For a thorough discussion of the matching portraits of John and Abigail Adams reproduced in this volume, see Henry Wilder Foote, “Benjamin Blyth, of Salem: Eighteenth-Century Artist,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 71 (1953–1957): 64–107, especially p. 64–71, 81–82. See also a note under Adams’ Diary entry of [6 or 13] August 1766 at p. 318.

See the references under the preceding illustration.

These are the first manuscript pages of John Adams’ Diary, begun several months following his graduation from Harvard College and soon after he had begun keeping a school in Worcester, upon the occasion of a visit to his home in Braintree. Concerning the physical character and history of the Diary, see the Introduction.

Found by the editors in John Adams’ Docket Book, cut in half and sewed in. The manuscript had been cropped for binding, but fortunately a passage of the text now missing had earlier been printed by Charles Francis Adams; it is quoted in the note under the Diary entry of 3 April 1761, in which Adams mentions showing the map to Colonel Josiah Quincy, p. 210–211. The map shows seven Weymouth taverns: Cowens’, two Nashes’, Taft’s, Porter’s, Whitmarsh’s, and White’s. Five taverns are located in Braintree: Thayer’s, Clark’s, Wales’, Vinton’s, and Hubbard’s. Not shown are two taverns in the North Precinct of Braintree, Bass’s and Brackett’s, which are mentioned in the Diary entry of 12 August 1760, p. 152. See John Adams’ observations on the evils of taverns, 1760–1761, at p. 128–130, 190–192, 212–216.

Water color in the first volume of a manuscript by Eliza Susan Quincy entitled “Memoir” in the Quincy Family Collection. The xhouse on the far left was that occupied by John Adams after his marriage in 1764 and was the birthplace of John Quincy Adams. The house next to it was the home of Deacon John Adams and the birthplace of John Adams. The house on the far right was that of the schoolmaster Joseph Marsh where John Adams was prepared for college. The abrupt hills rising on the opposite side of the valley were the site of the later famous Quincy granite quarries; Dorchester Heights and the city of Boston may be seen in the distance. This view was taken from Penn’s Hill. See a note under Adams’ Diary entry of 17 March 1756 at p. 15.

Water color in the first volume of Eliza Susan Quincy’s manuscript “Memoir.” Mount Wollaston Farm, which included the site of Thomas Morton’s “Merrymount,” was the estate of Abigail Adams’ maternal grandfather, Colonel John Quincy. In 1767 it passed into the hands of his son Norton Quincy, and it was from here that John and John Quincy Adams took ship for France in February 1778. After Norton Quincy’s death in 1801 the property passed into the hands of the Adamses. In 1875 Eliza Susan Quincy noted on the back of the drawing: “The Lime tree in the foreground of this sketch stood behind the house formerly the residence of Rev. Mr. Hancock, the birthplace of his distinguished son — John Hancock. . . . The splendid limetrees in front of the house of John Quincy, seen in the distance, in this sketch, are yet standing, although the house is gone.” See the Diary entries of [25 June] 1760, 13 August 1769, and 13 February 1778 and notes in the present volume p. 141, 340–341, and vol. 2:269–270.

Water color in the second volume of Eliza Susan Quincy’s manuscript “Memoir.” The First or North Parish Church, built in 1732 and enlarged in 1805, dominates the scene. John Adams was baptized in this church by the Reverend John Hancock in 1735. On the right, Eliza Susan Quincy’s number 1, is the house of the Reverend Peter Whitney, minister of the First Church, 1800–1843. On the left, number 2, is the “former residence of Gov. Shirley.” Far in the distance, number 3, is the Germantown estate of Joseph Palmer, the glass manufacturer, where John Adams was frequently a visitor. Number 4 is the former residence of the Reverend Anthony Wibird, minister of the First Church, 1775–1800. It was here that John Adams spent a night in January 1759 “reading the Reflections on Courtship and Marriage”; see p. 72.

A 19th-century engraving from William S. Bartlet’s Frontier Missionary: A Memoir of the Life of the Rev. Jacob Bailey…, Boston, 1853, p. 79. The three-story wooden courthouse was built in 1761, as the seat of government for Lincoln County. Gershom Flagg, a Boston housewright, was the builder. The courtroom was on the second floor; the lower floor was occupied as a dwelling by Major Samuel Goodwin. After 1794 the court functions were transferred to Wiscasset, but the old courthouse still stands. See the note on John Adams’ Accounts, 7–12 June 1765, at p. 259. For his description of a trip to Pownalborough in 1765, see his Autobiography, vol. 3:281–282.

A 1769 impression, with revisions and additions, of Captain John Bonner’s map of Boston originally engraved in 1722. The changes in the new edition consisted primarily in the addition of new streets on and around Beacon Hill. John Adams’ residences in Boston from 1768 to 1774 were in Brattle Square, Cole Lane, again in Brattle Square, and finally in Queen Street. See Diary entries and notes in the present volume, p. 339; vol. 2:63–64, 68; also vol. 3:286–287, 291, 296–297.

Rex v. Preston, the first of the trials growing out of the “Boston Massacre,” was tried in the Suffolk Superior Court, 24–30 October 1770, John Adams serving as co-counsel for Preston in one of the most famous cases in his career as a lawyer. See the note on Diary entry of 10 January 1771, vol. 2:1–2, and Autobiography, vol. 3:292–294.