Louisa (Catherine) Adams - Further reading

US first lady (1825–9), born in London, UK. The daughter of a Maryland merchant and an English mother, she met the young John Quincy Adams in London in 1795 when her father was the first US consul; they were married in 1797. Renowned for her beauty, she stayed by her husband as he pursued his career in Europe and Washington, but often suffered from illness. In 1840 she began a memoir, The Adventures of a Nobody, but her many letters provide the most revealing glimpse of her world.

Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams (February 12, 1775 – May 15, 1852), wife of John Quincy Adams, was First Lady of the United States from 1825 to 1829.

She was born in London to an English mother, Catherine Nuth Johnson, but her father was American, Joshua Johnson of Maryland who served as United States consulate general in London after 1790.

A career diplomat at twenty-seven, accredited to the Netherlands, John Quincy Adams developed his interest in nineteen-year-old Louisa when they met in London in 1794.

She left her two older sons in Massachusetts for education in 1809 when she took two-year-old Charles Francis Adams to Russia, where Adams served as a Minister.

Peace negotiations called Adams to Ghent in 1814 and then to London.

When John Quincy Adams was appointed [James Monroe]'s [U.S. Secretary of State]the family moved to Washington D.C.

The pleasures of moving into the White House in 1825 were dimmed by the bitter politics of the election, paired with her deep depression.

Louisa thought she was retiring to Massachusetts permanently, but in 1831 her husband began seventeen years of service in the United States House of Representatives. she died in Washington in 1852, aged 77, and today lies buried at his side, as well as President John Adams and first lady Abigail Adams, in the United First Parish Church in Quincy, Massachusetts (also known as the Church of the Presidents).

First Ladies of the United States

M. Washington • A. Adams • M. Jefferson Randolph • D. Madison • E. Monroe • L. Adams • E. Donelson • S. Jackson • A. Van Buren • A. Harrison • J. Harrison • L. Tyler • P. Tyler • J. Tyler • S. Polk • M. Taylor • A. Fillmore • J. Pierce • H. Lane • M. Lincoln • E. Johnson • J. Grant • L. Hayes • L. Garfield • M. McElroy • R. Cleveland • F. Cleveland • C. Harrison • F. Cleveland • I. McKinley • Edith Roosevelt • H. Taft • Ellen Wilson • Edith Wilson • F. Harding • G. Coolidge • L. Hoover • Eleanor Roosevelt • B. Truman • M. Eisenhower • J. Kennedy • Lady Bird Johnson • P. Nixon • B. Ford • R. Carter • N. Reagan • B. Bush • H. Clinton • L. Bush

Preceded by: Elizabeth Kortright Monroe

First Lady of the United States 1825–1829

Succeeded by: Emily Donelson Jackson

Further reading

Allgor, Catherine.