Charles Francis Adams Jr.

Charles Francis Adams Jr. (May 27, 1835 – March 20, 1915) was an American author, historian, and railroad and park commissioner who served as the president of the Union Pacific Railroad from 1884 to 1890. He served as a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War. After the war, he was a railroad regulator and executive, an author of historical works, and a member of the Massachusetts Park Commission. Early life Adams was born in Boston, May 27, 1835, into a family with a long legacy in American public life. He was the great-grandson of United States President John Adams and the grandson of President John Quincy Adams. His father Charles Francis Adams Sr. was a lawyer, politician, diplomat, and writer. His siblings were older sister Louisa Catherine Adams, wife of Charles Kuhn, of Philadelphia; older brother Hon. John Quincy Adams II, father of Charles Francis Adams III; historian Henry Brooks Adams; Arthur Adams, who died in childhood; Mary Adams, who married Henry Parker Quincy, of Dedham, Massachusetts; and historian Peter Chardon Brooks Adams, of Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, who married Evelyn Davis. Adams graduated from Harvard University in 1856 and then studied law in the office of Richard Henry Dana Jr. and was admitted to the bar in 1858. In 1895, he received an LL.D. degree from Harvard University. Civil War