John Quincy Adams and
his wife have been there since 1852.
The church is made of blue
granite hauled to the site by oxen and was
designed by Alexander Parris, architect of
Quincy Market in Boston. The granite
structure has four Doric columns weighing 25
tons each and is topped by a gold dome and
clock.
Open April 19 – Nov. 11, Mon.
– Sat. 9 am – 5 pm, Sun. 1 pm – 5 pm
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Quincy City Hall
1305 Hancock St.
(617) 376-1500
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 The
original part of the city’s home is made of
granite and was built in 1844 from designs
sketched by Solomon Willard, the architect
of Boston’s Bunker Hill Monument. It sits
near Constitution Common, a salute to John
Adams' drafting the Massachusetts
Constitution. A bronze statue of John Adams,
designed by Lloyd Lillie, greets visitors
outside. Across the street near the United
First Parish Church is a similar bronze
statue of Abigail Adams and John Quincy
Adams as a child.
Another site honoring Abigail
Adams and her son is the Abigail Adams Cairn
on Penn's Hill (Franklin Street at Viden
Street). The stone monument was erected in 1896
to honor the spot where Abigail, seven-year-old
John Quincy and his 10-year-old sister Nabby
watched Charlestown go up in flames during the
Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. Abigail
went to Penn's Hill after learning her good
friend, Dr Joseph Warren, had been killed. She
was caring for Warren's four children along with
her own four children and her husband was away
serving in the Continental Congress. |
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Hancock Cemetery
1305 Hancock St.
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 John
Adams bought this cemetery for the town in
1809, preserving the burial ground of the
town’s earliest European’s settlers. Among
them was Henry Adams, the first member of
the Adams family clan to settle in Quincy.
He died in 1646.
The cemetery is named for the
Rev. John Hancock, father of Adams’ fellow
patriot and Quincy native John Hancock. The
reverend was the fifth pastor of the United
First Parish Church, where Adams now lies
for eternity. Also buried at the cemetery
are patriot Josiah Quincy and the city’s
namesake, Col. John Quincy, grandfather of
Abigail Adams.
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Adams
Commercial Building
Hancock Street
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 This
Tudor Revival building was designed by J.
William Beal, architect of the Bethany Church
and Bank of America Building. Listed on the
National Register of Historic Places for its
role in the city’s early industry, the building
was the original home of the Quincy Historical
Society. |
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Bank of
America Building
Hancock
Street
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This Art Deco building
originally housed the Quincy Stone Bank in
1836 and was where Howard Deering Johnson
opened his first full-fledged Howard Johnson
restaurant in 1929. This store led to the
nationwide franchise that travelers have
come to know for its tasty ice cream. The
store followed the small medicine store,
soda fountain
and newsstand Johnson assumed operation of
in 1925 at 89 Beale St. in Quincy's
Wollaston section.
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Thomas Crane Public Library
40 Washington St.
617-376-1600
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 It
doesn’t bear the name Adams, but the Thomas
Crane Public Library is one of the city’s
most beloved buildings. The family of a
wealthy granite businessman who started in
Quincy built the original Romanesque
structure in his name in 1882, with help
from renowned architect H.H. Richardson. It
was expanded in 1908 and 1939.
In 2001, the library
underwent a $16 million renovation and
expansion that nearly doubled its size. Many
people and groups helped out, from the state
Board of Library Trustees who gave the
project $3.5 million to Pulitzer
Prize-winning author David McCullough, who
raised $25,000 by hosting a lecture.
McCullough won his second Pulitzer Prize for
his 2002 biography, “John Adams.”
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Josiah Quincy
House
20 Muirhead St.
(617) 227-3957
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This
exquisite Georgian Colonial was built in
1770 and was home to Revolutionary War Col.
Josiah Quincy I, the first in a family that
later bred three Boston mayors and a Harvard
University president.
The home is unique for its
ornamental monitor roof, the oldest such example
in America. In his day, Quincy used an attic
window in the home to watch the British fleet in
Boston Harbor and scratched on a pane of glass,
“October 10, 1775, Governor Gage sailed for
England with a fair wind.” This glass pane is on
display in the home’s front hall. Now owned by
Historic New England, the house is only open
five Saturdays a year between May and Sept. and
by special appointment. |
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Granite Railway
Mullin Avenue
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Quincy is home to America’s first
commercial railway line, the Granite Railway,
and the tracks that once carried Quincy granite
to Charlestown can still be found at the end of
Mullin Avenue. The tracks were laid down in 1826
to transport the granite for construction of the
Bunker Hill
Monument. |
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USS Salem
739 Washington St.
(617) 479-7900
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Quincy’s shipbuilding story
is now told in one of the many vessels
churned out in the city. The USS Salem was
launched March 25, 1947 at Bethlehem Steel
Co.’s Quincy yard and commissioned by the
Boston Navy Yard on May 14 1949. It spent 10
years leading the US Sixth Fleet in the
Mediterranean and the Second Fleet in the
Atlantic without ever firing, then retreated
to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet in
Philadelphia. In 1994, the USS Salem
returned north to the former Fore River
Shipyard in Quincy, where she serves as the
United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum.
Open daily June – Sept., 10
am – 4 pm
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Marina
Bay
333 Victory Road
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 With
685 slips and every amenity, Marina Bay is New
England’s largest boating complex and offers
great views of Boston’s skyline. A special
viewing post provides even better views. Add a
fun-to-walk boardwalk, nine restaurants and a
nearby condominium complex and you get a
bustling marina and
nightlife. |
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Quincy Symphony Orchestra
(800) 579-1618
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This orchestra has both
professional and amateur members and
performs several well-received shows in
multiple locations throughout the year. It’s
had seven conductors since the 1950s, with
Yoichi Udagawa, a faculty member at Boston
Conservatory and an understudy for Boston
Pops conductor Keith Lockhart, now in
charge. The holiday show is always eagerly
anticipated, as there is no admission
fee.
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Dinner Theatre
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The Fox & Hound Wood Grill &
Tavern
123 Sea St.
(617) 786-SHOW
Quincy Dinner Theatre
1170 Hancock St.
(781) 843-5862
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