By Amanda A. Mathews, Adams Papers

John Quincy Adams, whose 246th birthday is tomorrow, often used birthdays as a moment to take stock of what he had and had not accomplished and what his priorities were. His conscience, and his sense of duty to make himself useful to his country and worthy of his family’s heritage, focused his reflections on the part he had fulfill in his limited time and his capacity for doing so, even when duty to his own conscience cost him (and often his family) a high price.

One of the most compelling occasions of this takes place in 1841, as Adams, who having successfully navigated the Amistad case, considers his larger role in the growing anti-slavery debate. In this striking diary passage, Adams fully lays out the stakes and comes down on the side of conscience and duty outweighing any personal sacrifice:

“The world, the flesh, and all the devils in hell are arrayed against man, who now, in this North-American Union, shall dare to join the standard of Almighty God, to put down the African Slave-trade—and what can I, upon the verge of my seventy-fourth birth-day, with a shaking hand, a darkening eye, a drowsy brain, and with all my faculties dropping from me, one by one, as the teeth are dropping from my head, what can I do for the cause of God and Man? for the progress of human emancipation? for the suppression of the African Slave-trade?— Yet my conscience presses me on—let me but die upon the breach.—”

This led to a renewed war by Adams in the House of Representatives against the increasingly oppressive “Gag Rule,” for which Adams was reviled, threatened, and harassed both inside and outside of Congress, much to the distress of his family.

Want to hear more about Adams and the cost of conscience? Tomorrow, I will be one of the speakers at the annual wreath-laying ceremony, held at noon at United First Parish Church in Quincy Center, better known as the “Church of the Presidents,” the long-time church for the Adams family, and the final resting place for both John and Abigail Adams as well as John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams. The event is free and open to the public.

By Andrea Cronin, Reader Services

“Within a few hours’ ride from the metropolis are sections of country and seaboard, which in variety of character, loveliness of climate, and grandeur of scenery, are unsurpassed by any of the celebrated and more distant watering places on the continent,” wrote the unknown author of an Old Colony Railroad Company publication entitled, “Southeastern Massachusetts: Its Shores and Islands, Woodlands and Lakes, and How to Reach Them.” Having spent a few weeks utilizing the Old Colony Railroad system to travel throughout southeastern Massachusetts, the author wrote a guide for other adventurous vacationers in what is essentially a wonderfully descriptive, 49-page advertisement. The pamphlet lists more than 70 destinations, including traditional summer locales such as Provincetown, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket and the less exotic locations such as Taunton, Foxboro, and Attleboro.

The author lays heavy praise on Newport, Rhode Island. “In Newport, however, the walks are probably more sought after than the drives. Foremost among these is the Cliff Walk among the sea bluffs, on which the pedestrian may continue his rambles to Easton’s Beach and round the southern point of Fort Adams.” Of course! The famous Cliff Walk of Newport is listed within the guide and is still as popular today as it was in 1879. Our Cliff Walk is dotted with gilded mansions. What might that scenic “ramble” have looked like in 1879 before these remarkable homes — Rosecliff, the Breakers, Marble House, Ochre Court, and Rough Point, to name a few –peaked over the cliffs?

The author directs the reader from a distant third-person narration, a change from the way many guidebooks are written today. Yet the suggestions of what to do at Monument Beach inspire today’s reader just the same. “From Monument Beach, a boat sail to Burgess Point, a distant about a mile and a half, or across to Marion, some six miles, or along the eastern shore, can scarcely be equaled. The bay is studded with gems of beauty.” Monument Beach is located within Bourne, MA near Phinney’s Harbor for all those interested vacationers reading this blog.

Though one might find the author’s descriptions fascinating, the pamphlet existed to  advertise the Old Colony Railroad. It concludes most helpfully with a list of hotels near the Old Colony Railroad’s stations to aid the traveling vacationer.

While the Old Colony Railroad no longer traverses southeastern Massachusetts as it did in 1879, parts of the system are still used today by modern commuters. Planning a summer get away? Why not get inspired to plan a trip to southeastern Massachusetts this summer? Visit the library at Massachusetts Historical Society — no sunblock required, but reading glasses are suggested — to check out this publication and others on early tourism in Massachusetts.

By Anna J. Cook, Reader Services

As the Boston bike share program, Hubway, settles in for its third successful season of supporting urban cyclists, other cities around the country are rolling out their own infrastructure – encouraging more city dwellers to pick the efficient, environmentally-friendly mode of transportation. While bicycling is not an option for everyone, bike share stations make it possible to combine a bike ride with walking and public transit in flexible, efficient ways. As a first-time Hubway participant, I am re-leaning my adopted city (and the rules of the road!) this summer from the seat of what was once called “the safety bicycle.”

The safety bicycle, developed in the 1880s and popularized in the 1890s, was designed with two wheels of the same size. It was easier to ride and less dangerous than previous models. It was also a model of bicycle marketed to women as well as men. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century saw a boom in cycling for utilitarian transport and for pleasure. The Massachusetts Historical Society’s collection documents some of the ways in which the popularity of cycling made its mark on Boston. For example, in 1886 Geo. H. Walker & Co. published a Bicycling and Driving Road Map of Boston and Vicinity, the title of which prioritizes cyclists over those new-fangled motorcars.

We also hold a copy of the 1880 volume Lyra Bicyclica: Forty Poets on the Wheel, published in Boston and edited by one J.G. Dalton. Dalton prefaces the poems included therein with the autobiographical note, “The author-compiler is one of the very first Bostonians to ride and write into notice the bicycle in this country.” He goes on to describe how “under the early exhilarating effect of the wiry transit … he called upon our native poets … to favor us with a song or two for the new move, declaring that its peculiar charms and potencies and awaited an adequate celebration” (1-2).

One such song, albeit written in 1879, comes down to us as a specimen of sheet music in four-part harmony written by Thomas Keith. The three-verse ode begins:

Come ye whose sore and weary feet
With corns and blisters walk the street;
Come mount with us this easy seat
And ride in a way that can’t be beat.

We match for speed the fleeting wind,
The lagging coach leave far behind.
With wheel and axle underpin’d,
We ask no favors of that kind.

Then mount with us this easy seat,
And ride in a way that’s fun complete.
A cordial welcome all shall greet,
Who undertake to learn this feat.

Our family papers document members’ participation in the League of American Wheelmen, Harvard’s competitive collegiate cycling team of 1888-1901, and include photographs of women and men, girls and boys, posing proudly with their bicycles. I am sure our nineteenth-century predecessors would be asking us what took us so long to re-discover the “exhilarating effect of the wiry transit.”

By Peter Steinberg, Collection Services

The newly-launched website presenting MHS’s collection of Harbottle Dorr, Jr.’s annotated newspapers includes transcriptions of the indexes he created for each of the four volumes he assembled. The task of transcribing these indexes proved inspirational and provoked inquiry. The Massachusetts Historical Society has held the first three volumes, covering the years 1765-1771, for many years. The first volume contained no extra material other than a brief two-page Appendix. However, in both Volumes Two and Three Dorr included contemporarily published pamphlets on topics related to the articles he annotated.

We do not know when this happened, but the volumes were disbound at some point for, among other reasons, preservation. As part of this process, the pamphlets originally collected by Dorr for Volumes Two and Three were removed and added to the Society’s general collection of printed materials. These two volumes came to the MHS in 1798 and have been in use for more than 210 years. This means there is a long period of time in which some of the documents Dorr collected may have been separated and moved around. In 2011, the MHS acquired the fourth volume of Dorr’s Annotated Newspapers via auction. Working at the MHS when this fourth volume arrived, and seeing how it looked in its original organization and binding, I became intrigued about the existence of those pamphlets that had been separated from the earlier volumes, and where they might be located within the building.

You may be wondering: What does the removal of the pamphlets have to do with the index? In transcribing the index, we grew to be familiar with the pagination of the volumes. The newspapers collected and page-numbered by hand by Dorr went only so high. For example, Volume Two’s last newspaper page number is 788 (The Boston-Gazette, and Country Journal, 25 December 1769). However, in the index for this volume there were entries for page numbers higher than page 788. This was an indication that there were supplemental items (i.e. pamphlets) that had been removed and the same was true for Volume Three.

I began to track those index terms where the page number is higher than page 788 (for Volume Two) and page 642 (for Volume Three) in order to try and gauge the subjects of the pamphlets. Then, using these extracted terms in conjunction the library’s ABIGAIL catalog, Google, and WorldCat, a global catalog of library collections, I was able to eventually track down six pamphlets and a broadside formerly included in these volumes. The tell-tale sign that these pamphlets belonged to the collection was the presence of Dorr’s distinctive numbering at the top-center of each page. Once found, these items were photographed in-house and are digitally reassembled with their original volumes via the Harbottle Dorr, Jr. Annotated Newspapers website. Each pamphlet found felt like a significant accomplishment. In finding the pamphlets and having access to them, it has led to a better understanding of how Dorr’s collection originally looked. Finding some encouraged me to look for the others, which were harder to locate.

As I worked on this this blog post, I continued searching for missing pamphlet’s and in the process, uncovered addition items. In browsing Dorr’s Index to Volume Two for indexed terms for which we had no pages, I found the entry “Statute De Tallagio non concedendo.” This term appears on Index page 13 and refers to page 814, which fell within a page range, 789-830, that was still absent from the collection. I searched ABIGAIL for “Tallagio,” as it is a word that would likely yield few if any hits, and was presented with three records: two printed editions of Henry Care’s English liberties, or The free-born subject’s inheritance. Containing Magna Charta, Charta de Foresta, the statute De Tallagio non Concedendo, the Habeas Corpus Act, and several other statutes (1721 and 1774) and one small manuscript: “Appendix of an unidentified manuscript, ca. 1790-1810.” I was familiar enough with Dorr’s Index to know that many of documents contained in Care’s book appear as terms (though largely Anglicized). Could it be that Dorr copied some of the text from Care’s book? The printed books had none of those tell-tale signs of being annotated by Harbottle Dorr. However, the small manuscript was indeed an original Dorr manuscript: the previously unknown “Appendix” to Volume Two! You might say I developed Appendix-itis as a result!

There are currently two page ranges within Volume Two for which we still do not have images: 939 to 946 and 1041-1098.  However, from an index entry and research, I have concluded that the first range (939-946) is the breathtakingly titled pamphlet: A Third extraordinary budget of epistles and memorials between Sir Francis Bernard of Nettleham, Baronet, some natives of Boston, New-England, and the present Ministry; against N. America, the true interest of the British Empire, and the rights of mankind by Sir Francis Bernard (1769). Likewise, index terms for the second range listed above (1041-1098) lead us to conclude that this span consisted of parts of three separate almanacs published in 1768 and 1769. See the Collection Outline for Volume Two for details. While we currently do not know where Dorr’s copies are, we at least know what they are… Also unaccounted for are seven pages (996-1003) from Volume Three, which deals with the Boston Massacre trial of and verdict for Edward Manwaring, John Monru, Hammond Green, and Thomas Greenwood. Research uncovered this to be an Appendix (pages 211-217) to The Trial of William Wemms, James Hartegan, William M’Cauley, Hugh White, Matthew Killroy, William Warren, John Carrol, and Hugh Montgomery… (1770). The first printing of this book included the Appendix, however, reprints did not (See end of note 1 here). We surmise that Dorr obtained a copy of the Appendix somehow, which explains why it is not a part of the copy he included in Volume Three. The MHS holds copies of these pamphlets and all the almanacs, as we created a page of Explanatory Notes  to help define what’s what.

As stated above, the first volume is the exception to the other three: there were no pamphlets. However, mysteries still abound about the first volume. Dorr’s original page numbering had the index appearing after a two-page Appendix which followed the last newspaper. But, between the Appendix (pages 790-791) and the Index (pages 794-801) there are two pages (792-793) that are missing. There are references in Dorr’s Index to the missing page 792 (see pages 796 and 799). In the latter, “Stamp Act Rise of it, vide a Letter from E Dyar 203 vide Huskes Letter in the Appendix 792,” Huske’s letter was printed originally on the front page of the 29 October 1764 issue of The Boston-Gazette and Country Journal. This is curious in and of itself as the letter was printed in a 1764 newspaper, which is the year prior to the start of Dorr’s first volume.

The recently-found pamphlets for volumes Two and Three, as well as the appendix to volume Two and a short title list of known missing items, are easily accessible via the Collection Outline page within the Dorr website: www.masshist.org/dorr/outline.

By Andrea Cronin, Reader Services

“Left Boston at ½ past two in the afternoon in a carry all with Mr. Webber and little Maria, went through Cambridge, Lexington, Concord to Acton, where we arrived about 8 oclock, it rained quite fast most of the way but we wrapt up well and were very comfortable,” wrote Maria G. Webber in her travel journal on 27 June 1837. Accompanied by husband Aaron Webber and their infant daughter, Maria Webber embarked on a journey from Boston, Massachusetts to the White Mountain range in New Hampshire in 1837 via a horse-drawn carriage known as a “carryall”. The White Mountain range begins approximately 140 miles northwest of Boston, by way of modern highways. In 1837, however, the journey was not so direct! Maria Webber recounts many of her stops with her family in the villages and towns along the way from Boston to Crawford Notch near Bartlett, New Hampshire. Over the 16-day trip, the Webbers stopped in 41 different towns and villages and made note of seeing several mountains.

The Webbers crossed the state line — from their last noted location in Pepperell, Massachusetts into New Ipswich, New Hampshire — with little fanfare on 28 June 1837. Along the way, Mr. Webber gathered some wild strawberries. In Jaffrey, NH the couple and child stopped due to the bad road conditions and requested accommodation at the house of Mr. Prescott. They were refused! But Mr. Prescott’s father and brother in the next house down the road took the travelers in for the night. By the next evening, the family entered Bellows Falls, where they shared their strawberries with their host and hotelier, Mr. Hyde.

As the family crosses the state line, Webber notes that “the horses did not prove as good as recommended.” On 1 July 1837 outside Orford, New Hampshire, the horses give out, much to Webber’s dismay. Twice the family had to ask the assistance of locals to let their horses rest. Finally, Aaron Webber left the carryall and horses with local family and borrowed a wagon. The Webbers only traveled four miles in four hours that day. The group did not reach Mr. Morse’s Tavern, their hotel for the evening, until 9 PM. Maria Webber commented that Mr. Morse’s Tavern was about four miles from “home,” as her mother and sister lived in the area. Maria Webber certainly had a superb grasp on the geography of her native state and diligently recorded the locations within her diary.

One of the most remarkable mentions of a landmark in the diary is Webber’s description of the Old Man in the Mountain.On 5 July 1837 she wrote:

Arose quite refreshed, took breakfast, and went down to see the profile of the Old man in the mountain, it was very foggy, and we were obliged to wait a quarter of an hour before we could see it, we were pleased with it and Mr. Webber drew a sketch of it…

Her comments about the Old Man of the Mountain are full of both pleasure and impatience. To the modern reader it is remarkable to think that although Maria Webber’s diary has been preserved for the past 176 years, the Old Man of the Mountain has not. On 3 May 2003, the precariously perched profile of the Old Man collapsed. While it is still a recognizable symbol of the Granite State, one can no longer stand where Webber stood all those years ago to view.

Much like the profile of the Old Man of the Mountain, Maria Webber’s opinion of the horses continued to deteriorate throughout the journey. Not only were the horses exhausted by the road conditions but the carriage fell apart on 11 July 1837. Perhaps best summarizing her thoughts on the journey, the last line in the diary reads, “Had a pleasant journey but should have enjoyed it better if our horses were not such miserable ones, they were so unacquainted with the roads.”

Care to find out the other towns the Webbers visited? You can visit the library and find out more about their visit to the White Mountains in Maria Webber’s travel diary in the Webber Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

By Amanda A. Mathews, Adams Papers

When 20-year-old John Quincy Adams graduated from Harvard in 1787, both John and Abigail Adams, like all parents, had plenty of advice for the young man about to embark on legal studies and adulthood. Writing from London, where he was serving as the first American Minister to Great Britain, John Adams advised his son on practical and specific habits to improve in his chosen profession. “When you Attend the Superiour Court,” the father and lawyer counseled, “carry always your Pen and Ink & Paper and take Notes of every Dictum, every Point and every Authority. But remember to show the same respect to the Judges and Lawyers who are established in Practice before you, as you resolved to show the President Tutors Professors, and Masters and Batchelors at Colledge.”

Abigail Adams, on the other hand, offered more general words of motherly wisdom to guide him on his life’s journey and finding that essential balance:

I congratulate you upon your Success at Commencment, and as you have acquired a reputation upon entering the stage of the World, you will be no less solicitious to preserve and increase it, through the whole drama. . . . it is natural to the humane Heart to swell with presumption when conscious of superiour power, yet all humane excellence is comparative, and he who thinks he knows much to day, will find much more still unatained, provided he is still eager in persuit of knowledge. Your Friends are not anxious that you will be in any danger through want of significant application, but that a too ardent persuit of your studies will impair your Health, & injure those bodily powers and faculties upon which the vigor of the mind depends. Moderation in all things is condusive to human happiness, tho this is a maxim little heeded by Youth, whether their persuits are of a sensual, or a more refined and elevated kind.

In this commencement season, parents everywhere are giving important advice to their freshly launched adult children, but the advice serves a dual purpose, for, in helping their children achieve all they can, as Abigail noted upon hearing of the success of her son at Harvard, “there is no musick sweeter in the Ears of parents, than the well earned praises of their children.”

By Emilie Haertsch, Publications

Massachusetts will hold a special election on June 25 to fill the United States senate seat left vacant by John Kerry, whom President Obama appointed to Secretary of State in February. The recent primary determined that the contest will be between Republican former Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez and Democratic Congressman Ed Markey. Having just survived an extremely contentious senate race in the fall, in which Senator Elizabeth Warren emerged the victor, many Massachusetts residents now suffer from election fatigue. But this is not the first time that the state has faced hard-fought battles for these senate seats. Over 50 years ago, John F. Kennedy, then a Democratic congressman, contested incumbent Republican Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. for his senate seat. What many believed would be an easy win for the popular Lodge turned into a tight race, and eventually an upset.

Lodge was a moderate and he was concerned about the conservative movement he saw developing in his party. The Republican frontrunner for the 1952 presidential election was Sen. Robert Taft, a conservative and isolationist who opposed NATO. Concerned about the possibility of Taft winning election, Lodge and a number of other Republicans convinced Dwight D. Eisenhower, a popular war hero, to run against him in the Republican primary. At a heated Republican National Convention, complete with accusations of “stolen delegates” on both sides, Eisenhower won the nomination and went on to a national campaign against Democratic governor Adlai Stevenson. Lodge became the manager for the “Eisenhower-for-President” campaign, a major impediment to his own reelection campaign at home in Massachusetts.

With Lodge often away and focused on Eisenhower’s election, Kennedy took advantage of the opportunity for an intensive ground campaign in Massachusetts. He used his candidacy announcement on April 7, 1952 to attack Lodge, saying, “Other states have vigorous leaders in the United States Senate to defend the interests of their citizens – men who have definite goals based on constructive principles and who move towards these goals unswerving. Massachusetts has need of such leadership.” Kennedy also accused Lodge of being too often absent from Massachusetts while working for Eisenhower.

In response, Lodge criticized Kennedy’s roll call record in Congress, with the slogan: “Would you hire a man who came to work one third of the time? Reelect Lodge! Lodge is on the job!” Lodge also called Kennedy a “rubber stamp…for the White House” in an October 17, 1952 speech on WBZ-TV. Lodge emphasized his moderate beliefs, saying he has “struggled hard and publicly against reactionary elements in both parties.” He even employed jingles as a way of drumming up support, including one to the tune of “Doin’ What Comes Naturally” from Annie Get Your Gun:

He fills the bill on Capitol Hill
In Washington down yonder
He serves with skill and dignity
Doin’ what comes naturally!
Doin’ what comes naturally!

Despite Lodge’s efforts, Kennedy ran a stronger campaign at home by making many appearances across Massachusetts. He also mobilized the large Irish immigrant population in the state, and his strong ties in Boston also caused Lodge to lose ground there. On Election Day in November 1952, Lodge lost by a narrow margin.

In his concession speech, Lodge thanked the people of Massachusetts for electing him three times to the senate seat, and congratulated Kennedy and wished him well. Privately, however, the loss was a great blow. In an angry letter on Dec. 7, 1952, Quincy resident Willie James summed up his feelings about Lodge and what might have led to his loss: “There are thousands like myself in Massachusetts, always voted for you and your family but now good and sick of your actions…You have work to do in your own backyard.”

With Lodge’s great loss, however, came a great victory. Eisenhower was elected president. Lodge received many consolation letters on his senate defeat, and one theme was strong throughout. Philip Schlossberg wrote on November 5, 1952, “We feel that in [getting Eisenhower elected] you neglected your own chances for reelection with the U.S. Senate.” Many also believed that Lodge would earn an appointment from Eisenhower for his part in the presidential campaign. John Mason Brown wrote in a Western Union telegram, “You have fought your share in the general’s victory and the services you have rendered the country. Here’s to more of those services when you will be the best secretary of state or defense American has had.” This notion was correct, and when Eisenhower entered office he named Lodge U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Kennedy’s senate election led to a great family political dynasty in the state of Massachusetts, one which still continues today, while it contributed to the decline of the Lodge family’s influence in Massachusetts politics. How the current upcoming special election for the Massachusetts senate seat will change the course of state history is yet to be determined. To learn more about the 1952 Massachusetts senate race, view the guide for the Henry Cabot Lodge Papers in the Society’s collections.