The book opens with the birth of Henry Adams, “[u]nder the shadow of the Boston State House,” in the third residence below Mount Vernon Place on February 16, 1838. Adams briefly refers to his heritage as the great-grandchild of one United States President, John Adams (1735–1826) and the grandson of another, John Quincy Adams (1767–1848). Presenting his early childhood in a series of impressions, he contrasts Boston, where he spent winters, and Quincy, the nearby (seven miles south) summer home and residence of his paternal grandparents. Three events strike the narrator as especially significant: a bout of scarlet fever beginning December 3, 1841; an incident of discipline from the “President” (his name for his paternal grandfather, John Quincy) when the boy was six or seven; and John Quincy’s paralyzing stroke on February 21, 1848, which brought the grandfather’s death later that year.
