Frederick Wilbur Adams, Harold Bertram Adams and John Quincy Adams
World War I Veterans
By Camille Arbogast
The three Adams brothers were all born in Dorchester at 15 Vinson Street: Frederick Wilbur, known as Fred, on February 12, 1894, Harold Bertram on January 27, 1896, and John Quincy on March 26, 1900. Their parents, Wilbur Fiske and Hattie Albert (Phipps) Adams, were originally from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, where they had married in 1888. They also had two daughters: Maude Augusta born in 1890 and Marion Louise born in 1893. Maude died of whooping cough in 1897.
Wilbur attended a commercial college, graduating in 1884. At the time of his marriage, he was a machinist. In the 1890s, he had his own business, manufacturing “door checks and springs.” By 1900, he was a superintendent with the W. A. Murfeldt Company, a contracting firm. In addition, Wilbur was a local Republican politician, serving on the Boston Common Council in the late 1890s, as an alderman representing Ward 20 at the turn of the century, and as a representative in the state Congress in 1901. He was also an active member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company.
In 1900, at 15 Vinson Street, the Adams family employed a live-in servant, Bertha Dorley, a 28-year-old recent Canadian immigrant. By 1902, they had moved to 31 Vinson Street. At these homes, Hattie’s mother, Emma Phipps, lived with the family, as did Hattie’s sister, Gertrude. Fred, Harold, and John all attended the Oliver Wendell Holmes school at 40 School Street in Dorchester; Fred graduated in 1909, Harold in 1911, and John in 1913. Fred was likely the Frederick W. Adams who graduated from Mechanic Arts High School in 1913 and was an athlete at the school.
In 1913, Wilbur was listed in the Boston directory as the president of the Dorchester Theatre Company, Incorporated, of 1524 Dorchester Avenue. The next year, he moved to Oakland, California, for his health. Wilbur was back in Dorchester by 1917, when he appeared in the Boston directory as an estimator living at 19 Paisley Park. Fred was employed as a clerk. Harold worked for the Passenger Traffic Railroad Company, based out of Oakland, California, where he lived at the Menlo Hotel. John was still in school, attending English High.
Fred enlisted in the First Engineers, Massachusetts National Guard, on May 7, 1917. Reporting for duty on July 15, he mustered as a private on August 4 and was assigned to Company 3. In August 1917, the unit was reorganized as Company E, 101st Engineers of the 26th Division, or the Yankee Division. Harold returned to Boston and enlisted Company D, First Engineers, Massachusetts National Guard, on August 1, 1917, reporting for duty that day, and mustering as private on August 4. Later that month, his unit was reorganized as Company D, 101st Engineers of the 26th Division, or Yankee Division. In August, the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company presented Company D with a mascot: a goat, the ancestor of which Wilbur had smuggled into the country from Bermuda in 1911. Wilbur personally presented an inscribed collar to be worn by the goat. On September 15, 1917, Fred was transferred to Harold’s unit. In D company, Fred joined not only his brother but also their brother-in-law, Cable N. Salter, as well as relations Ray Adams and George A. Wood.
In late September, the company marched down Huntington Avenue on their way out of Boston en route to France. They sailed on September 26, 1917, on the RMS Andania, departing from New York City. Arriving in France on October 19, they went to Rolampont where, according to My Company, the memoir written by the company’s captain Carroll J. Swan, they built “barracks, stables, refectories (mess halls), YMCA huts, and shower baths.” Next they were sent to Bettaincourt for “barrack construction,” then to Fréville for additional training: “gas-mask drills, bayonet work, ‘over the top’ problems, and rifle practice.” In early February, they moved to the front in the Chemin des Dames sector, where they worked with French troops on building projects, including a sixty-centimeter gauge railroad. In early April, they were in the Toul sector, where their work included constructing “machine gun emplacements, barbed-wire entanglements, [and] camouflage.” Some men also accompanied infantry troops on raids; their job was to blow up barbed wire, enemy trenches, and, once they reached enemy-held territory, important infrastructure, such as bridges. They were near Chateau Thierry in July, based in Bois de Gros Jean. For living quarters “each man dug himself a little hole in the ground, three or four feet deep, and three or four feet wide. Then he covered it over with brush.” Their first job was to bury the dead from the Battle of Belleau Wood. They also were to “lay out and build a system of trenches and wire in front of them, and later machine-gun positions.”
On July 17, 1918, Fred was slightly wounded in action. This was possibly the incident described by Captain Carroll J. Swan in My Company. While a group was out working for the night, “a shell we had not heard landed squarely in us. We shall never forget that terrible red light, nearly blinding us, and the terrific roar ringing in our ears for days. … There on the ground were seven or eight of my boys.” One man was dead, the rest wounded. “Fred Adams,” a former football player (incorrectly remembered as being from Newton), “had shattered his leg. He said: — ‘Captain, don’t bother about me; mine’s only slight. Take Jimmy Mullen, he’s hit bad. I just feel as if some football feller had kicked me in the shin, and I’ll get that feller yet.’”
A few days later, during the Aisne-Marne offensive, some platoons of the company fought alongside infantry regiments. They were also tasked with clearing towns recently won from the Germans, filling shell holes in roads so the Artillery could pass through, as well as burying the dead. Company D, 101st Engineers participated in the Saint Mihiel offensive September 12 through 16, 1918; were in the Troyon sector September 17 through October 8, 1918, and were part of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, October 18 through November 11, 1918. Fred and Harold returned to the United States on the USS Mount Vernon, leaving Brest, France, on March 27, 1919, and arriving in Boston on April 4. They were both discharged on April 28, 1919.
John graduated from English High School in June 1918. When he registered for the draft that September, Wilbur was the registrar. John entered Norwich Military College (today Norwich University) in Northfield, Vermont, with the class of 1922. He was inducted into the Army on October 18, 1918, serving in the Student Army Training Corps at Norwich. He was discharged on December 15, 1918, and left Norwich not long after. In 1926, he wrote to the Norwich alumni publication, “While I spent a comparatively short time at Norwich, I have the highest regard for everything connected with it and if I am still living in this section of the country by the time my eight-months-old son grows up, will send him to Norwich university and see that he stays there four years.”
By 1920, the three Adams brothers had returned to 19 Paisley Park; Fred was an assembler at the Hood Rubber Company of Watertown, Massachusetts, Harold was a rigger at a shipyard, and John was a clerk at a peanut product manufacturer. In 1921, the Boston directory listed Fred as a student. John was employed as an advertising manager at the American Mutual Liability Insurance Company by 1922, where he worked for the rest of his career. The 1922 Boston directory listed Harold as a salesman and Fred a clerk at the National Shawmut Bank.
John married Helen Morton Leahy on August 27, 1922. Born in Stoughton, Massachusetts, at the time of her marriage Helen lived at 11 Alpha Road in Dorchester and worked as a billing clerk. John and Helen were married at 4 Rosedale Street by David L. Martin, Minister of the Gospel. They had two children: John Quincy, Jr., and Joan. In 1930, the family was living at 27 Springfield Street in Watertown. In 1933, they moved to Belmont, Massachusetts, living at 112 Oakley Road in 1940. That year, John earned $3,500.
In 1957, they relocated to Peabody, Massachusetts. John retired in 1965 after 43 years with the American Mutual Liability Insurance Company.
Fred married Marion E. Hoyt in Boston on April 17, 1923. Born in Claremont, New Hampshire, Marion was a school teacher. Fred and Marion wed at her home in Dorchester, 95 Greenwood Street. The ceremony was conducted by Reverend Clarence E. Hellens of the Harvard Congregational Church. Harold served as best man and John as an usher. After the wedding, the couple departed on a honeymoon trip to New York, Atlantic City, and Washington, D.C. Fred and Marion would have three children: Barbara and twins Priscilla and Marilla. After their marriage, they lived at 292 Park Street in Dorchester. By 1926, they had moved to North Quincy, residing at 270 Billings Street. In 1929, they were living at 48 Prospect Street. Fred was a laundry salesman, according to the 1930 census. In 1936, he was appointed an inspector in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts motor vehicle division. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Fred’s address was sometimes given as 10 Newhall Street and at others as 74 Walker Street, homes which were next door to each other in North Quincy.
Harold remained living at 19 Paisley Park though the mid-1920s. On October 13, 1928, he married Esther Francis Kelm in Manhattan, New York. The marriage appears not to have lasted long; in 1930, Harold was living back in Dorchester at 35 Tonawanda Street with his widowed mother, Wilbur having died the previous November. Later, the 1940 census recorded that Harold was divorced. In the early 1930s, the Boston directory listed Harold as a salesman. Hattie died in 1936.
By 1938, Harold had moved to Quincy. The Quincy directory listed him as a salesman in 1938 and 1939 and a watchman at Quincy City Hospital in 1940. Like Fred, Harold’s address was sometimes given as 10 Newhall Street and at others as 74 Walker Street. The 1940 census recorded Harold living with Fred and his family at 74 Walker Street in Quincy, which they rented for $28 a month. Harold was earning $2,600 a year working as a clerk for a meat packing company; in 1942 he reported on his World War II draft registration that his employer was Proctor and Gamble on Washington Street in Quincy. In 1951, Harold was listed in the Quincy directory living at 203 Atlantic Street, while Fred and his family were still at 10 Newhall Street. Harold remained living at 203 Atlantic Street for about 15 years. In the 1960s, the Boston directory listed him as a watchman and an office worker at the First Church of Christ, Scientist. According to the Quincy directory, he retired by 1965.
Fred had moved to 48 Grandview Avenue in the Wollaston section of Quincy by 1955. He was still employed as an inspector in 1960, according to the Quincy directory. Fred died on August 22, 1962.
John, Helen, and Harold moved to Boynton Beach, in Palm Beach County, Florida, in the late 1960s, where they lived in the same condominium community, 770 Horizons East. John was a local historian, researching the history of Boynton Beach and serving on the city’s Bicentennial committee. Harold died on November 8, 1980, in Palm Beach. A service was held for him in Dorchester. John died on July 21, 1981, at the Boynton Beach Bethesda Hospital in Palm Beach, Florida, after a long illness. A service was held for him in Boynton Beach. Harold and John were buried alongside Fred in the family plot in Dorchester’s Cedar Grove Cemetery.
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