Personal life

Adams and Louisa had three sons and a daughter. Their daughter, Louisa, was born in 1811 but died in 1812 while the family was in Russia. They named their first son George Washington Adams (1801–1829) after the first president. Both George and their second son, John (1803–1834), led troubled lives and died in early adulthood.^[115][116] (George committed suicide and John was expelled from Harvard before his 1823 graduation.)

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  George Washington Adams by Charles King
  
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  John Adams II
  
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  Charles Francis Adams
  

Adams' youngest son, Charles Francis Adams (who named his own son John Quincy), pursued a career in diplomacy and politics. In 1870 Charles Francis built the first presidential library in the United States, to honor his father. The Stone Library includes over 14,000 books written in twelve languages. The library is located in the "Old House" at Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, Massachusetts.
John Adams and John Quincy Adams were the only father and son to serve as presidents until George H. W. Bush (1989–1993) and George W. Bush (2001–2009).
It has been suggested that John Quincy Adams had the highest I.Q. of any U.S. president.^[117][118]

Personality

Presidential Dollar of John Quincy Adams

Adams' personality was much like that of his father, as were his political beliefs.^[5] He always preferred secluded reading to social engagements, and several times had to be pressured by others to remain in public service. Historian Paul Nagel states that, like Abraham Lincoln after him, Adams often suffered from depression, for which he sought some form of treatment in early years. Adams thought his depression was due to the high expectations demanded of him by his father and mother. Throughout his life he felt inadequate and socially awkward because of his depression, and was constantly bothered by his physical appearance.^[5] He was closer to his father, whom he spent much of his early life with abroad, than he was to his mother. When he was younger and the American Revolution was going on, his mother told her children what their father was doing, and what he was risking, and because of this Adams grew to greatly respect his father.^[5] His relationship with his mother was rocky; she had high expectations of him and was afraid her children might end up dead alcoholics like her brother.^[5] His biographer, Nagel, concludes that his mother's disapproval of Louisa Johnson motivated him to marry Johnson in 1797, despite Adams' reservations that Johnson, like his mother, had a strong personality.^[5]