Phinehas Adams was born in Medway, Mass., the twentieth day of June, 1814, and comes from the very best Revolutionary stock of New England. His grandfather and great-grandfather participated in the battle of Bunker Hill, and served through that memorable war. He had three brothers and seven sisters, of whom the former all died previous to 1831. Three sisters are now living: Sarah Ann, born in 1816, the wife of E. B. Hammond, M. D., of Nashua; Eliza P., born in 1820, widow of the late Ira Stone, formerly an overseer in the Stark Mills; and Mary Jane, born in 1822, widow of the late James Buncher, a former designer for the Merrimack Print-Works at Lowell, Mass. Mrs. Buncher is the present popular and very efficient librarian of the Manchester public library. His father, Phinehas Adams, senior, married Sarah W. Barber, a native of Holliston, Mass., in 1811. Her father was an Englishman, who came to America from Warrenton, England, during the Revolutionary war, and married in this country a Scottish lady who came from Edinburgh. Phinehas Adams, the senior, was both a farmer and a mechanic, and became quite an extensive manufacturer. At a very early date he constructed hand-looms, which he employed girls to operate; and, subsequently, started the first power-loom that was ever established in this country, at Waltham, Mass., in the year 1814. In this year and in the same town he became a mill overseer, and afterwards gave his whole attention to manufacturing. He resided, when Phinehas was a child, at different times in Waltham and Cambridge, Mass., and in Nashua, to which latter place he removed later in life, and became proprietor of a hotel, the Central House. This business was more agreeable to him, since he had broken several of his ribs and received other injuries from an unfortunate fall. Hon. William P. Newell, of Manchester, who was agent of the Amoskeag company from 1837 to 1846, was once a bobbin-boy for the elder Adams. This was ten years before the son, who was attending a private school in West Newton, Mass., until 1827, began to work in the mills. In the last-named year, his father became agent of the Neponset Manufacturing Company's mills--which were owned by himself, Dr. Oliver Dean, and others--at Walpole, in the same state; and to this place he removed his residence. [Illustration: Phins. Adams]