From the 1936 WPA Writers Project
This village, with a population of sixty, was named for President John Quincy Adams and located six miles northwest of Corning on S-148. The hamlet has no railroad or bus service, nor are there hotels or tourist camps in the village. Elizah Walters, who established a claim two miles south of Quincy in 1849 was the first white settler in the county. In 1853, J.R. Holbrook erected the first house and general store at Quincy and the town was made the first county seat of Adams County. The county seat of government was moved from Quincy to Corning in 1872. Among other early settlers in Quincy were Samuel Baker, Morgan Warren and Samuel Hardesty. The first church in the county was formed here in 1856 by the Methodists who in 1859, organized a seminary at Brookville, near Quincy. The town made rapid growth during the time it was the county seat, but when this was moved to Corning and the town failed to obtain railroad service, its decline began and today there is only a remnant of the once flourishing village.
There is still a Methodist church in the village and a small school. THE ADAMS COUNTY GAZETTE was founded here in 1866, but was moved to Corning in 1869, where the first newspaper in the county, THE CORNING SENTINEL was launched in 1859 by D.N. Smith with L. Raguet as editor.
1984 Adams County History Book
Adams County was organized in the spring of 1853. At this time it encompassed 36 Congressional townships, or the present areas of Montgomery and Union counties as well as that of Adams. This arrangement was short-lived, however. Within a year, both Union and Montgomery 'townships' would pull away and form County governments.
In 1853, Amos Lowe, the official charged with the organizing of the county, appointed a commission composed of a man from each of the counties - Taylor, Page and Mills, who were to choose the site of a County Seat. The Commision met and designated a quarter-section of Government land sprawled over the high ridgetop which lay betwixt and between Walters Creek and the Middle Nodaway.
The parcel was purchased by J.M.B. Miller, an early settler, with money furnished by Jesse Williams, a land speculator from Virginia. Adams County took title to half the lots after plating was completed. The others were divided equally between Williams and Miller.
In a short time, the County was able to sell enough lots to finance the construction of a courthouse and one was built (in Quincy) at a cost of $545.00. This first courthouse burned the night that robbers set fire to Dr. Walker's office after leaving him for dead. The replacement building doubled as a courthouse and schoolhouse with classes held on the ground floor and the County Offices upstairs. After 1872 when Quincy was no longer the County Seat, the building still functioned as a schoolhouse until it was torn down in the 1920's or 1930's.