By Amanda A. Mathews

This past Sunday we may have celebrated the day of our national weather-groundhog with Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction of another six weeks of winter, but today we celebrate National Weatherperson’s Day as recognized by the National Weather Service. This date, 5 February, was chosen for to celebrate the anniversary of the 1745 birth of Dr. John Jeffries, a Bostonian who is credited as one of the nation’s first weathermen, flying a hot air balloon above the city of London to take scientific weather measurements.

This fascinating individual has an equally intriguing connection with the Adams family. A Boston physician, Dr. Jeffries first crossed paths with John Adams during the Boston Massacre Trials of 1770 as a witness testifying for the defense. As the surgeon attending to Patrick Carr, one of the townspeople shot by the soldiers, Jeffries had asked Carr questions about what had happened, and Jeffries relayed to the jury what he had learned. Carr, who died of his wounds ten days later, supported the defense account that the mob pelted the soldiers with more than just snowballs and helped instigate the confrontation. Jeffries became a loyalist as the Revolution broke out and eventually left Boston, becoming a doctor in the British Army first in Nova Scotia and later set up his practice in London.

It was in Europe that that Dr. Jeffries and the Adamses crossed paths once again. While dining with Benjamin Franklin in Paris on February 14, 1785, John Quincy Adams met Dr. Jeffries who described to the guests his voyage by balloon from Dover, England, to Calais, France, the first to cross the English Channel by air. John Quincy recorded in his diary, “Dined at Dr. Franklin’s with a great deal of Company, among the rest Dr. Jeffries who lately cross’d with Mr. Blanchard, from Dover to Calais. He is a small man: has not an agreeable address, but seems to be very sensible: he related his voyage: in which his intrepidity had well nigh been fatal to him: the balloon descended he says, 3/4 of a mile in 2. minutes: he and Mr. Blanchard were both of them obliged to throw almost all their cloaths in the water. At one time they were not more than 20 yards above the surface.”

Several months later when John Adams became the first American Minister to Great Britain and moved to London, Dr. Jeffries became the family physician. Abigail said of him in a letter to her sister, “Dr Jeffries is our family Physician, and is really an amiable benevolent Man tho formerly he took a different side in politicks.” In addition to treating the regular ailments of the family, Dr. Jeffries was present for the birth of John and Abigail’s first grandchild when their daughter Nabby gave birth to William Steuben Smith in April 1787.

If you would like to learn more about Dr. John Jeffries, his family papers are available at the MHS.

By Kathleen Barker

On 29 January, the Society hosted a special author talk for a very lucky group of middle-school students. The star of the show was none other than Cokie Roberts: MHS Fellow, journalist, political commentator, and author of the new children’s book Founding Mothers: Remembering the Ladies. The book, which is based on her 2004 bestseller Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation, chronicles the lives of the women who helped to found and nurture the United States. Abigail Adams is duly represented, as are Martha Washington, Phillis Wheatley, and Mercy Otis Warren. The book also introduces young readers to characters who might be less familiar: women like Deborah Sampson, the Massachusetts native who disguised herself as a man and fought in the Revolution, or Esther DeBerdt Reed, who raised more than $300,000 to purchase supplies for the underfunded Continental Army.

As the noon hour approached, nearly 120 pre-teen history enthusiasts from Lexington, Mendon, and Upton, Mass., filled the MHS Reading Room to learn more about Ms. Roberts, her book, and the documents that made it possible. After a brief overview of the book, Ms. Roberts opened the floor to questions from the audience. The students asked nearly every question imaginable (and several that no one could have seen coming) over the next 45 minutes. For example, which revolutionary lady would Ms. Roberts most like to hang out with? Sarah Livingston Jay, of course! Jay, the smart, funny, feisty wife of patriot John Jay, raised her family and managed her household with good humor while supporting her husband’s busy political career. Several students asked Ms. Roberts to connect women of the past to the ladies of the present. One clever young lady from Lexington asked if there were any current situations in which Americans needed to “remember the ladies.” As Ms. Roberts explained, several groups of Americans are still fighting for equality in our society today. Women in particular must still advocate for equal pay, and for more flexible working conditions that recognize women’s essential role as caregivers. (Keep fighting, ladies!)

The afternoon’s presentation was perhaps best summed up with a question asked by a young lady from Mendon: why didn’t women have rights from the very beginnings of colonial America? Well, it could have taken hours to debate that issue, but unfortunately, the students had to return to school. The program ended with Ms. Roberts signing autographs (and even a few hands!) while the students perused a small exhibit of MHS documents featured in Ms. Roberts’s works. The students had the opportunity to read Abigail Adams’s “remember the ladies” letter and Phillis Wheatley’s poems, along with a fascinating letter written by Paul Revere in support of Deborah Sampson’s request for a military pension.

Contact the Society’s education department if you are interested in bringing your students or colleagues to the MHS for a program or workshop. While we can’t promise that Cokie Roberts will make an appearance, we can guarantee that your students will have a great time learning about the past through MHS collections!

By Jim Connolly

From my first days as a part-time transcriber for the Adams Papers to my current work as assistant editor of publications at the MHS, I’ve been lucky enough to work with the writings of strong, smart women–Abigail Adams, Louisa Catherine Adams, Ellen Wayles Coolidge, and Caroline Healey Dall being highlights. In the past few months, I added a fresh name to that list: Margaret Hall.

A Massachusetts native, Margaret Hall traveled to France in 1918 to work with the American Red Cross. She worked in a canteen in Châlons-sur-Marne, near the frontlines where the Great War continued to rage. In letters and journal entries, Hall recorded her experience of World War I, from her general fondness for the poilus (French soldiers) to her complicated responses to scenes of suffering and desolation. But no matter how grim things got, she infused her writing with a refreshing sense of irony and humor. This is to say nothing of the nearly three hundred remarkable photographs she took throughout her journey and pasted into the typescript.

This photograph of a fellow worker illustrates the hectic pace of Hall’s canteen work.

When she returned to the United States, Hall produced from those records a narrative titled “Letters and Photographs from the Battle Country, 1918–1919,” a typescript of which lives here at the MHS. In July 2014, the Society will publish an edition of her narrative (with selected photographs), edited by Margaret Higonnet, a professor of English at the University of Connecticut, Storrs.

I leave you with a paragraph from the narrative that gives a sense of the adventures Margaret Hall gets up to. Here she writes of her trip to battlefield in the Argonne in the spring of 1919.

“The men threw hand grenades for us, one potato masher caught in a tree, and they screamed to us to drop, which we did in a hurry. Then they tried setting off all sorts of queer smoke things. One they thought was gas, and I must say I was glad when they stopped experimenting. Brought back a little shell with a parachute in it. Hope it is nothing more dangerous than a smoke screen.”

[A “potato masher” is a stick-shaped German grenade used in both World Wars.]