George Washington commanded the Continental Army from this house now at 105 Brattle Street during the Siege of Boston from July 1775 to April 1776. It was later the home of poet Henry Longfellow, and is now called the Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.

Before he moved into these roomy digs, Washington stayed briefly at what’s now Harvard’s Wadsworth House at 1341 Massachusetts Avenue.

The 35th president was born in this house at 83 Beals Street in 1917. It is now a museum, with Rose Kennedy, JFK’s mother, restoring it beginning in the late 1960s. Kennedy has more familial and biographical connections to the Boston area than any other president, having studied at Harvard and launched his political career in Boston.

The 26th president lived on the second floor of what was then 16 Winthrop Street—now 38 Winthrop—while he was a student at Harvard. According to biographer Katherine Dalton, the asthmatic Roosevelt took an off-campus, second-floor room because the ground-floor spaces of campus addresses were considered unhealthy. 

The 32nd president paid $225.50 a year (before maintenance and utilities) to share a first-floor room in what is now Adams House from 1900 to 1904, while a student at Harvard.

The 43rd president lived for two years in a “notoriously untidy and sparse” apartment on the square while a student at the Harvard Business School in the early 1970s, according to a Bloomberg article from 2001. The exact address appears to be unknown. 

The 44th president leased a basement apartment at 365 Broadway in Somerville while a student at Harvard Law in the late 1980s. He found the apartment through a newspaper ad (remember doing that?). 

The 30th president did not actually live in the Boston area when he was governor of Massachusetts from 1919 to 1921, though he did conduct the commonwealth’s business from offices at the State House. Instead, he continued to rent one half of a two-family house in Northampton at 21 Massasoit Street. (Though some might consider Northampton as being within the Boston area.)

The second president was born here in 1735. The so-called saltbox house is part of the Adams National Historical Park that the National Park Service operates. Adams and wife Abigail are interred a few miles away at United First Parish Church.

The sixth president was born in 1767 on the same patch of ground as his father (the official spots are separated by several feet). Like his parents, the younger Adams is also interred a few miles away at United First Parish Church in the family crypt.