We spent a few hours Tuesday afternoon sight seeing and enjoying a history lesson.
This is where our trip began, this is the view from the 4th level of the parking garage.
We had another good weather day, sunny and in the mid 50's.
The girls got a good look at the view then wanted their picture taken.
Then we made our way to the
National Historical Parks visitors center where we bought our tickets for the tour
and got on the trolley.
Picture from
National Historical Parks - Photo Gallery
Our first stop was the birth place of the 2nd President of the United States,
John Adams .
And just 75 feet away, the birth place of
John Quincy Adams , the sixth President of the United States.
We went room by room on the lower levels with the volunteer tour guide telling the story of the family, history of the houses and pointing out items in the houses and how they would have been used.
Sorry, cameras are not allowed to be used inside, and there are no interior photos on the web site, so I can't show you inside. It was all very interesting.
The street that you see on the left side of the picture above was one of the first major roads in the US, connecting Boston and Plymouth.
Then we got back into the trolley for another short ride to
The Old House at Peacefield
The first part of our tour was a lecture, that took place on the front porch, about the house and the family history.
Then we went inside, stepped into a beautiful
hallway , to the left we could look into the
wood paneled room ,
northeast view ,
northwest view to the right we were able to enter the
dining room ,
east view .
We went through the dining room to the
long room . The picture shows only a small section of this room, there are many more pieces of furniture that match the settee and chairs.
Then we headed back through the dining room and went upstairs to the second level, first we saw
the study, we walked down the hall to another doorway to another view of
the study . I wish that there were more pictures, there is a chair that I really liked in the corner inside the second doorway, it would be to the right of the first picture.
Next we entered a bookshelf lined hallway from which we viewed the
guest bedroom ,
west view . We saw the room from the doorway in the west view picture.
At the end of the hall we saw the
President's bedroom ,
south view , I think this room would be very nice in miniature. Then the
bathroom , notice the desk and table at the back of room, every morning Abigail Adams would dictate notes about the day ahead, schedules and plans to two of her maids, while taking her bath. Then
Brooks Adam's Bedroom .
The next hallway we found the head maid's room, the maid's bathroom (sorry, no pictures) and the
travelers/visitors head maid's room , head maid's had very nice quarters, I wouldn't mind staying there for a visit.
We then went down the back stairs and entered the
Kitchen , the door on the left side was open so that we could see into a pantry that contains a wonderful collection of glassware, plates, platters and stands
Picture 1 ,
Picture 2 from Travel Photo Base . We went through a butler's pantry with beautiful glass cases filled with sets of blue and white china
Picture of one set from Travel Photo Base. Then passed through another beautifully decorated hallway and exited to the front porch.
I'm not sure that I have the order of the thing that we saw totally correct but it's close.
Most of the photos that I linked to above can be found at the
National Historical Parks - Gallery if you would like to look at all of them on your own.
Next we followed a path around the side of the house, past the gardens (there's not much left now but it still looks pretty)
to the stone library
Pictures 1 ,
2 ,
3 and
4 from Travel Photo Base .
Close up 1 and
2 of the weathervane from Flickr
You can find more pictures of The Old House at Peacefield and the Stone Library at
Travel Photo Base
We got back on the trolley and went back to the visitors center
where I took a picture of MJ and Jaynie in front of a large photo of the stone library.
Before we headed home we drove back to the birthplace houses to take a few pictures.
The 2 pictures of these houses above where taken at this time.
The back of the house.
One more photo of MJ and Jaynie, (oops, I forgot to put MJ's shoes back on for the picture).
it's starting to get dark, time to go home.
I hope that you enjoyed taking this trip with us, we had a great afternoon and learned a lot thanks to showing MJ some of our area. We enjoyed it so much that we are planning to return next spring to get a good look at the grounds when they are in bloom.
Thank you for visiting, Mary
