I.

IN MEMORY OF

HENRY ADAMS,

Who took his flight from the Dragon persecution in Devonshire, in England, and alighted with eight sons, near Mount Wollaston. One of the sons returned to England; and after taking time to explore the Country, four removed to Medfield and to the neighboring towns; two to Chelmsford. One only, Joseph, who lies here at his left hand, remained here, who was an original proprietor in the Township of Braintree, incorporated in the year 1639.

This stone and several others have been placed in this yard, by a great-great-grandson, from a veneration of the piety, humility, simplicity, prudence, patience, temperance, frugality, industry, and perseverance of his ancestors, in hopes of recommending an imitation of their virtues to their posterity.

II.
Dedicated

to the memory of JOSEPH ADAMS, SENIOR, who died December 6, 1694, and of ABIGAIL, his wife, whose first name was Baxter, who died August 27, 1692, by a great-grandson, in 1817.

III.

In memory of

JOSEPH ADAMS, son of
Joseph, senior, and grandson of

Henry; and of HANNAH, his wife,
whose maiden name was

Bass, a daughter of
Thomas Bass and Ruth Alden;

parents of John Adams,

and grand-parents

of the lawyer JOHN ADAMS,

Erected December, 1823.

IV.

Sacred

to the memory of MR. JOHN ADAMS,

who died

May 25, A. D. 1761,
aged 70,
and

of SUSANNA, his Consort,
born Boylston,

who died April 17, A. D. 1797,
aged 88.

The sweet remembrance of the just

Shall flourish when they sleep in dust.

Susanna, the mother of John Adams, was the daughter of Peter Boylston, of Brookline, Massachusetts. Both parents, while not especially worthy of mention above their neighbors, were possessed of admirable traits besides being earnest and exemplary Christians. His father was one of the leaders in the affairs of the Church, and was for many years a trustee of Braintree. These worthy parents had two other children, Peter Boylston Adams and Elihu Adams. According to the custom of giving at least one son an education fitting him for a public career, they selected John with a view of thoroughly preparing him, as it was hoped, for the Christian ministry. While it certainly was not, however, the custom of the country to set aside and educate one son for a public life, it was so with some, and the Adamses had, for several generations, pursued this course. And while this usage did not go very far towards establishing any claim to superiority which might be made for the parents of John Adams, the character of the children, according to an old and mainly true standard of judgment did,

perhaps, give no doubtful value to such a claim. Whatever importance, however, may be attached to blood, true, right education is the supreme, royal way to noble character and virtuous life. No education, worth the name, can be gauged by the amount of Greek or Latin or mathematics or any other form of book-learning it may have in it, but only by the aggregate of good and useful sense and virtue, the amount of true wisdom which it brings into actual life.

Whatever were the real, intellectual, and fleshly foundations of this Adams family a glimpse of its true spirit may be seen in the following remark made by John Adams when serving his country as one of its first foreign ministers :

"Neither my father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, great-grandfather or great-grandmother, nor any other relation that I know of, or care a farthing for, has been in England these one hundred and fifty years; so that you see, I have not one drop of blood in my veins but what is American."

John Adams was born October 19, 1735, at Braintree, Massachusetts. Little has been recorded in any way relating to his boyhood days, and although the circumstances of his father would justify the idea of his having occupied much of his early youth in labor, as the children of that time, especially in New England, were accustomed to do, yet it is more than likely that being designed by his parents for a learned profession, he was early sent to school. From his own. statements it does not appear that he at first took much interest in books, but spent a great deal of his time in hunting, fishing, and other not wholly useless sports. The expectations of his parents did not seem in a fair way of realization in him at the outset. But

a change of tutors brought a change in his inclinations, and almost his entire after life became distinguished for its success in letters. He is represented as having prepared for college under the tutorship of the Rev. Joseph Marsh, Congregational minister at Braintree, and Joseph Cleverly, sometime "reader" in the English Church at the same place. He entered Harvard College in 1751, and graduated in 1755. Three years afterwards he received the degree of master of arts. It is said that Mr. Adams stood as number fourteen in a graduating class of twenty-four; and then, too, the standard of Harvard was not very high.

It should not be forgotten, however, that Mr. Adams graduated in Harvard's aristocratic colonial era, when students were assigned places in the graduating classes according to the adjudged social position of their families. Number fourteen only meant the social grade assigned to old John Adams, and had no relation to the intellectual standing of the son. A few years later Harvard, advancing with the republican spirit of the times, arranged her graduates, without any such distinction, in alphabetical order.

The real fact in the case was that Adams stood high in the college, as on this account he was selected to teach the "grammar school" at Worcester.

In the summer of 1755, he entered upon this work as a teacher, and soon began to display qualities which had given him some distinction at college, and which were destined to attract general public notice.

He was now under twenty-one, but this did not prevent his taking a deep interest in the political issues then beginning to occupy the American people.

In a letter to his friend, Nathan Webb, at this

time, Mr. Adams exhibits himself as one of the early dreamers on America's future glory. In this letter he speaks of independence and the conditions pointing to national supremacy.

The following is the greater part of this letter:

"WORCESTER, 12 October, 1755.

"All that part of creation which lies within our observation is liable to change. Even mighty states and kingdoms are not exempted.

"If we look into history, we shall find some nations rising from contemptible beginnings and spreading their influence till the whole globe is subjected to their sway. When they have reached the summit of grandeur, some minute and unsuspected cause commonly effects their ruin, and the empire of the world is transferred to some other place. Immortal Rome was at first but an insignificant village, inhabited only by a few abandoned ruffians; but by degrees it rose to a stupendous height, and excelled in arts and arms all the nations that preceded it. But the demolition of Carthage (what one should think would have established it in supreme dominion), by removing all danger, suffered it to sink into a debauchery, and made it at length an easy prey to barbarians.

"England, immediately upon this, began to increase (the particular and minute causes of which I am not historian enough to trace) in power and magnificence, and is now the greatest nation. on the globe. Soon after the Reformation, a few people came over into the new world for conscience' sake. Perhaps this apparently trivial incident may transfer the great seat of empire into America. It looks likely to me; for if we can remove the turbulent Gallicks, our people, according to the exactest computations will, in another century, become more numerous than England itself. Should this be the case, since we have, I may say, all the naval stores of the nation in our hands, it will be easy to obtain the mastery of the seas; and then the united force of all Europe will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves is to disunite us. Divide et impera. Keep us in distinct Colonies, and then some great men in each Colony desiring the monarchy of the whole, they will destroy each other's influence and keep the country in equilibrio.