An Articulate Family The earliest document in the manuscript
records of the Adams family, upon which the present edition is
mainly based, is an agreement by which William Tyng of Boston
mortgaged to William Coddington of Aquedneck certain lands at
Mount Wollaston, now a part of Quincy, Massachusetts. This large
and handsome indenture is dated 10 April 1639, and the lands
were probably among those which the Adamses eventually acquired
through Abigail Adams’ descent from the Quincys, long the chief
landowners at “The Mount.” But for more than a century after
1639 there remain only a few wills, deeds, receipts, printed
fast-day proclamations, and scraps of correspondence to document
the history of a family of farmers, maltsters, and holders of
town offices who lived their lives below the level of historical
scrutiny. Then, in 1755, John Adams (1735–1826), second of his
name and great-great-grandson of the first Adams to settle in
Massachusetts Bay, was jolted by an earthquake into starting a
diary. With this rec