Uncovering America's Heritage... Coin by Coin

John Adams Presidential $1 Coin

Our second Presidential $1 Coin features our second President, John Adams.  Here are a bunch of facts you may not know about him:

• Adams was born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1735.  His son, John Quincy Adams, also served as the nation's president.
• Adams was a lawyer educated at Harvard University.
• A leader in the move for independence, he was a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses.
• During the Revolutionary War, Adams served as a diplomat in France and Holland and helped negotiate the treaty of peace.
• From 1785 to 1788, he was minister to the Court of St. James's in England.
• He was Vice President under George Washington.
• While he was President, France and England were at war.  President Adams tried to keep the United States out of it but, by 1800, we were practically at war with France on the sea.  Peace with France came after France finally agreed to talk.
• President Adams lost the 1800 election to Thomas Jefferson by only a few electoral votes.  Jefferson had been Adams's Vice President.
• Adams was the first President to live in the newly-constructed White House.
• Adams retired to his farm in Quincy, Massachusetts.  He died on the 4th of July, 1826, at the age of 90.

—Inspector Collector