FLOTUS: First Ladies of the United States

Louisa Adams

Louisa Catherine Adams (néeJohnson; February 12, 1775 – May 15, 1852) was the First Lady of the United States from 1825 to 1829 during the presidency of John Quincy Adams.

Early life

Adams was born on February 12, 1775, in the City of London, the illegitimate daughter of Joshua Johnson, an American merchant from Maryland, whose brother Thomas Johnson later served as Governor of Maryland and United States Supreme CourtJustice, and Catherine Newth, an Englishwoman, whose identity was long a mystery; her grandson Henry Adams joked that her existence was"one of the deepest mysteries of metaphysical theology."

She was baptized as Louisa CatherineJohnson at the parish church of St. Botolph without Aldgate on 9 March 1775 when her parents' names were recorded as Joshua and Catharine and their address was given as Swan Street. She had six sisters: Ann "Nancy," Caroline (mother of UnionGeneral Robert C. Buchanan, wife of Andrew Buchananand later Nathaniel Frye), Harriet, Catherine, Elizabeth (second wife of UnitedStates Senator John Pope of Kentucky), and Adelaide, and a brother, Thomas. In 1778, when Louisa was three years old, her father moved the family to Nantes, France, due to his political views supporting the American Revolution. The family remained there for five years, establishing themselves as a strong social presence among diplomats and ambassadors.

Education

Adams attended a Catholic boarding school as a child until her father's finances forced her and her siblings to leave and be educated by a governess. She became an avid reader and excelled in arts and music.

Marriage and children

She met John Quincy Adams at her father's house in Cooper's Row, near Tower Hill, London. Her father had been appointed as United States consul general in 1790, and Adams first visited him in November 1795. Adams at first showed interest in her older sister but soon settled on Louisa. Adams, aged 30, married Louisa, aged 22, on July 26, 1797, at the parish church of AllHallows-by-the-Tower, on Tower Hill. Adams's father, John Adams, then president of the United States, eventually welcomed his daughter-in-law into the family, although they did not meet for several years.

Her parents left Europe in 1797 and went to the U.S. When her father was forced into bankruptcy, President John Adams appointed him as U.S. Director of Stamps. Her father, who suffered from mental illness, died in Frederick, Maryland, in 1802 of severe fever, leaving little provision for his family. Her mother died in September 1811, in her mid-fifties, and is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery.

During the course of her marriage, Louisa Adams had fifteen pregnancies, leading to ten miscarriages and four children. The children were:

George Washington Adams(1801–1829), lawyer

John Adams II (1803–1834), presidential aide

Charles Francis Adams (1807–1886), diplomat, public official, and author

Louisa Catherine Adams (August 12, 1811 – September 15, 1812), the first American citizen born in Russia, was born and died in St Petersburg, Russia, buried in the Lutheran Cemetery there.