Pretty Dorothy was the youngest daughter of Edmund Quincy, one of a
long line of that same name, who were directly descended from Edmund
Quincy, pioneer, who came to America in 1628. Seven years later the
town of Boston granted him land in the town that was afterward known
as Braintree, Massachusetts, where he built the mansion that became
the home of succeeding generations of Quincys, from whom the North
End of the town was later named.

As his father had been before him, Dorothy's father was a judge, and
he spent a part of each year in his home on Summer Street, Boston,
pursuing his profession. There in the Summer Street home Dorothy was
born on the tenth of May, 1747, the youngest of ten children.
Evidently she was sent to school at an early age, and gave promise of
a quick mind even then, for in a letter written by Judge Quincy, from
Boston to his wife in the country, he writes:

Daughter Dolly looks very Comfortable, and has gone to
School, where she seems to be very high in her Mistresses'
graces.

But the happiest memories of Dorothy's childhood and early girlhood
were not of Boston, but of months spent in the rambling old mansion at
Quincy, which, although it had been remodeled by her grandfather, yet
retained its quaint charm, and boasted more than one secret passage
and cupboard, as well as a "haunted chamber" without which no house of
the period was complete.

There we find the child romping across velvety lawns, picking posies
in the box-bordered garden, drinking water crystal clear drawn from
the old well, and playing many a prank and game in the big, roomy home
which housed such a lively flock of young people. Being the baby of
the family, it was natural that Dorothy should be a great pet, not
only of her brothers and sisters, but of their friends, especially
those young men--some of whom were later the principal men of the
Province--who were attracted to the old mansion by Judge Quincy's
charming daughters. So persistent was little Dolly's interest in her
sisters' friends, that it became a jest among them that he who would
woo and win fascinating Esther, sparkling Sarah, or the equally lovely
Elizabeth or Katherine Quincy, must first gain the good-will of the
little girl who was so much in evidence, many times when the adoring
swain would have preferred to see his lady love alone. Dorothy used to
tell laughingly in later years of the rides she took on the shoulders
of Jonathan Sewal