A President Honors His Heritage and Instructs His Posterity
I don’t know when a presidential election has captured the attention of more of my friends and acquaintances than the one going on right now. As I have told you before, I have been interested in politics since I was about ten years old, but the 2016 election is a topic of conversation even among folks who never seemed very engaged until now.
Politicians like to tell us that this is the most important election that has ever taken place. Perhaps it is. However, it is not the first controversial one and it is certainly not the first one that has been bitter.
During the 2015 homeschool convention season, I wrote to you about the trip Ray and I took to the MassHOPE convention near Boston. While we were in the area, we toured historic sites related to President John Adams and his son President John Quincy Adams in Quincy, Massachusetts (which was then called Braintree). Each of these presidents served for just one term. Each ran for a second term, but both of those second elections were bitter ones.
In Quincy, we toured the birthplaces of both of the Adams presidents and we learned about the godly heritage of President John Adams and his wife Abigail, a godly heritage they passed down to their son John Quincy.
We toured the home of Deacon John Adams and the birthplace of his son President John Adams.
We also toured the home of John and Abigail Adams, that was the birthplace of their son John Quincy Adams. You can see President John Adams’ birthplace at right in the picture below because the houses are next door to one another.
Second President John Adams and his father Deacon John were not the first Adams family to live in Braintree. They were from a long line of Adamses who had lived in the area.
Ray, with the help of several family members, is currently updating his Exploring Government and plans to have it ready for students to study this fall. Last night I was proofreading a lesson when I came across this quote Ray had included from a letter by President John Adams.
What has preserved this race of Adamses in all their ramifications in such numbers, health, peace, comfort, and mediocrity [meaning evenness]? I believe it is religion, without which they would have been rakes, fops, sots, gamblers, . . . .
President John Adams’ great-great grandfather Henry Adams settled in Braintree, Massachusetts, after he took flight from religious persecution in England, bringing his wife and eight sons with him, c. 1638. Don’t get this Henry Adams confused with the second President’s great-grandson who was also named Henry. Whew! They used the same names a lot. Guess what John and Abigail Adams named their eldest daughter? That’s right! Her name was Abigail!
President John Adams respected his family heritage, and it was his heart’s desire that his descendants respect it as well. As Adams was growing up, his hometown had a cemetery which doubled as a cow pasture. Generations of his family were buried there. In 1809, eight years after he left the President’s House (later called the White House), John Adams and other residents of his hometown purchased the cemetery and gave it to the city of Quincy with the understanding that it would be a place of respect–and that it no longer be used as a cow pasture.
The cemetery is named Hancock Cemetery in honor of Congregational minister John Hancock, father of the John Hancock who signed the Declaration of Independence. The cemetery’s namesake is buried here, as is John Quincy, maternal grandfather of Abigail Adams, for whom the city of Quincy is named. This plaque in the First Parish Church across the street honors Abigail’s father.
John Adams honored the memory of his parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents by erecting large granite box markers beside what remained of the original grave markers.
President Adams himself composed the inscription on the marker of his great-great-grandfather. It reads:
In memory of HENRY ADAMS who took his flight from the Dragon persecution in Devonshire, England and alighted with eight sons, near Mount Wollaston. One of the sons returned to England, and after taking time to explore the country, four removed to Medfield and the neighboring towns; two to Chelmsford. One only, Joseph, who lies here at his left hand, remained here, who was an original proprietor in the Township of Braintree, incorporated in the year 1639. This stone and several others have been placed in this yard, by a great-great grandson, from a veneration of the piety, humility, simplicity, prudence, patience, temperance, frugality, industry and perseverance, of his Ancestors, in hopes of recommending an imitation of their virtues to their posterity.
We live in a culture which places the individual and the nuclear family on a pedestal. Let’s be careful not to emulate that culture to the detriment of the generations which come after ourselves.
When God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, he spoke of both the ancestors and the future generations of the sons of Israel:
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”;
and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel,
‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
God, furthermore, said to Moses,
“Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel,
‘The Lord, the God of your fathers,
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’
This is My name forever,
and this is My memorial-name to all generations.
Genesis 3:14-15
As we think about the upcoming election, let’s make prayerful decisions that honor the generations who have gone before us and that blesses the generations to come after us.