Browsing: Diary of John Adams, Volume 1

1. The Cranches had recently moved from the Germantown district of Braintree to Salem, where Richard Cranch established a watch and clockmaking business. Probably during either this first visit of the Adamses to the Cranches, or during a second visit in November of this year (see 3 Nov., below), JA and AA sat for their earliest known portraits, by Benjamin Blyth, a young and relatively little-known painter then working in Salem; see Henry Wilder Foote,“Benjamin Blyth of Salem: 18th Century Artist,” MHS, Procs. , 71 (1953–1957):69–71, 81–82. It is curious that JA says nothing in his Diary of these portraits, which now hang in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society.