Where they had their day

Adams National Historical Park

Abigail Adams was the great woman behind two great presidential men: husband John Adams and son John Quincy Adams. Insightful and intellectual, Abigail shaped John’s vision of the new nation and raised her son with an abiding sense of social and civic responsibility. Learn her tale on visits to three Adams family homes in erstwhile rural Braintree (before Quincy broke away). While John was in Philadelphia writing founding documents, she ran the farm, kept him posted on military skirmishes, and dragged John Quincy to a nearby hilltop to watch the far-off Battle of Bunker Hill. Check the side garden of the “Old House’’ for the York rosebush Abigail brought back from England in 1788. 1250 Hancock St., Quincy, 617-770-1175, www.nps.gov/adam. Adults $5, under age 16 free. Annual pass for up to four adults $10.

Emily Dickinson Museum

Were she around today, the “belle of Amherst’’ would probably eschew Twitter and gaze on Facebook with horror. “To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else,’’ she wrote, and to a great extent “anything else’’ included even leaving the Homestead where she was born and spent most of her life (1830-86). The museum includes the adjacent Evergreens, where Dickinson’s relatives lived well into the 20th century, but the Homestead is more evocative of one of the most startling poets in English. Her re-created bedroom conjures her delicate spirit, while the dining room exhibit chronicles how her so private poetry would become some of the country’s greatest verse. 280 Main St., Amherst, 413-542-8161, www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org. Ninety-minute tour of Evergreens and Homestead adults $10, seniors,college students $9, ages 6-17 $5, under 6,Five Collegesstudents free.Forty-minute tour of Homestead $1 less.

Orchard House