Quincy – United First Parish Church

This is the fourth church to have been built either on this site or nearby, with this building dating to 1828. I was fortunate that it has only just re-opened this week, so I was able to get a guided tour of the church.

The interior of the church with everything being mostly original, including the pews, although the organ dates to the early twentieth century. The church uses granite donated by John Adams and it was designed in the Greek revival style.

Visitors to the church are allowed to sit in the Adams Pew. There were two of us on the tour and the other person didn’t want to sit in the pew. But I did. So I did.

There’s a little plaque marking that this was the pew used by the Adams.

Interesting pulpit arrangement.

A model of the earlier building. The lump of the wood in the corner is important as it’s an original part of the church in the model, it’s one of the supports in the tower.

This weather vane is from the second church and it was moved to the third church. Someone pinched it, but it was reclaimed, although not before it had been used as target practice.

However, it is in the crypt that the pride of the church is held, it’s the body of the second President of the United States and the first Vice-President of the United States, John Adams.

As if having the remains of one President isn’t enough, the church has two. The other is John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States. There’s only one other President who is buried in a church, which is Woodrow Wilson who has been laid to rest in Washington National Cathedral.

There’s an optional charge for the tour of $5, which I paid as I thought that it was all just fascinating. The tour lasted for around 35 minutes and the crypt was kept until the end, and was a highlight. There’s another quirk of history, as both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (the third President of the United States) died on 4 July 1826, exactly 50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.