John Quincy Adams II

John Quincy Adams II was born on September 22, 1833, in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the second of seven children born to Charles Francis Adams Sr. and Abigail Brown Adams. His paternal grandfather was Charles Adams and his maternal grandfather was Peter Chardon Brooks, a shipping magnate. Adams was a grandson of John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, and a great-grandson of John Adams, the second President.

He completed his higher education at Harvard University, graduating in 1853. Following his graduation, he studied law and was admitted to the Suffolk County bar in 1855. He practiced law briefly in Boston before developing an interest in agriculture. He established an experimental model farm of five hundred acres near Quincy, Massachusetts.

During the American Civil War, Adams served as an aide-de-camp to Governor John Albion Andrew of Massachusetts. He held the ranks of lieutenant colonel and later colonel. His duties involved visiting Massachusetts military units in the field and providing reports on their condition. In 1862, he made inspection visits to Massachusetts units operating in North Carolina.

Adams was involved in local politics in Quincy, serving as town meeting moderator, chairman of the school board, and judge of the local court. His political career at the state level included multiple terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He served in the legislature during several non-consecutive periods: 1865, 1867, 1870, and 1873.

Initially a member of the Republican Party, Adams switched to the Democratic Party in 1867 due to disagreements with Republican Reconstruction policies. As a Democrat, he was elected again to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1867, 1868, 1871, and 1874. He was the Democratic nominee for Governor of Massachusetts in each year from 1867 to 1871 but was not elected. In 1868, he received one vote for the Democratic presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention. The Democratic faction that refused to support Horace Greeley nominated Charles O'Conor for president and Adams for vice president in 1872 on the "Straight-Out Democratic" ticket; both declined, but their names remained on some ballots.

He was also an unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor in 1873 and again in 1876. Adams did not engage extensively in politics after the mid-1870s but was considered for a cabinet position by President Grover Cleveland in 1893. In 1877, he was appointed to the Harvard Corporation, the university's governing body.

In his personal life, Adams married Frances "Fanny" Cadwalader Crowninshield in 1861. She was the daughter of George Crowninshield and Harriet Sears Crowninshield, and granddaughter of Benjamin Williams Crowninshield, a former U.S. Secretary of the Navy. They had children together, including a daughter, Abigail.

Adams died on August 14, 1894, at the age of 60 in Wollaston, Massachusetts. He was buried at Mount Wollaston Cemetery in Quincy. His wife died in 1911, leaving an estate valued at approximately $1,200,000 to their three surviving children. Through his daughter Abigail, he was the grandfather of George Casper Homans, a sociologist and the founder of behavioral sociology and the Social Exchange Theory.