John and John Quincy Adams made their residence near Hingham, in the town that is now called Quincy.  These homes were largely preserved, and were now managed by the National Park service.  Thus we expected the price to be cheap, and the quality of the interpretation to be low.  Wrong on the second case, happily.

After stumbling around Quincy looking for the homes, we found them finally and obtained tickets -- free with our Golden Eagle National Park pass -- but could not get in until the 4:00 PM tour.  To pass the time, we opted to also tour the "birthplace" homes, two 17th century saltbox-style houses of very modest proportions.  Our tour guide for these houses was knowledgeable enough, but frankly he smelled really bad, was unshaven, and obese.  His lack of hygiene colored our tour quite a bit. 

Here is a detail from the older of the two 'birthplace' homes. 

After the unsettling experience of our first guide,  prepared for the worst, we headed back to the big house for our 4:00 PM tour.

This was a beautiful, large home, built to accommodate Mrs. Adams taste for living well that she acquired while living in France for a number of years as the wife of our Ambassador to France.  The gardens were especially lovely.

While we took many photos in the gardens, Joya got this "stunningly beautiful, amazing and all around perfect picture of Jordan, smelling a flower"  (Joya's words). 

Another garden shot.

Once the tour began we were introduced to our guide.  She was amazing.  The depth of her knowledge of all things Adams was wondrous.  Such a delightful change from our previous guide.

One thing we especially appreciated about the NPS was that it allowed photos inside.  The shot below is of an original oil painting of George Washington.  It was said that Mr. Washington liked this painting of him best, as it most accurately portrayed his likeness.

The image below is of a really astounding document.  You can see that this is the Declaration of Independence, obviously.  You probably also know that the original is stored in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., inside a guarded hermetically sealed light controlled bulletproof glass case.  Hanging in the Adams home is the only "wet copy" made of the original.  They dampened down the original with water, until the ink was wet again, and then laid another piece of paper on top, until the damp ink wicked all the way through.  That's a wet copy.  And there it hangs, inside a simple glass frame, in the Adams home.

John Adams had dreamed all his life of having a large, fireproof library, but never saw it built; he did, however, design one, and it was built by his son as a tribute.  Built of solid stone to resist fire, it was quite an elegant, thoughtful room.  You can see part of it below.

This is one of several paintings hanging in the Adams library.  It was done by a famous painter of the time (Seargent?), and depicts the signing of the Treaty of Paris, where Britain admitted it had lost the Revolutionary War.  It remains unfinished because the Brits refused to sit for a painting immortalizing them giving away the country.  We just loved that -- so very British.

That ended the tour on a high note.  We drove back towards camp and rented another DVD -- "Men of Honor".  Thomas Family Theater was now a more than weekly occurrence, as you can see, although our access to movies was dependant on finding a large chain store, or a mom-and-pop store that both stocked DVDs and would rent to someone with an out-of-state drivers license.

July 29 - Boston and the Alcott's