[3] Opened in 1872, the Academy operated as a college preparatory school for just over three decades, ultimately closing in 1908.

[7] Adams advised that both structures be built from local Quincy granite sourced from his quarry lands.

[3] A parcel consisting of 8 acres (0.032 km2) in Quincy Center was chosen for the schoolhouse, with Adams' request that the structure be erected specifically upon the "ancient cellar" of a former house built and inhabited by John Hancock Sr. and his family — the birthplace of Hancock's son, founding father and Governor of Massachusetts John Hancock — and later occupied by several eras of influential Quincy figures and families personally revered by Adams, including Adams' childhood pastor Rev.

[7] The school came significantly later — approximately fifty years after the founding of the Adams Fund, its board of supervisors hired the architects William Robert Ware and Henry Van Brunt to design the schoolhouse.

For many years, it was used by a variety of civic organizations, including the Boy Scouts, American Legion, and the Red Cross.