John Thomas

In February 1829, President John Quincy Adams listed the members of his White House staff, including John Thomas, whom Adams identified as a porter. In this role, Thomas assisted the president and first family when they traveled, including by handling their baggage and assisting with their carriage. Also listed is a cook maid named Fanny Thomas.¹ It was relatively common for household employees in the early White House to work alongside their spouses, so it is plausible that John and Fanny were married. There were at least two other married couples working at the White House under President Adams: John Kirk and Elizabeth Kirk and Antoine Michel Giusta and Mary "Ellen" Newell Giusta. 

It is unclear when Thomas began working at the White House but he stayed in Adams’s employ after he left the presidency and moved with Adams to Quincy, Massachusetts. There, Adams described Thomas as “my Servant-man” and says he drove Adams’s carriage, ran errands for him, and constructed a hen-house on Adams’s property, among other tasks.² The wide variety of jobs that Thomas performed for Adams after the presidency suggests he probably performed many roles at the White House. He was working for Adams as late as 1838.³ Little else is known about Thomas at this point.⁴