By Nancy Heywood

In recognition of Father’s Day we’d like to share one example of a letter that a noteworthy son (John Quincy Adams) sent to his noteworthy father (John Adams).

In June 1811, John Quincy Adams (JQA), his wife, Louisa Catherine, and their youngest son, Charles Francis Adams, were all living in St. Petersburg, where JQA was serving as the U. S. Minister to Russia.  JQA, the oldest son of John and Abigail Adams, wrote letters fairly often to his parents.  One letter (dated 30 May and 7 June because it was written on two days in 1811) offers an example of the thoughtfulness, eloquence, and respect JQA displayed towards his father. 

The long letter, written when JQA was 43 years old, mainly focuses on his decision to decline an appointment to the U. S. Supreme Court and to remain at his diplomatic post in Russia.  For more details and context about this opportunity presented to JQA, please consult one of the biographies listed below.  The intention of this blog post is to share a few sentences written by JQA to his father, who was a former diplomat, former President of the United States, and a notable letter writer himself. 

In the letter, JQA states how honored he felt to be nominated by President Madison for the Supreme Court and also expresses his surprise at the Senate’s unanimous approval.  JQA appreciates the encouragement of his parents, who urged him to accept the position and return home to his country after nearly two years abroad; however he cites several reasons why he decided not to accept the position.  A key reason related to “a simple and very natural circumstance in the condition of my family….”  He is referring to his wife’s pregnancy, although he doesn’t use that exact word.  He states that he is not tempted to make a long ocean voyage and “to expose the lives of a wife and infant to the dangers inseparable from such a passage ….”  

The letter conveys JQA’s concern with how his parents will regard his decision and actions.  He clearly cares about the opinions of his parents, “…in the whole course of my life I scarcely ever did a responsible act, of which I was proud or ashamed, without feeling my soul soothed or galled with the reflection of how it would affect the sensibility of my Parents….” He also writes that he looks to his father’s life and past actions for guidance:  “As a direction for my conduct upon every occurrence involving public principle, I know of no human law more unerring than your example.”  JQA clearly hopes that he has explained his reasoning convincingly and that his father will understand and support his decision.  Towards the end of the letter, he writes, “I feel … a cheerful confidence that after fully weighing the difficulties of my situation, you will approve the grounds upon which I have rested.”

A published version of most of the letter (the long section he wrote on 7 June 1811) can be found in The Writings of John Quincy Adams, volume 4, 1811-1813. Edited by Worthington C. Ford. New York: Macmillan Company, 1914. See pages 98-102.  This is available online through GoogleBooks.

The manuscript (Letter from John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 30 May – 7 June 1811) is a four-page letter, and is part of the Adams Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. This manuscript collection has been microfilmed and this letter appears on reel 411.

Three biographies that provide more detailed information about JQA’s nomination to the U. S. Supreme Court:

 Hecht, Marie B.  John Quincy Adams: A Personal History of an Independent Man. (NY: Macmillan Company, 1972).

 Nagel, Paul C.  John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life.  (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997).

 Remini, Robert V.  John Quincy Adams.  (NY: Times Books, 2002).

By Elaine Grublin

Today, 17 June 2011, marks the 236^th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.  The battle that occurred on that “decisive day” has taken on an almost mythical quality in telling the story of the American Revolution and is still being studied and interpreted by scholars and history enthusiasts here in Boston and around the globe. The MHS holds a number of original documents, maps, and artifacts that help tell the story of the early days of the American Revolution, including the Battle of Bunker HIll.  As you mark this day please visit our website and check out a few of those Bunker HIll related items.

View a high resolution image of this manuscript map, drawn by a British soldier several months after the battle, here.

Read a letter written by Colonel William Prescott, a leader of the rebel troops at Bunker HIll, to John Adams, attending the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, describing the events of Bunker Hill here.

Also, this month our Object of the Month web display features an important MHS artifact related to the battle. The swords of Colonel Prescott and Captain John Linzee, of the Royal Navy, were brought together when William Hickling Prescott, a grandson of Colonel Prescott, married Susan Amory, a Linzee descendant, in the 19th century.  You can read the full story, and view a high resolution image of the swords here. 

By Nancy Heywood

The devastation caused by the tornadoes that touched down in Springfield, Monson, and other Massachusetts towns on Wednesday (June 1st) is sobering. The damage is substantial–several fatalities, many injuries, buildings and property utterly destroyed, and widespread power outages.

The staff of the Massachusetts Historical Society offers our condolences to those who have suffered losses and hope recovery efforts proceed smoothly for all in the affected communities.

Thankfully, tornadoes are relatively rare in New England but the events of this week are not entirely unprecedented. The tornado that touched down in Worcester County, Massachusetts on 9 June 1953 killed 94 people, injured more than 1,000, and damaged 4,000 buildings. The Massachusetts Historical Society holds an album containing 72 photographs of the Worcester tornado taken by Alfred K. Schroeder. The images depict damage to cars, houses, and other town buildings. Several of these photographs were used in a segment that aired on a local television station in 2003 about the 50th commemoration of the tornado and are available for viewing on the MHS website:

Damage to Assumption College from Worcester tornado

Girl in Kitchen of house damaged by Worcester tornado 

Car in tree after Worcester tornado

Damage to neighborhood from Worcester tornado

Damage and house on road from Worcester tornado

By Elaine Grublin

Today, we commemorate the sesquicentennial of the attack on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor.  On that date, 12 April 1861, William Gray Brooks, a Boston merchant and diarist, writes “The evening papers gave us a telegraph announcing ‘Fort Sumter has been provisioned and not a shot fired’ no particulars & the report may well be doubted.”  Yet by the following day reports of the attack were available — if still questionable.  Below is a transcription of Brooks’ diary entry from 13 April 1861, where he summarizes the events in Charleston as he has heard them reported and reflects on the start of the conflict that would become known as the American Civil War. 

Saturday. We are at last at War accounts came last night &
this morning by telegraph giving accounts of the attack on
Fort Sumter by the Confederate powers, and have been con-
tinued through the day causing the greatest excitement through
out the country as well as here. The newspaper offices have
been thronged – by these reports the rebels opened a fire on
Fort Sumter yesterday morning from four different points
and the tenor of the whole up to this evening that of complete
success by the confederate troops and the perilous situation
of Col. Anderson these telegrams are not confidently relied
upon as correct, as it is known the telegraph at Charlestown
is in the hands & under the control of the rebels – it is almost
impossible that all the vessels, five in number sent by our
government, should be as reported lying outside the harbour
& our troops at Fort Sumter receiving no assistance – none are
reported as killed on either side after a whole days fighting.
The greatest anxiety exists regarding the safety of Washington
& the capital as it is supposed in case the Confederation
is successful Virginia and the Border States will join it &
make a descent there. Troops are concentrating there and
as we are now fairly engaged in a civil war where is it to
end. Can it be that, all this war is going on in the south
and all their slavery will remain quietly – We are fallen
upon evil times – our glorious & so much exalted & boasted
Union sent in pieces and brothers engaged against brothers.
I never expected to live to see this day.

Transcription by Sabina Beauchard

By Elaine Grublin

Have you seen this month’s selection in Looking at the Civil War: Massachusetts Finds Her Voice, our monthly feature showcasing Civil War-era materials from the Massachusetts Historical Society’s rich collections?  If not, you should definitely take a look.

This month we feature an eight page letter written on 28 April 1861 by Charles Bower, a man from Concord, MA, who served protecting the federal capital with the Fifth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia from May to July 1861.  The letter is a detailed description of Bowers’ journey from Concord to Washington — a journey that took nine days — with the Fifth.  Along the way Bowers’ travels by foot, train, and ship and makes a few interesting stops.  

If this is your first time visiting our Civil War feature, you can also browse the archive to see the items posted in January, February, and March.  

By Elaine Grublin

As we welcome March, with the winter of 2010-2011 already on record as one of the ten snowiest winters in Boston since records have been kept, we share a poem written on 1 March 1780, noting the severity of the winter of 1779-1780. I think we all can agree that there is a sense of kindred spirit here.

On the Severity of the Past Winter

Long Winter rul’d with unrelenting sway,
And shook his icy sceptre o’er the day –
His snowy magazine’s enormous door
Ope’d wide, nor shut, till drain’d of all its store
Repeated torrents overwhelm the ground;
The earth was in a fleecy deluge drown’d.
The winds let loose impetuously sweep,
The tortured surface of the candid deep
This way & that, with all their fury blow
And raise huge billows of the yielding snow;
Stiffen’d at length, when no more storms arose
Or of descending or ascending snows,
But wearied all in calm & silence lies
Then all the power of cold fierce [illegible] tries
Thy fire began to dread it’s empire lost
Victory hung dubious,’ twixt the fire & frost
While the front suffer’d, smashing with the fire
The cold assailed us, pressing on our rear
But when oblig’d to leave the friendly hearth
Down to the lungs the cold congeal’d our breath
With quick’ned step, we hasted thro’ the streets
The threshold soon salutes the impatient feet.
Pale Phoebus shot oblique his feeble ray
Soon leaving us to mourn his transient stay.
Thanks to that Power who had the seasons roll
Commanding Sol to visit either pole
He now approaches to our hemisphere
And Aries waits him to renew the year
His beams now more direct dissolve the snow
The waters steal away & hide below. –
He who hath plac’d his shining bow on high
Which stands his faithful witness in the sky
That while the earth remains in order due
Day shall to night & heat to cold ensue
Is now beginning to unseal our hands
And gradually loose Orion’s bands –
Let us like him of vows e’er mindful prove
And let us like the Sun obedient move,
To the wise orders of the Lord above:
Nor from the paths of his commandments stray
Whose will the earth & air & heavens obey.

Finis.

The manuscript copy of this poem is contained in the Mellen Family Papers. Our preservation librarian, Kathy Griffin, came upon it in the early fall while processing that collection. At the time we hoped that the poem would not be fitting to post in the coming March. But I must say we have had a winter to rival the one this poet describes.

Transcription by Betsy Boyle.

By Elaine Grublin

Most people who are familiar with the MHS know that two of our most well-known collections are the Adams Family Papers and the Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts.  Between these two collections, the MHS holds a large corpus of papers belonging to three American presidents: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and John Quincy Adams.  These collections contain items written by the individual men and members of their families throughout their lifetimes, including the years they served as President of the United States.   

But did you also know that the MHS holds some volume of manuscript material written by each man that has held the office of president through to George Herbert Walker Bush?

We most definitely do.  Although we do not hold documents written by all of these men during their presidential terms, we do have materials authored by them during their lifetimes sprinkled throughout our collections.  Most of these items are letters held in the individual collections of the men and women that received them.  Other items are materials collected by third parties contained in autograph collections.   

On this Presidents’ Day as you think about the lives of the men that have held this highest office, take a few minutes to peruse the Presidential Letters at the Massachusetts Historical Society.  This collection guide, completed in 2010, is a roadmap to finding manuscript materials authored by American presidents in our collections.  If you have any questions about any materials in this guide — if you would like to plan a visit to view any of the items, or would like to request copies to be sent to you — please contact our library staff at library@masshist.org.  

By Jeremy Dibbell

In the Summer 2010 issue of the Journal of the Early Republic I was pleased to find a new, edited version of one of the most fascinating pamphlets published in the early nineteenth century: it’s called Memoir of the Northern Kingdom, Written, A.D. 1872, By the late Rev. Williamson Jahnsenykes, LL.D. and Hon. Member of the Royal American Board of Literature, in six letters to his son, and the imprint reads Quebeck: A.D. 1901. See the full title page here.

The 48-page pamphlet (actually written in 1808 and published at Boston) is a bit hard to describe (and I’m hopeful that a full digital version will be available soon for all to read), but basically it’s a thinly-veiled criticism of the Jefferson Administration’s policies in the form of a counterfactual history of America. As the author tells it, due to the commercial policies of Jefferson the Union came to be dissolved into a French-dominated imperial South, a British/Canadian-controlled New England under a British viceroy, and the Illinois Republick (the last bastion of democratic government in America). In a series of six letters the author “reflects” on the breakup of the United States into these separate fiefdoms.

While the essay is often studied because of its “prediction” of the North-South split, it’s interesting for many other reasons as well, not the least of which is the fascinating level of detail its author goes into when describing the political and social changes that resulted from the conflict between the states during the period of tumult. A phrase immediately sprang out at me as I was reading this time: at the start of the fifth letter, which covers the history of New England, the author writes the following:

“Had that valuable library of domestick history, collected by the friends and associates of Belknap and Minot, survived the troubles of civil war, it would have been needless for me to leave you any hints of the antient history of New England. It was doubtless a politick measure of his Majesty’s lieutentants to suppress also the publication of those patriotick details of history, which could serve only to renew the memory of a different form of government from the present, and of purer times, those those, in which we live.”

Wait a moment, I thought, “that valuable library of domestick history, collected by the friends and associates of Belknap and Minot” – that’s the MHS! Jeremy Belknap and George Richards Minot were two key founders of the Historical Society, and both contributed significantly to the MHS’ early collections.

But who was the author of this curious tract, this Williamson Jahnsenykes? Not surprisingly, that was a pseudonym: he was one Rev. William Jenks (1778-1866), and although he was not yet a member of the MHS when he wrote Memoir of the Northern Kingdom, he was elected to the Society in 1821 (at the same time as Daniel Webster), and served as Librarian from 1823 to 1832.

Jenks graduated from Harvard in 1797, served as a Congregational minister at Bath, Maine and taught Oriental and English literature at Bowdoin College until 1818, when he returned to Boston and opened a school. Jenks was active in the Society for the Religious and Moral Instruction of the Poor, and later took up the pastorship of a church on Green Street, where he preached for nearly a quarter-century. He was a member and officers of the American Antiquarian Society and a founding member of the American Oriental Society. His magnum opus was the Comprenhensive Commentary on the Holy Bible, published in six volumes between 1834 and 1838, but he composed many other works, including a eulogy to James Bowdoin, several memoirs in the MHS Proceedings, and a historical account of the MHS (Collections, 3d Series, Volume VII).

When Jenks died in 1866 he was the second-oldest member of the Historical Society, at the December meeting that year MHS president Robert C. Winthrop remembered Jenks for his services and publications, and makes mention particularly of Memoir of the Northern Kingdom, calling it “a political jeu d’esprit, of no common felicity, written during the party heats which attended the close of Mr. Jefferson’s Presidency, and was designed to portray the danger of a dissolution of the Union, and the overturn of our republican institutions. Meeting our venerable friend in the street, on New-year’s Day, 1863, – after exchanging the salutations of the season, – I told him I had found a copy of a pamphlet bearing this title, among my father’s books; and I ventured to ask him, through that ponderous ear-trumpet, – which was the badge of the only infirmity he had, – whether he was the author of it. He replied, without an instant’s hesitation, that he was.”

Among the MHS collections are Jenks’ diaries and fifty boxes of his papers, so I dug in a little bit to see if I could find any reference to the composition or publication of Memoir of the Northern Kingdom. In a partial letterbook covering the period 1806-1811 I found a particularly exciting letter, written by Jenks to Messrs Farrand, Mallory & Co. of Boston:

“Gentlemen, The inclosed little work is committed to you, in preference to other Booksellers of this town, to be published for your own emolument – if emolument arise from the publication – if not, at your risque.

It is however requested, since the design of it is the public good, that if it should prove sufficiently advantageous to you, & should bring in more, than might be necessary to defray your expenses & give you a comfortable profit, you would, in such case, deposit a sum, of whatever amount beyond $100 you please, with the Selectman of the town of Boston, to be awarded to the writer of the best ‘Essay on the best means of perpetuating the Federal compact of the United States of America.’

As to typographical execution, it is requested to be in a good & neat style, that it may form a large sized duodecimo volume of about, perhaps, 100 pages – paragraphs & lines well distanced, paper & size of type such, as might befit a book from ‘the Royal press at Quebeck.’ Not too costly, however, for a general perusal.

On no account must an item of the title page, or a sentence of the work, be altered. And, Gentlemen, you are requested that, after it be prepared for the bookstore, it may immediately find its way to Washington, Baltimore, Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, Albany, New Haven, Portland, &c. N.B. Orthography Johnsonian.

It hardly needs be added, that all the effect, which the writer expects from this effort of anxious patriotism, depends upon secrecy & suddenness of appearance.

It need not appear but to have come immediately from Canada.

I am, Gentlemen, with respect, Your (at present) unknown humble servant, Pomponius ‘Atticus’*.

P.S. Would it not be well to advertise ‘Messrs &c. expect to receive’ (forsooth, from the printers) ‘in a few days a New Work, entitled ‘Memoir of the Northern Kingdom‘ Quebeck 1901?”

Unfortunately Jenks’ diaries for 1808 aren’t part of the collection (and they aren’t mentioned in any of the other Jenks collections around either, so if anyone knows of them I’d be delighted to hear of it), but we do hold his diary for 1809, and I uncovered an entry there from the day Jenks received the printed copies of his essay. On 18 January, upon receiving copies of the pamphlet in the mail, Jenks writes: “At length my ‘Memoir’ has arrived, & with it the ‘Review.’ I took the package from the office with a palpitating heart, & have read with mingled emotions. I did expect certainly a more detailed notice, but perhaps it is not prudent to bring into too open discussion the questions I had prepared [or proposed?] to handle.” On 21 January he reports that of late his thoughts had been preoccupied with thoughts of poor health, death, and Heaven. “Such were my feelings, views & wishes till my ‘Memoir’ arrived on tuesday & with it the last no. of the Anthology containing a review of it. The reading of these, & the several readings & reflections consequent upon them & connected with them banished from my mind those pious efforts, to which alone I had before attended. The world, literary refutations, scientific labor, & learned research became again interesting.”

Jenks’ efforts were at least somewhat successful. The correspondent who sent Jenks’ copies notes “by the way in several places lately I have heard much said about a northern Kingdom, leads me to believe that this book is not unnoticed.” The pamphlet quickly attracted some attention in Boston: the members of the Anthology Society (precursor to the Boston Athenaeum) had received a copy by the time of their 29 November meeting, when it was assigned to Mr. [William] Tudor for review (which he read to the Society on 13 December). The short review, printed in the December 1808 issue of the Monthly Anthology (pp. 683-684), reads:

“This is a production generated by the temper of the times. The pretended author, whose barbarous name it is too much trouble to copy, undertakes, towards the close of this century, to give an account to his son of the troubles, which had previously taken place in the United States, and which ended by the formation of a Southern and Northern Kingdom, while the middle states constituted a republick. Were we to occupy ourselves in speculations of this kind, we should not be disposed to predict the future fate of the country exactly as the author has done, even if we admitted the notion of the destruction of the present Union. The idea of anticipating the events of futurity, is not new, but this opens a wide field for ingenuity and political sagacity, if it be lawful even to think on the subject. The style of this publication is very good, but it has been too hastily written to preserve more than a momentary existence. The author possesses of affect the candour, which is natural, when treating about the political characters of past times.”

It is advertised (price 25 cents) in several New England newspapers in late November and early December 1808, (Portsmouth NH Gazette on 29 November; Boston Gazette and Independent Chronicle on 5 December; Newburyport Herald and Salem Gazette on 13 December). It is headlined as “Interesting PAMPHLET” in the Boston Repertory of 20 December and as “A Peep into Futurity” in the 27 December Connecticut Herald. By January 1809 copies could be had in Portland, ME and Walpole, NH, and an Albany bookstore advertises its availability in late May. I’m sure a more detailed study of newspapers would be useful in tracking its spread. Unfortunately the Memoir may have met an unfortunate end: the 14 December 1811 issue of the Boston Centinel reports that 532 copies in sheets were to be sold as part of a sheriff’s sale, and what happened to them after that is unknown. At any rate, my supposition is that Messrs. Farrand and Mallory did not end up sponsoring the essay prize Jenks recommended in his letter to them.

In doing a little sleuthing for this post I found a 1942 footnote suggesting that perhaps the manuscript of Jenks’ Memoir was in his papers here at the MHS at that time, but I have not had any luck in locating it thus far (if it’s in there, it’s hiding very well). Nonetheless, I was somewhat surprised to find even the references I did, and am pleased to be able to add a little bit to the story of this interesting work. When I started working on this post it was just going to be about the little oblique reference to the MHS in Jenks’ essay, but, as these things tend to do, the story got much more interesting than that!

* Jenks’ pseudonym in the letter to his publishers, Pomponius Atticus, probably refers to the Roman writer Titus Pomponius Atticus (109-32 BCE)