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Henry Adams (January 21, 1583 – October 6, 1646) was an English colonial farmer. Also known as Henry Adams of Braintree, he was a patrilineal emigrant ancestor of U.S. Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams,[1][2] 2nd great grandfather of U.S. Founding Father Samuel Adams, and 9th great grandfather of U.S. President Calvin Coolidge.[3][4]
Henry Adams | |
|---|---|
| Born | 21 January 1583 |
| Died | 6 October 1646 (Aged 63) |
| Occupation | Farmer |
| Spouse | Edith Squire |
| Children | 10 |
| Parent(s) | John Adams of Barton St. David Agnes Stone |
| Relatives | Jeremy Adams (brother) John Adams Sr. (great-grandson) John Adams (2nd great-grandson) Samuel Adams (2nd great-grandson) John Quincy Adams (3rd great-grandson) John Torrey (4th great-grandson) William Claflin (5th great-grandson) William Rufus Day (6th great-grandson) Emily Dickinson (6th great-granddaughter) John Dewey (6th great-grandson) James B. Conant (7th great-grandson) Geraldine of Albania (7th great-granddaughter) Leka, Crown Prince of Albania (8th great-grandson) John Steinbeck (8th great-grandson) Mamie Eisenhower (8th great-granddaughter) John Adams Morgan (8th great-grandson) R. Stanton Avery (8th great-grandson) Margaret Mead (8th great granddaughter) Calvin Coolidge (9th great-grandson) |
Early life
editHenry Adams was born in Barton St. David, Somerset to John Adams (1555–1604) and Agnes Stone (1556–1616). He emigrated from Braintree, Essex,[5] in England to what soon became Braintree, Massachusetts, in about 1632–1633.[5]
While his descendant President John Quincy Adams believed Henry Adams to have been born in Braintree, Essex, numerous records have shown Henry Adams to have been born and raised in the village of Barton St. David in Somerset, England.
Henry Adams most likely moved to Braintree upon maturity to work for the Hooker company, which then arranged for his passage to America.
Settling in Massachusetts
editHe was one of the earliest settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He is likely to have arrived in the area with his wife, Edith Squire (1587–1672/73), his brothers Jeremy Adams "et al.", and eight sons and a daughter, in 1632.[6] Braintree was incorporated in 1640,[7] and included what is now Quincy, and Braintree.
Personal life
editHe married Edith "Rosamund"[citation needed] Squire on 19 October 1609 in Charlton Mackrell, Somerset, England. They had nine children: Henry Adams Jr., Thomas Adams, Samuel Adams, Jonathan Adams, Ursula Adams, Peter Adams, John Adams, Joseph Adams, and Edward Adams.[8]
Falsified and incorrect genealogies
editGenealogist Charles Henry Browning contributed to a bogus lineage for Henry Adams, who immigrated from Barton St David, Somerset, England to Braintree, Massachusetts. Henry Adams' great-grandfather was a lowly tenant farmer, but, in 1853, a forged document fooled the editors of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, and the false lineage was republished in 1893 in Browning's "Americans of Royal Descent".[9] The NEHGR has diligently tried to warn its readers about this false lineage disseminated by such as the Register's 1902 book notice of the Reverend Hiram Fairbanks' "The Ancestry of Henry Adams of Braintree, New England".[10]
It is widely believed that the claim Henry Adams, thus, his descendants Unites States Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams are descended from the Welsh political family also called Adams are false. The Welsh prefix "Ap" (meaning "son of") often appears in the Welsh Adams family but not in the name of the Somerset family. These mistakes and false assumptions are frequent in early attempts at genealogy.
Legacy
editJohn Adams, the second president of the United States of America, erected a monument to his memory in the old church yard at Quincy with the following inscription: "In memory of Henry Adams who took his flight from the Dragon persecution in Devonshire, 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 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 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 virtures to their posterity. … Erected December, 1823."
However, President John Quincy Adams dissented from the opinion of his father that Henry Adams came from Devonshire. He believed that: "After giving the matter particular and thorough investigation… my conviction is that Henry Adams was from Braintree in the county of Essex, on the east coast of England."[11]
Henry may have been in the company of Thomas Hooker, who arrived in September 1633. The Hooker company was mostly made up from immigrants of Chelmsford, perhaps from Braintree and other neighboring villages of Essex, who had arrived just to the new colony the year before. Winthrop's Journal, I. 37, says, "1632: 14 Aug; The Braintree Company which had begun to settle down at Mt. Wollaston by order of Court, removed to Newtown. These were Mr. Hooker’s Company."[12][13] Hence it appears highly probable that Henry Adams from Braintree in Essex joined Hooker's Company and arrived in Boston in 1632. Dr. James Savage, author of the Genealogical Dictionary of the early first-comers of New England states that Henry "came early to our country, and tradit. says from Braintree, in Co. Essex in 1632".[14]
References
edit- ^ "HENRY ADAMS OF BRAINTREE, JOHN FOBES, WILLIAM WHITE, LAWRENCE SOUTHWICK, JOHN CHILES". HENRY ADAMS OF BRAINTREE, JOHN FOBES, WILLIAM WHITE, LAWRENCE SOUTHWICK, JOHN CHILES. Retrieved 2024-04-24.
- ^ "Henry Adams of Somersetshire" (PDF). freepages.folklore.rootsweb.ancestry.com.
- ^ "Family relationship of Henry Adams and Calvin Coolidge via Henry Adams". famouskin.com. Retrieved 2023-12-15.
- ^ "TWELFTH GENERATION". msa.maryland.gov. Retrieved 2023-12-15.
- ^ a b Cutter, William Richard. New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of Commonwealths and the Founding of a Nation, Volume 4. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1913. p. 2048.
- ^ "Abstracts of Early Wills". The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. 7. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society: 35. 1853. ISSN 0028-4785. OCLC 835902126 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Town of Braintree. "Town of Braintree Massachusetts: About Braintree". Archived from the original on February 18, 2017.
- ^ Adams, Andrew N. (Andrew Napoleon) (1898). A genealogical history of Henry Adams, of Braintree, Mass., and his descendants; also John Adams, of Cambridge, Mass., 1632-1897. Boston Public Library. Rutland, Vt., The Tuttle company printers.
- ^ Drolet, Yves "The Aryan Order of America and the College of Arms of Canada 1880-1937", by Yves Drolet; Montreal, Canada, 2015, p. 25.
- ^ Fairbanks, Hiram Francis (1901). The ancestry of Henry Adams of Braintree, New England. Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. Milwaukee, Wis. : [s.n.]
- ^ "The statement in the Alden Collection" [full citation needed]
- ^ Winthrop, John; Savage, James (1825). The History of New England from 1630 to 1649. Vol. 1. Boston: Printed by Phelps and Farnham. p. 87–88. OCLC 367899915 – via HathiTrust.
- ^ Thayer, Elisha; Thayer, Samuel White; Jackson, Stephen Winchester (1835). "The Family of Adams". Family memorial. Part 1. Genealogy of fourteen families of the early settlers of New-England, of the names of Alden, Adams, Arnold, Bass, Billings, Capen, Copeland, French, Hobart, Jackson, Paine, Thayer, Wales and White. Hingham: J. Farmer, printer. bottom of p. 38. OCLC 6102556 – via HathiTrust.
- ^ Savage, James; Farmer, John (1860). "Adams". A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New-England, showing three generations of those who came before May, 1692. Vol. 1 - A to C. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 10. OCLC 68755144 – via Internet Archive. Reprinted in 2018: ISBN 978-0-266-24428-8
Further reading
edit- Bartlett, J. Gardner; Adams, Edward Dean; Banks, Charles Edward (1927). Henry Adams of Somersetshire, England, and Braintree, Mass.: his English ancestry and some of his descendants. New York, New York: [privately printed]. OCLC 1423748909 – via HathiTrust.
- Adams, Enid Eleanor (1974). Ancestors and Descendants of Jeremiah Adams, 1794-1883, of Salisbury, Connecticut, Sullivan County, New York, Harbor Creek, Pennsylvania, and Vermilion, Ohio, including known descendants of his brothers and sisters, most of whom went to Michigan: seventh in descent from Henry Adams of Braintree, Massachusetts. Victor, Idaho: Ancestor Hunters. OCLC 2709535, 866496689 – via FamilySearch.