And thousands of visitors still line the avenue each day, waiting for their tours to begin, waiting for their chance to witness for themselves this model of a perfect plantation life so clearly present and beautifully maintained here. This Mount Vernon was an ideal which Washington himself had never been fully able to inhabit, but it remains a powerful and important symbol for our national psyche. Almost literally, it was George Washington's “city on a hill," his ideal life that he was creating out of the promise and potential of the new world. But it was a life that future generations would enjoy more than he, for it was a life that could only be realized as a result of sacrifice and travail.
Washington's experiences away from this place, in the wilderness of western Pennsylvania and on the frigid heights of Valley Forge, on battlefields in New York and on a frozen river in New Jersey, would carry with them many essential lessons. He would learn to model a selfless devotion to duty for which he would receive no reward but honor, he would learn humbling lessons about what he could and could not accomplish as a soldier and a leader of men, and he would learn to dedicate himself tenaciously to his cause, regardless of personal cost or length of duty. More than anything else, these lessons—and his willingness to learn them—made George Washington the “Father of his Country."
And this, I suspect, is what brings us here by the thousands upon thousands. We come to appreciate his sacrifice, to acknowledge our debt of gratitude for his leadership, and to pay homage to his tireless efforts to achieve the ongoing ideal which became the nation he was so instrumental in founding.
John Adams and John Quincy Adams: Like Father, Like Son
[This chapter is unusual in that it treats two Presidents instead of one. It does so because our second and sixth Presidents were father and son. Even more unusual is the fact that so many key events in the lives of both Presidents have taken place in the same three houses. John was the first Adams to own all three of them. He had been born in the first house; he and Abigail had celebrated the birth of their first son, John Quincy, in the second house; and he and Abigail lived the remainder of their lives in the third house, the so-called “Old House" at Peace field where he died on July 4, 1826. As early as 1803, John Adams's eldest son, John Quincy Adams, purchased the houses where he and his father had been born. After the death of his father, John Quincy and his wife, Louisa Catherine, came into possession of the third home as well, The Old House at Peace field. Here they would spend many of their remaining summers. It would be here at The Old House in 1840 that John Quincy would meet with Lewis Tappan, one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, to plan the defense of the Amistad prisoners before the Supreme Court of the United States. Add to all this, the fact that the furnishings at The Old House at Peace field are almost entirely original to the four generations of Adams families who lived there, and it becomes clear that attempting to separate the lives of the two Presidents as they relate to these homes would be an exercise in futility. Hence, the combination chapter. Also, I must note that, as our family's first trip to the Adams National Historical Park was, in some ways at least, the most memorable, I have combined incidents from our two later visits to this site into the narrative of that initial journey.]
In July of the summer of 2003, our family had just concluded an enjoyable vacation with relatives on Long Island near New York City. I had recently finished reading David McCullough's illuminating biography of John Adams, and I suggested to Carol and to our two children, Katie and Andy, that this trip to the east coast might also afford us the opportunity to drive up to Quincy, Massachusetts, in a leisurely fashion (the map suggested it would be quite possible to do so in a morning) and tour the three Adams homes there. We would arrive, I assured everyone, by midday, check in at our hotel, eat a quick lunch, and proceed to visit the historic sites. Carol, Katie, and Andy all knew about my interest in such side trips, and everyone was gratifyingly willing to go along with my plan. We set off soon after breakfast. Unfortunately, our travels didn't work out exactly as I thought they would.
First, there was a drizzling rain. Then, a heavy, pelting, relentless torrent, a “monsoon season in the tropics" kind of downpour that began as soon as we patiently wended our way from Long Island onto interstate 95 and headed north toward southern Connecticut. Finally the storm settled in in earnest, waves of water lashing our rental car's windshield until visibility was so limited that I felt the fear rise in the gorge of my throat.
After what seemed like hours, hazy, briefly discernible road signs suggested that we had passed through Connecticut and were headed into Rhode Island, but all I could see with any clarity was the gray wash of fog and the interminable spray of trucks and impassioned motorists, all more eager than I to hurdle themselves into eternity.
By the time we finally arrived in Quincy, all that any of us had the energy to do was check into our hotel, order some pizza to be delivered to the room, and collapse into a heavy slumber to rest our jangled nerves and taut muscles. Tomorrow, as Scarlett O'Hara would invariably observe, would be “another day."
And, happily enough, tomorrow came, still cloudy but dry, and, with it, our adventurous spirits returned as well. We called a cab and had it deliver us to the Adams National Historical Park. After purchasing our tickets and briefly perusing the interior of the small but well-appointed Park Center shop, we were called to board a trolley-car tram that would take us to our desired destinations: the three Adams homesteads.
The fact that these three homes are still in existence suggests the wonderful foresight of several generations of the Adams family. They must have realized that, in providing two of the first six Presidents of the United States, the family needed to be remembered, their world safeguarded for future generations to revere and savor. Perhaps the Adamses themselves, in taking special care to prosper as well as govern, had insured by their persistent efforts the longevity of their legacy.
As the Beim-Esches disembarked from the tram at its first stop, we found ourselves facing a triangular shaped section of land, itself surrounded by roadways and more modern buildings, but sitting comfortably within its boundaries, two large historical structures.
The further building of the two, but the one toward which our guide first led us, was a two story, simple, brown, weathered, saltbox home with a central door and two ground floor windows, one on either side, surmounted by a second story with three windows, two placed directly above the ground floor windows, and a third positioned over the front door.
This home, the oldest of the three sites we would see today, was the “John Adams Birthplace" house. Owned by his father, Deacon John Adams, it was the home where the future second President had been born in 1735.
Like Adams himself, the house was unpretentious and direct, yet even in its advanced years, unmistakably sturdy and useful. There was no front hall to speak of, only a small landing at the foot of a narrow wooden spiral stairway leading to the upstairs bedchambers. Immediately to the right was the “Great Room," or “Winter Kitchen," including a fireplace at least seven feet wide. Beyond this room lay the largest space in the house, the “Summer Kitchen," an addition created by Deacon John. It provided an area where he could hold political meetings as well as oversee the ecclesiastical councils that were an important part of his duties as a Deacon of the church. The space included a long table that still stood, drawn up against the wall of that room, where, we were informed, the young John Adams would have listened to the wranglings and disputations regarding the politics of his father's age. The head spokesman of any such political meeting was denominated the chairman of “the board" that we saw literalized before us.
Our guide, Rick, informed us, however, that it would be a meeting of the ecclesiastical
