Quincy's two most famous houses are closed for the rest of this year's tour season, in America's 250th anniversary year. The reason is the anniversary itself. The National Park Service shut the Adams Farm at Penn's Hill, where John Adams and John Quincy Adams were born, for a major restoration project it is carrying out in honor of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. The closure lasts through the end of the 2026 tour season.
So the city's anniversary fall is happening somewhere else. It now runs through Peacefield, a Navy cruiser, a tide mill, a cemetery, a church crypt, and a Saturday the weather has already moved once. By November it is expected to reach a 17-acre park in Squantum whose history goes back further than any Adams.
Penn's Hill Is Being Restored Toward the Adamses' Farm
According to the Park Service, decades of development and modernization around 141 Franklin Street left the birthplaces sitting in surroundings that "little resembles" the farm John and Abigail Adams knew. The project aims to restore parts of that historic setting and improve visitor use and access. The Park Service has not published the specific construction work on its tour page.
The closure covers every Penn's Hill program on this year's schedule. That includes the self-guided Revolutionary Farm visits, the Birthplace of Presidents guided tour, and Revolutionary Resilience, the 30-minute tour that follows Abigail Adams through the Revolution as she lived it on the farm. All three are listed as currently unavailable. The 2026 season ends October 31. The Park Service has not posted a reopening date, so the most anyone can say is that the birthplaces are expected back in a later season.
Peacefield Carries the Adams Story Through October 31
The Visitor Center at 1250 Hancock Street and the Old House at Peace field at 135 Adams Street are not affected. The Visitor Center is open Wednesday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. You reserve guided tours there in person on the day of your visit, first come, first served. You also need an entrance pass in addition to the reservation.
Two tours remain on the schedule, both covering the Old House and the Stone Library:
- Presidents at Peace field, 30 minutes, focused on John and Abigail Adams and John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams. Starts at 9:45 a.m., 11:15 a.m., 1 p.m., 2:30 p.m. and 4 p.m.
- Legacies of Leadership, 45 minutes, covering four generations of the family who lived at Peace field. Starts at 10:30 a.m., noon, 1:45 p.m. and 3:15 p.m.
A few practical rules come up every season. Bags larger than 9 by 11 by 5 inches are not allowed in the historic homes, and the park has no lockers. Food, drinks and water are not permitted inside. The only public restrooms are at the Visitor Center. The free park trolley still loops between the Visitor Center and Peace field.
With four weeks left in the season and the birthplaces off the schedule, Peacefield is now the only Adams home in Quincy open for tours this season.
October 17, Second Attempt
The city's free Open Heritage Day was scheduled for Saturday, September 26. On September 22, AM Quincy reported that it had been rescheduled because of a forecast of heavy rain and wind. The new date is Saturday, October 17, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Discover Quincy lists the Quincy History Working Group and local volunteers as organizers.
Peacefield is on the participant list. So are Old Town Hall, the Adams Academy and Quincy Historical Society, Church of the Presidents, Hancock Cemetery, USS Salem, the Josiah Quincy House, the Quincy Quarry and Granite Workers Museum, Souther Tide Mill, and the Dorothy Quincy Homestead. In effect, the city is opening a dozen doors for one day in the same year the Park Service closed two.
"On Open Heritage Day, we will open the doors to so much incredible history across our City," Mayor Tom Koch said in the city's announcement, calling it "a day for families and visitors to walk in the footsteps of our past."
Here is how the city has published the day's schedule, by time:
- 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.: USS Salem is open to visitors. Church of the Presidents offers self-guided tours, including the Adams Crypt. Old Town Hall Museum offers self-guided tours. Hancock-Adams Common has colonial lawn games and a self-guided QR-code tour of the Common.
- 10 a.m. to noon, then 1 to 4 p.m.: Guided tours of Hancock Cemetery leave every 30 minutes.
- Noon to 4 p.m.: Souther Tide Mill runs rolling presentations.
- 12:15 to 12:45 p.m.: City Historic Heritage Director Bob Damon gives a lunchtime lecture on the Common.
- 4 to 5 p.m.: Historian Brooke Barbier presents "Cocked and Boozy: An Intoxicating History of the American Revolution," about drinking and tavern culture in the Revolutionary era.
The Barbier talk runs an hour past the official close, so the day really ends on the Common. Every program is free.
The city has not published separate programs for the Josiah Quincy House, the Dorothy Quincy Homestead, or the Quarry and Granite Workers Museum. It says only that more tours, demonstrations and exhibits will take place around the city.
Getting between sites is the main planning question. Free trolleys will pick up at the Quincy Historical Society, 8 Adams Street, and behind the Munroe Building next to City Hall. There will be on-street parking near the Heritage Hubs, and community ambassadors will be at sites throughout the day.
The Same Saturday, Across Town
October 17 is also the date of the Montclair Wollaston Neighborhood Association's free Pumpkin Spice Festival, noon to 4 p.m. at Bishop Field on Holbrook Road. It has family activities and live music. The two events overlap from noon to 4, so a household with young children and a history fan can plan a split day: cemetery tours and the tide mill in the morning, Bishop Field in the afternoon, and back to the Common for Barbier at 4.
If you want a lower-key start before the 17th, Discover Quincy lists an Adams History Trivia Night on Wednesday, October 7, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Break Rock Brewing, 534 Victory Road.
Squantum Is Next, and Its Story Is Older
The anniversary year's Revolutionary history is concentrated around Quincy Center. Another historic site is taking shape on Moon Island Road, with a much longer timeline. The City of Quincy calls its new partnership with the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag historic. The tribe plans to open a community center at 20 Moon Island Road in Squaw Rock Park to share its history and culture on land the city describes as sacred to the Massachusett.
The park will also get a statue of Chickataubut, the 17th-century sachem, and his son Wampatuck. Nationally recognized sculptor Wesley Wofford designed it, and local sculptor Ryan Ackerman of Monti Ackerman Sculptures designed the base. The city hopes to install it in November 2026, just before Thanksgiving. That is a target, not a confirmed date. The Quincy Sun identified the piece as Generations. A model was shown at a September 2 community meeting at the Kennedy Center that drew more than 150 people.
Faries Gray, sagamore of the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag, attended the meeting and said the community center will serve both the tribe and the wider Quincy community. Mayor Koch called Squaw Rock a sacred site for Massachusett people, along with Moswetuset Hummock and Broad Meadows, and said, "This was their home certainly long before the Kochs were here."
For people who park, walk or vote in Squantum, the first phase will bring the most immediate changes:
- Parking: The lot has 36 spaces today, with room for another 22 cars on Moon Island Road. The rebuilt lot is planned for 69 spaces, including four accessible spaces, and parking on Moon Island Road will end.
- Walking: A new signalized pedestrian crossing is planned near the bend where Dorchester Street becomes Moon Island Road, along with a six-foot sidewalk where grass is now.
- Buildings: The smallest of the three buildings near the lot is to be torn down, and the new entrance will go where it stands.
Mayor Koch said he scaled the lot back from an earlier proposal after residents raised concerns about losing green space. Natural Resources Commissioner Dave Murphy said the lot would be finished this fall. He noted that the city is aware the Nickerson Post on the site is a polling place for the November election.
The park itself comes later. The city bought the 17.2 acres from Boston in 1974, and Murphy said about 5,000 square feet of asphalt and cement still remain from its years as a Nike missile base. The second phase, which covers trails, invasive species and safety, could begin in early 2027. The city plans at least one more meeting on it. Murphy told the meeting the city will "partner with the tribe to turn Squaw Rock into an outdoor classroom."
That makes the rest of the year's calendar easy to lay out. Peacefield tours run through October 31. Open Heritage Day opens a dozen sites on October 17. If the city keeps its schedule, the Chickataubut and Wampatuck statue goes up on Moon Island Road in the weeks before Thanksgiving.
The Park Service reminds visitors that the Adams houses were built as family homes, not tourist attractions. If you are weighing how an older Quincy home, or a newer one near these sites, fits your plans, Barrie Naji at Global Lux Collective would be glad to talk it through. Schedule a private consultation.
