Early Life
John Adams was born on October 30, 1735, in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts. His father, John Adams Sr., was a farmer, a Congregationalist deacon and a town councilman, and was a direct descendant of Henry Adams, a Puritan who emigrated from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638. His mother, Susanna Boylston Adams, was a descendant of the Boylstons of Brookline, a prominent family in colonial Massachusetts.
At age 16, Adams earned a scholarship to attend Harvard University. . After graduating in 1755, at age 20, Adams studied law in the office of John Putnam, a prominent lawyer, despite his father's wish for him to enter the ministry. In 1758, he earned a master's degree from Harvard and was admitted to the bar.