John Adams II was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, on July 4, 1803. He studied at Harvard University, but was expelled during his senior year for participating in the 1823 student rebellion to protest the curriculum and living conditions at the university. He then studied law under his father, and when John Quincy Adams became President, his son served as his private secretary. At a White House reception during the John Quincy Adams presidency, Russell Jarvis, an anti-Adams reporter for the Washington Daily Telegraph, believed that President Adams publicly insulted Mrs. Jarvis. Since the President was considered to be immune from a dueling challenge, Jarvis attempted to initiate a duel with John Adams II, who had been at the reception. Jarvis's effort to provoke an incident led to a highly publicized fistfight in the Capitol Rotunda, with Jarvis pulling the nose of and slapping Adams, and Adams refusing to retaliate. An investigating committee of the United States House of Representatives determined that Jarvis had initiated the attack, but took no other action. Louisa Adams always believed that the negative press generated by this incident, with John Adams II being accused of cowardice by newspaper editors who supported Andrew Jackson, led to Adams' early demise. John Adams II, his older brother George and his younger brotherCharles were all rivals for the same woman, their cousin Mary Catherine Hellen, who lived with the John QuincyAdams familyafter the death of her parents. In 1828 John married Mary Hellen at a ceremony in the White House, and both his brothers refused to attend. John Adams II and Mary Hellen were the parents of two daughters, Mary Louisa and Georgiana Frances.
Death
After his father left the White House, John attempted a career in business, including operating a Washington flour mill owned by his father. His lack of success and despondency over his brother George's alcoholism and 1829 suicide led to John's own descent into alcoholism. He died in Washington, D.C. on October 23, 1834 and is buried in Quincy's Hancock Cemetery. Mary Hellen Adams continued to reside with John Quincy and Louisa Adams and helped care for them in their old age. She died in Bethlehem, New Hampshire on August 31, 1870.
