"I Embrace with Joy, this Opportunity of Writing You"

John Adams was born in Braintree on 19 October 1735, the son of Deacon John and Susanna (Boylston) Adams. He graduated from Harvard College in 1755, taught school and studied law in Worcester, Massachusetts, and returned to Braintree in 1758 to practice law. In 1759, he met 15-year-old Abigail at the Weymouth home of her parents, Rev. William and Elizabeth (Quincy) Smith. Although the relationship was slow to develop (John thought Abigail and her sister Mary lacked fondness and tenderness), by 1761 John was devoting his full attention to the woman he called "Miss Adorable." The two married on 25 October 1764 and lived in Braintree.

John Adams pursued his law career until his activities in politics and government took him away from Massachusetts. As a member of the Continental Congress, a peace commissioner, the first United States minister to England, first vice-president and second president of the United States, John was away from home for extended periods, leaving Abigail the responsibility for managing the family farm and caring for their four children. Because of John's long absences, a frequent exchange of letters was essential and nearly 1,200 letters between the two survive to this day, the cornerstone of the Adams Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. First published in the nineteenth century by their grandson, Charles Francis Adams (1835-1915), the amazing correspondence between John and Abigail is now available online (please see the website, Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive).

Who was Benjamin Blyth?

The portraits of John and Abigail featured here are the earliest known likenesses of the couple and were drawn by Benjamin Blyth of Salem. Blyth was baptized 18 May 1746 at the First Church in Salem, Massachusetts, the second child of Samuel, a sailmaker, and Abigail (Massey) Blyth. A self-taught artist, the earliest mention of his talents appears in an advertisement in the Essex Gazette of January 10-17, 1769:

"Benjamin Blyth Begs Leave to inform the Public, that he has opened a Room for the Performance of Limning in Crayons, at the House occupied by his Father, in the great Street leading towards Marblehead, where Specimens of his Performance may be seen. All Persons who please to favour him with their Employ, may depend upon having good Likenesses, and being immediately waited on, by applying to their Humble Servant, Benjamin Blyth."

Blyth would have been just twenty years old when he portrayed the Adamses in 1766 on one of their visits to Salem (John had business at the Salem court, and brought Abigail along to visit her sister Mary Cranch). Like the portraits of John and Abigail, almost all of Blyth's surviving portraits are done in pastel crayon. The MHS has two other pastel portraits by Blyth in its collections: Major General John Thomas, circa 1775, and Eunice Diman, circa 1774.