By Theo Francis
Daily Record
BOONTON — As Drew Magnuson and Jack Wootton pored
over dozens of hundred-year-old documents slated for
auction tomorrow, one name jumped out at them: John
Quincy Adams.
Among the worn exercise books, battered ledgers and
bundles of correspondence were countless notes on the
family history of Laura Adams, who traced her roots back
to the earliest days of the nation partly to document her
application to the Daughters of the American Revolution.
John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States,
it seemed, was Laura Adams’ grandfather.
But in history and genealogy, appearances can be
deceptive.
Just a few days before the approximately 400
documents, daguerreotypes, books and letters were to hit
the auction block, it became increasingly clear that
Magnuson and Wootton were victims of a historical fluke:
Laura Adams was descended from an entirely different John
Quincy Adams, a man who lived in New Jersey, possibly a
farmer, whose son was a blacksmith and whose son-in-law
was a mariner and ship captain.
Incomplete research
"I didn’t research it thoroughly
enough," Magnuson said after searching through
historical and genealogical documents. "It’s
another John Adams that fathered all these Adamses."
Magnuson, co-owner of Rascals Restaurant and Lounge in
West Orange who also runs an estate liquidation business
on the side, bought the documents as part of an estate
sale. He didn’t read through the papers at first, he
said, and then read them too naively before bringing them
to Wootton’s Old Feed Mill Auctions in Boonton for
tomorrow’s sale at 5:30 p.m.
They will still be sold, Wootton said. Although
Magnuson offered to withdraw the Adams material, Wootton
said all the papers and documents are still interesting
to history buffs. He is distributing a blush-pink flyer
— "to show a slightly red face" —
explaining the confusion and that John Quincy Adams is
"perhaps a farmer," not the late president at
all.
"I’m not really particularly
disappointed," Wootton said late last week.
The lack of a presidential connection makes the family
much less prominent, but no less interesting.
Sea captain Richard Higbee, Laura Adams’ other
grandfather, died when his ship, the A.J. Ingersoll,
burned at sea, leaving nothing behind but a charred flag.
It is through the Higbee family — of Higbeetown,
Great Egg Harbor, Atlantic County — that Laura Adams
traced her roots to establish membership in the Daughters
of the American Revolution.
In fact, her DAR application helped show that she
wasn’t related to President John Quincy Adams, or to
that man’s father, John Adams, signer of the
Declaration of Independence and the nation’s second
president. She mentioned neither of them when applying.
"If in fact she were a descendant of an Adams of
that magnitude, she would have used it," said Jan
Fitzgerald, assistant to the organization’s
president. "No doubt about it, she would have used
it."
Furthermore, the Adams National Historic Site in
Quincy, Mass., and the New England Historical
Genealogical Society don’t show the names of any of
Laura Adams’ relatives in their presidential family
trees.
Still, Laura Adams’ ancestors accompanied the
nation from before its birth through the turn of the 20th
century, her documents show.
Genealogical charts show these Adamses arrived in
Connecticut before 1700 and that the Higbees were here
before the Revolution. A deed from 1779 joins ships’
logs from the 1840s, daguerreotypes from the late 19th
century and several letters and early photographs of
family members who fought in the Civil War.
One letter tells of an uncle of Laura’s who died
at 18 in the war between the states.
The lined white paper is still crisp, the penciled
message nearly as legible as it was June 11, 1864, when
Pitman Adams wrote to his father — the elusive John
Quincy Adams of New Jersey.
"I have the honor to inform you," Pitman
Adams wrote from his Army hospital bed in Virginia,
"that I was wounded on the 1st of June at Cold
Harbor." A few days before, his arm had been
amputated. "I was struck with grapeshot, weight 4
o.z," he continued. "I would not care so much,
but Johnny had the first crack. … Tell Mother not to
worry, for I am feeling better."
Two weeks later, Pitman Adams was dead.
Wootton predicts that the selling will be fast and, at
times, expensive. He expects to sell several lots —
sometimes a single item, sometimes a collection of
related papers — each minute once the bidding
begins.
Even without the presidential connection, Pitman
Adams’ letter, together with his insignia and a
letter from an Army adjutant general, could sell for as
much as $3,000, he said. The total Adams collection might
bring $25,000 or even $30,000 — not much for so many
antiques more than 200 years old, but a lot for papers
and books.
But the money and the fleeting notoriety of
presidential heirlooms are less important than the
history, Wootton said.
"I thought the strength of the whole thing was in
the Civil War guy who got shot and the sea captain,"
he said. "I love it. I just love that part of
it."
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theo@theowire.com