Louisa Adams Biography

Quick Facts

NAME: Louisa Adams
OCCUPATION: U.S. First Lady
BIRTH DATE: February 12, 1775
DEATH DATE: May 15, 1852
PLACE OF BIRTH: London, England

PLACE OF DEATH: Washington, D.C.
Maiden Name: Louisa Catherine Johnson

more about Louisa

Best Known For

Louis Adams was the first lady of the United States from 1825 to 1829 while her husband, John Quincy Adams, was president.

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Louisa Adams

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Synopsis

In 1795, Louisa Adams met 28-year-old John Quincy Adams, recently named American minister to the Netherlands, and two years later, his father became the American president. With John’s changing posts, the pair moved from Germany to Russia to England before he won the presidency in 1824. John Quincy lost the presidential election of 1828 and the couple stayed in Washington.

Quotes

“I have nothing to do with the disposal of affairs and have never but once been consulted."

– Louisa Adams

Profile

(born February 12, 1775, London, England—died May 15, 1852, Washington, D.C., U.S.) American first lady (1825–29), the wife of John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States.

Louisa Johnson was born to Joshua Johnson, an American businessman from Maryland, and an Englishwoman, Katherine Nuth Johnson. Louisa was the only first lady born abroad. When she was three years old her parents moved to Nantes, France, where she received her early education and became fluent in French. In 1783 her family, now including six children, returned to London, and Louisa, the second child, enrolled briefly in boarding school. After her father's business suffered losses, Louisa and her sisters were forced to withdraw from school, thus ending their formal education. But they were tutored at home by a governess, and Louisa became an avid reader.

Joshua Johnson often entertained fellow Americans at his London home, and it was there in 1795 that Louisa met 28-year-old John Quincy Adams, recently named American minister to the Netherlands. Over the next few months they agreed to marry, though neither set of parents approved of the match. By the time the ceremony took place in London on July 26, 1797, family circumstances had changed for both the bridegroom and the bride: John Quincy's father, John Adams, had become president of the United States, and Louisa's father had suffered financial ruin. All her life Louisa brooded that her husband had never received the dowry that he had expected; in an unpublished memoir that she wrote for her children, she lamented that he had “connected himself with a ruined house.”

After President Adams appointed John Quincy minister to Prussia, the Adamses moved to Berlin, where, despite her frequent illnesses, Louisa managed to be a popular hostess. In 1800, after John Adams lost his bid for reelection, the Adamses returned to the United States, and Louisa met her husband's family for the first time. It was not a pleasant experience for her, and she later wrote that she could not have been more astonished if she had stepped “into Noah's Ark.” Although she was never on the best of terms with her no-nonsense mother-in-law, Abigail Adams, Louisa became an instant and durable favourite of her father-in-law.

In 1801, after several miscarriages, Louisa gave birth to a son. Two other boys followed in 1803 and 1807.

In 1809 Louisa left the United States again. Without consulting her, John Quincy had accepted an appointment as American minister to Russia. The Adamses settled in St. Petersburg, where Louisa was greatly depressed by