Adams, John Gregory Bishop, son of Isaac and Margaret Adams, was born in Groveland, Essex County, October 6, 1841.
He obtained a common school education, and spent the greater part of his boyhood and youth in that locality. In the early summer of 1861 he enlisted in Major Ben; Perley Poore’s rifle battalion, which later became the nucleus of the 19th Massachusetts regiment. He served through the war, rising to the rank of captain. He participated in every march, and was engaged in every battle of the army of the Potomac in which his regiment took part. At Fredericksburg he saved the colors of his regiment from capture, after eight color bearers had been killed. He was twice severely wounded in the second day’s fight at Gettysburg, and while in the advanced lines before Petersburg, on the 22d of June 1864, he was captured with his regiment, and for nine months suffered the miseries of a southern prison pen.
After the war he was for some years foreman in the factory of B. F. Doak & Co., but on account of failing health resigned that position to enter the inspector’s office in the Boston Custom House. He remained there fifteen months, when he was appointed postmaster at Lynn, which office he held eight years. On the establishment of the reformatory prison at Concord, he was appointed deputy superintendent, and in 1885 was made sergeant-at-arms for the Commonwealth, which important position he now holds.
Captain Adams was the first recruit mustered into Post 5, G. A. R. He was three times chosen commander, and was one year department commander of Massachusetts. He has been for eleven years president of the Association of Survivors of Rebel Prisons, and is president of the board of Trustees of the Soldiers’ Home. He has been connected with numerous local enterprises, having been one of the incorporators of the Lynn Hospital, Lynn Electric Light Company, and of the Thomson-Houston Electric Light Company.
Captain Adams was married in Boston, April 5, 1866, to Mary E., daughter of Benjamin E. and Almira Dodge. Of this union were two children, both deceased.