Adams Family Correspondence, volume 12
we reachd here yesterday being thursday the 7th day from leaving home. we had very bad Roads, the Rains having washd all the
stones bare, and the ruts were very deep I was much fatigued; Brisler and Family went on
to N york mrs Brisler much mended in her Health by her journey. I hope when we get over
our fatigue we shall all be able to say so. Betsy does not seem the worse for it, tho I
think I have run a risk in taking so feeble a Being, but I hope it may be a means of
restoreing a Good Girl to Health— I found mrs Smith and her Children in good Health. mrs
smith grows very fleshy as much so I think as before she first went abroad, tho being
older and more moulded into the form of woman, she does not look so burdend. the col has
been gone, a journey for a fortnight up to his New Lands—1 tomorrow I go into New york and on Monday
proceed for Philadelphia. I think it a very fortunate circumstance that mr smith 105 accompanied us. it has renderd the journey much
pleasenter, and he has taken a good deal of care and anxiety from my mind, which I
should have felt if he had not been with me.
I want to hear how you all are, and how my Farming buisness goes on. I would wish you to go & look at them sometimes. my Love to all Friends and Neighbours Mrs smith joins me in a kind remembrance.
your affectionate Sister
RC (MWA:Abigail Adams Letters); addressed: “Mrs Mary Cranch / Quincy”; endorsed
by Richard Cranch: “Letter from Mrs / A: Adams (E Chester)
/ May 5th. 1797.”
WSS departed Eastchester, N.Y., in April 1797 and
did not return until late Jan. 1798. He first visited his lands in what would become
Chenango County, N.Y., and from there traveled to Detroit in the Northwest Territory
then to Fort Stanwix, N.Y., before returning home. During the months he was gone,
WSS rarely wrote to AA2 (there are no extant letters), and
the Adamses presumed he had abandoned his family. The lands in central New York were
part of a land speculation scheme WSS had undertaken in 1791, when he
applied to purchase six townships in the future Chenango and Madison Counties.
Comprising 150,000 acres and costing £24,375, WSS received the patent to
these lands on 16 April 1794, retaining two of the townships and entering into an
agreement to be the agent for Englishmen Sir William Pulteney and William Hornby for
the other four. WSS allegedly failed to pay Pulteney and Hornby for lands
that were sold and failed to report advances amounting to £60,000, and in March 1796
Pulteney dismissed WSS. Patrick Colquhoun, another land agent, wrote on 6
May about WSS’s financial problems, “it was impossible that such a career
of folly could end in anything but ruin,” and that Pulteney “could not be easily
persuaded that Mr Smith’s intentions were not from the beginning very impure.” By 4
Oct. WSS owed Pulteney and Hornby nearly $231,000, a debt that remained
unpaid in 1805 when Pulteney was informed that WSS was “totally bankrupt
in fortune” and continually “pressed by his numerous creditors” (James H. Smith, History of Chenango and Madison Counties, New York,
Syracuse, 1880, p. 68; Luna M. Hammond, History of Madison
County, State of New York, Syracuse, 1872, p. 545; The
Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton: Documents and Commentary, ed. Julius Goebel
Jr. and others, 5 vols., N.Y., 1964–1981, 5:54, 55, 107, 110).