Reply #70: Not quite

[melody]

I've been to the Adams farm. I've even driven the distance to where the farm began and ended. It was 44 acres -- 40 inherited and four purchased in a trade of horses. He most certainly did work the farm by himself (with Quincy and later Thomas and Charles to a lesser extent). The hands were not hired (there were no black people -- not one) until well after John had attained high office. Many of them came to work with them at Peacefield. As for the Boylstons, you must know what they thought of John's father. They inherited nothing and she came without dowery.

John went to Harvard by teaching school to pay his way. Edited to add John's own words from his short autobiography:
"He then passed 3 years at Worcester, among black-letter French and Latin law, and kept school to pay for the privilege."

The contention was that John was "wealthy". He was not -- he had to work his way through college.

By that estimate, my great-grandfather's 57 acre farm must have made him a titan of industry.