Henry Brooks Adams was born in Boston, Massachusetts on February 16, 1838, the fourth of seven children of Charles Francis Adams and Abigail Brooks Adams. Henry's distinguished family included a great-grandfather, John Adams (1735–1826), who was the second President of the United States, as well as a grandfather, John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), the sixth President of the United States. Henry's boyhood memories included pleasant summers spent at Quincy, the residence of his paternal grandparents located seven miles south of Boston. A nearly fatal bout of scarlet fever shortly before his fourth birthday may have accounted for Adams's diminished physical stature (barely five feet three inches tall as an adult). A trip to Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D. C. with his father in 1850 exposed Henry to slavery and left a lasting impression; he and his family strongly opposed the institution. His formal childhood schooling was at the private Latin School of E. S. Dixwell in Boston where he was graduated in June 1854. On August 31 of that year, he began his collegiate studies at Harvard.
Henry was only an average student at Harvard but did contribute to the Harvard Magazine and was Class Orator for graduation. Throughout his life, Adams was critical of formal education; even Harvard could not escape his scorn. Following graduation in 1858, Henry sailed with several friends for the "Grand Tour" of Europe, a tradition that some of the privileged young men of the day enjoyed. Adams's specific plan was to study civil law in Berlin. Finding his German inadequate, he enrolled in a German secondary school. He spent most of 1859–1860 seeing Europe, significantly beginning his writing career by publishing travel letters in the Boston Daily Courier. Returning home in October 1860, Henry served in Washington as private secretary to his father, a member of Congress. He was also Washington correspondent for the Boston Daily Advertiser during this volatile period, just before the beginning of the Civil War.
