John Adams a superstar after TV series

Visits to the Adams National Historic Site in Quincy are up 70 percent over last year. (Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff)

With the help of the HBO miniseries "John Adams," the Adams National Historic Site in Quincy is making a little history of its own.

The TV series, which was nominated for 23 Emmys and won a record 13, is a big reason the Adams site - which encompasses the birthplaces of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, as well as Peacefield, the home for four generations of the Adams family - is on track to increase the number of visitors by 70 percent from last year's total of 222,525, to a projected 376,000.

In the month of August alone, the number of visitors was up 80 percent from August 2007, according to Caroline Keinath, deputy superintendent of the Adams site.

"Many visitors are first-time visitors to a National Park Service site, and that's so rewarding to us," she said. "For the majority of our visitors, we are now the primary destination. It's not 'I was on the way to the Cape and decided to stop.' It's 'I came here to walk on the footsteps of John Adams."'

"Most people who come here mention they've seen the TV series," said Brian Coupland, an assistant at the site's visitor center in downtown Quincy. "Recently, we've been getting a lot of people who saw the Emmy Awards ceremony on TV."

Nowadays, 20 percent of visitors are coming from overseas, a doubling of the previous total, and the number of bus tours has also increased greatly.

"Now we're turning away 100 to 200 people each Saturday and Sunday from the Adams tours that are sold out, and they're filling our restaurants and shops," said Mark J. Carey, executive director of Discover Quincy, the public-private partnership to promote city tourism,

"Every time there's something new - the series on HBO, the release of the DVD, we see a spike," Carey said. "We're expecting a big push when the series hits free TV."

The Adams site closes for the season Nov. 10.

RICH FAHEY