The first chapter, "A Minister's Daughter," details Adams' childhood, but like any good historian Withey also places Adams' early life into an historical context, offering background information on the Massachusetts town in which Adams was raised. Such background information allows the reader to understand better how Abigail Adams became the woman she was, and how her social and familial realities affected her decision-making and perhaps influenced her temperament. Gender identify formation resulted largely in the social norms of Adams' community, which definitively Puritan. However, Abigail (nee Smith) grew up more learned, worldlier, and more educated than many of their female counterparts at the time. Still Withey does not apologize for the more traditional aspects of Abigail's upbringing, which demanded that female girls grow up to become good wives and mothers. In Chapter One of the biography, Withey also introduces the source of primary materials she used for the book: the letters and correspondences of Abigail Adams, many of which were letters written to her girlhood friends.

             The story of Abigail and John Adams is a romantic one, chronicled in Chapter Two of Dearest Friend, aptly titled "John." Though not love at first sight, Abigail and John did eventually fall deeply in love and wrote love letters to each other before they were married, when they were apart. Withey intensifies the impact of their romance by noting that John and Abigail frequently called each other by their Classical names: Diana and Lysander, evocative not only of Greek mythology but also of Shakespearean romance (15). Such details humanize what would otherwise be cold and distant historical figures. The couple married in October of 1764 and moved to Braintree.

             Par for the course, Abigail immediately assumed her role of housewife and mother and gave birth to her first child the following year. While Abigail performed her wifely duties with joy, her husband pursued his political ambitions.