Ann "Nancy" Johnson was the oldest of eight surviving offspring, seven daughters and one son, of Joshua Johnson and Catherine Young Newth, and Walter Hellen Jr's first wife. Joshua was one younger brother of Thomas Johnson II, the first governor of Maryland. Joshua met Catherine while a merchant in London, and they began a relationship there before 1772, following which all their offspring were born in either England or France, before, during, or after the American Revolution, when Joshua returned to England and later became the first American consul in London.

No record of a marriage has ever been found for Joshua and Catherine from about the time of Nancy's conception, only what some have called "a renewal of vows" years later in 1785 at St. Anne's Church, Soho, London, England (distant from their home on Cooper's Row), which appears, if fact, to have been their actual legal marriage, the ceremony conducted quietly, and as privately as possible. Adams descendants and family genealogists are noted by the Massachusetts Historical Society as still unable to resolve this after decades of research. The same researchers have also concluded that none of their offspring ever learned of the 1785 marriage ceremony.

Surviving genealogical notes written by sister Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams also record their mother's full name as Catherine Young Nuth, Young her mother's, Mary's, maiden name.

Church records confirm Nancy's birth as noted, in London, on 22 Dec, 1773, and her baptism less than a month later on 16 Jan, 1774, also in Greater London at St. Botolph without Aldgate. Perhaps curiously, all those records note her as "Nancy", only later Johnson/Adams family sources and biographies referring to her actual given name as Ann, but always called Nancy instead. What few records note her actual first name spell it "Ann", not "Anne".

In the years Joshua and his family lived in London following their return, their home was at Number 8, Cooper's Row in the City of London, a brick, multistory mansion, steps away from the Tower of London, described by Louisa Johnson as "large, not sumptuous or extravagant". Joshua also appears to have kept a summer home outside London in Highbury, Islington, Greater London, that noted as their residence in the summer of 1792, perhaps where her attached portrait was painted.

The primary image posted for her here is dated as 1794, also in London of course, and in which she appears markedly different, now age twenty-one, from the miniature just two years before. Her sister, Louisa's, diary entries note Nancy as the most "vivacious" of all the Johnson sisters, much more than than Louisa herself. Her later notes of the family also record her parents so indulging Nancy with her love of sweets that she became quit overweight by late childhood, but lost that as a teen.

Nancy first met her future husband, also her first cousin, Walter Hellen Jr., in London in 1792, he then twenty-six years old and visiting, also then "clerking" for his uncle, Joshua, and she about nineteen. Interestingly, the miniature portrait of her, left, is also dated circa 1792, so as she then appeared to him. Although her younger sister, Louisa, noted him in her diary as "very handsome", she also noted she was not impressed with him…Nancy, it appears, was, however. The entire Johnson family returned to the United States in Nov of 1797, the first time any of the siblings had been in this country, Walter and Nancy engaged by the following April, and married in Washington in October of 1798. Prior surviving correspondence between her mother Catherine, and her sister Louisa, by then Mrs. Adams, noted the upcoming marriage between the first cousins and included a footnote on the date of the license as 18 Oct, 1798, the marriage assumed shortly thereafter. Walter had by that date become very successful and the couple first lived in a home "the third house from the President's House" on G Street, later moving by 1803 to a "sizable residence" on K Street in Georgetown.

Walter and Nancy took in her destitute mother, Catherine, and her five unmarried younger sisters after her father's death in 1802, followed by her sister Louisa and husband then Senator John Quincy Adams, plus their two sons, also moving into the Hellen Georgetown home in Oct of 1803. At that point, thirteen Hellens, Johnsons, and Adamses, plus perhaps six enslaved servants ("domestics"), all lived in the (fortunately) "sizable" residence, that number varying over the following years.

The Adamses continued to live with the Hellens part time, while Congress was in session, until 1808 when John resigned from the senate. Catherine Nuth Johnson remained with the Hellens until her death in 1811, and all her sisters, except for Catherine "Kitty" Johnson, until their respective marriages.

Nancy and Walter had seven confirmed offspring, four sons, two daughters, and one infant whose gender was not recorded. Two sons and one daughter died in infancy, and one unnamed infant died at birth, links as noted below. Nancy died in Dec of 1810 "just before New Year's Day" in childbirth per Adams correspondence, her sister Louisa noted as learning of it in St. Petersburg only in May of 1811. With this correspondence and other Adams' biographical sources, the badly deteriorated, near illegible inscription, is thought to read "December 30" as the correct date of death, but the 30th also recorded per the cemetery records as the date of internment, perhaps in error.

Three years later, Walter married her youngest sister, Adelaide, details of which may be found on Walter's and Adelaide's memorials.

Upon his death in 1815, Walter Hellen was interred in the same subplot with Nancy, almost certainly as he intended, the only such case noted in the cemetery records for this overall plot.

Nancy and Walter's daughter, Mary Catherine, would later marry her first cousin, John Adams II, the middle son of John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, Nancy's sister, in the White House in 1828.

Allan Garner - Rev: April 10 2024.