John Kirk

John Kirk was born in Ireland around 1791.¹ Sometime prior to 1826, he immigrated to the United States and married Elizabeth Eldridge Kirk. On October 21, 1826, President John Quincy Adams mentioned Kirk in his diary and identified him as a coachman working at the White House alongside his wife, a housemaid. It is unclear if the Kirks joined the president’s household earlier than this, but they served for the remainder of Adams’s presidency.² 

As coachman, Kirk drove the Adams’s various carriages and escorted the president and his family on trips, including to their home in Quincy, Massachusetts.³ The president stated that Kirk drove First Lady Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams during a journey from Boston to New York in 1827, and that Kirk and Louisa’s handmaid Jane Winnull served as her “attendants” during the trip.⁴

After Andrew Jackson defeated Adams in the 1828 presidential election, Kirk and his wife Elizabeth stayed in Adams's employ and moved with him to Quincy, Massachusetts. Kirk served in his same role as coachman but also ran errands for Adams and tended his garden.⁵ Kirk and Elizabeth worked for the Adams family until June 5, 1847, when Adams recorded in his diary: “Mr. & Mrs. Kirk have left the house, and their connexion with us.”⁶ Their reason for leaving is unclear. They remained in Quincy for the rest of their lives. John passed away on October 18, 1879 and was buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Quincy, Massachusetts.⁷