[2] He attended the local schools, but was "more indebted to himself than to teachers for his education, which, in addition to English, embraced the usual course in Latin and Greek".
[2] He then read law for four years in the office of Peyton R. Hayden, a distinguished lawyer at Boonville, gaining admission to the bar in 1835, and establishing a successful law practice in Boonville.
[1][2] On December 27, 1871, he was appointed by Governor Benjamin Gratz Brown to fill the seat on the supreme bench vacated by the resignation of Judge Warren Currier, and afterwards, at the election in November, 1872, Adams was elected to fill the balance of the term.
He was married in Boonville in 1840 to Eliza, daughter of William Brown, of Cynthiana, Kentucky.
[2] Adams died suddenly at his residence, in Boonville, of heart disease at age 68 or 69.