Days had been so busy for John Adams during his presidency that he found little leisure time to engage in the agricultural pursuits of his New England ancestors. In retirement, he rejoiced in spreading xvii manure, walking property bounds, and cultivating crops. When not in the fields, his time was devoted to reading. “Your Father appears to enjoy a tranquility and a freedom from care which he has never before experienced,” Abigail reported to Thomas Boylston. John now complained to his children that he had nothing but farm activities to write about, though he actually found plenty to say on subjects like electioneering in Pennsylvania and French imperial ambitions in Europe. Abigail’s letters also illustrate her reconnection with the family farm after extended periods away in previous years. In one letter Abigail paused to describe a pastoral scene on a May day: “Beauties which my Garden unfolds to my view from the window at which I now write; tempt me to forget the past, and rejoice in the full Bloom of the pear the Apple, the plumb, and Peach, and the rich luxurence of the Grass plats; intersperced with the cowslip the daffy & Callombine.”1

The 1801 death of Abigail’s uncle Norton Quincy provided an opportunity for John to further indulge his lifelong penchant for real estate. John joked with Thomas Boylston that by purchasing much of the estate from Quincy’s heirs, “I became Monarch of stony field, Count of Gull Island, Earl of Mount Arrarat, Marquis of Candlewood Hill, and Baron of Rocky Run.” The mood soon changed, however. On the very day he completed the acquisitions, 1 April 1803, John Quincy learned of the failure of the London banking firm of Bird, Savage, & Bird. The loss of $18,000 of John and Abigail’s retirement savings placed with the firm by John Quincy was “a Catastrophe so unexpected to us,” Abigail wrote, “at a time when we had become responsible for so large a sum.” Their eldest son’s solution was to reimburse his parents, selling Boston real estate holdings to finance the purchase of fourteen of his father’s properties. John Quincy waged a protracted fight to retrieve a portion of the family’s assets from the bankrupt firm, but his parents did not have to wait to be financially secure again.2

In letters printed early in the volume, John and Abigail wrote of their joy when John Quincy sent word from Europe that Louisa Catherine had given birth to the couple’s first child, a son, on 12 April 1801. That elation dampened a bit when the grandparents learned xviii that the infant was named George Washington Adams. While John was silent on the point, Abigail did not hesitate to send a message via Thomas Boylston that the family patriarch was hurt not to have been honored in the naming. She hinted at her displeasure to the new father as well, referring to the infant as “John George” and elsewhere misspelling the infant’s name. John Quincy and Louisa Catherine named a second son, born 4 July 1803, John Adams.3

At the arrival of George Washington Adams, John and Abigail were already deeply engaged in the lives of five other grandchildren. Susanna Boylston Adams and Abigail Louisa Smith Adams, the daughters of their late son Charles, received particular attention. Susanna, who had been in her grandmother’s care since 1800, was enrolled in a Milton boarding school run by cousin Elizabeth Palmer Cranch. Abigail maintained a steady correspondence with Charles’ widow, Sarah Smith Adams, when Sally and her younger daughter were not staying for extended periods at Peacefield. William Steuben Smith and John Adams Smith, the sons of John and Abigail’s daughter, Nabby, continued to attend Atkinson Academy and reside with their aunt Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody and her second husband, Rev. Stephen Peabody. The decision of their father, William Stephens Smith, to temporarily remove them from the Peabodys’ care in the spring of 1801 was met with consternation by the extended family. Letters between John Adams and William Stephens Smith reflect the tension between John and a son-in-law whose precarious financial circumstances were a constant worry.4

John Quincy and Louisa Catherine arrived in the United States on 4 September 1801, and soon afterward John and Abigail greeted both their newest grandson and their daughter-in-law. But first the young mother traveled with her infant to her family in Washington, D.C., while John Quincy went to Peacefield to reunite with his parents. “Tho I can scarcly give up the pleasure of seeing them as soon as they arrive,” Abigail wrote to Thomas Boylston, “Yet I know both duty and inclination must lead Your Sister to visit her Parents as soon as possible after her arrival.” Abigail soon wrote to invite Louisa Catherine to Massachusetts, and she responded, “I most joyfully accept,” embracing the prospect of meeting “the parents of my beloved husband to whom it is my earnest desire to render myself xix agreeable.” She especially anticipated introducing George to his grandparents: “My sweet little boy I hope needs no other recommendation than the striking resemblance he bears to his Grandfather.” Affection soon developed and began a long and amicable relationship between Abigail and Louisa Catherine, with Louisa Catherine signing letters to Abigail “your affectionate daughter L. C. A.,” and her mother-in-law reciprocating with “Your affectionate Mother Abigail Adams.” In time her relationship with John would grow especially strong. Louisa Catherine, the daughter of an American father and a British mother, had left behind her European life to join a family in a nation wholly foreign to her.5

Politics were eternal, but they were John and Abigail Adams’ chief vocation no longer. The weeks that followed their departure from public service and return home were marked by a reticence to comment on public affairs. “I have been so accustomed to write freely upon any Subject I chose,” Abigail observed, that “to commit these to paper would have been attributed to different emotions than those which I feel & know actuate my mind.” But John and Abigail were too steeped in American public life to forgo comment for long, and that reluctance soon dissipated. They turned a watchful gaze to President Thomas Jefferson’s administration, monitoring freshman senator John Quincy Adams’ entry into the capital’s fray. Adams family correspondence in this volume is consequently as rich as ever in political analysis. Abigail’s acumen is twice on particular display. An essay in her hand on the state of American politics appears in the opening pages, revealing Abigail’s perspective on the transition from her husband’s administration to that of Jefferson. The closing pages feature an exchange with the new president that took place three years later. When she opened the correspondence in May 1804, she did not set out to engage in a political debate, but the resulting seven letters exchanged between Abigail Adams and Thomas Jefferson over five months showcase the ideological divide between the former friends.6

Under Jefferson’s leadership, Americans like Abigail witnessed the nation’s expansion in the wake of the Louisiana Purchase and the consolidation of a Democratic-Republican power that, by the spring of 1804, practically ensured the president a second term. Reflecting on these transformations and their implications for the rising generation, Abigail reached for her pen. She wrote 20 percent, or 49 of the 251 letters, printed in this volume of the Adams Family Correspondence, augmenting missives to family members with correspondence with Hannah Phillips Cushing, Mary Smith Gray Otis, Mercy Otis Warren, Elias Boudinot, and Benjamin Rush. Underpinning Abigail’s letters was her critique of life under a new majority party. “The Gloom & Night of Jacobinism has obscured the Sun of federalism,” she wrote. The repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801 was a grave mistake, she argued to Cushing, opining that the “conflagration of the constitution” by Democratic-Republicans did not bode well for the health of the nation: “God grant that it may not be succeeded by an age of terror, of disorder and confusion.” Abigail expressed pride in John Quincy’s decision to support the Louisiana Purchase in opposition to the Federalists, telling him that some party colleagues said privately that they admired his stand. “Keep your mind free [fro]m party influence,” mother advised son, “and vote as your conscience aided by your judgement should dictate.” She was more circumspect in interpreting Alexander Hamilton’s legacy, acknowledging in muted terms his place in American history.7

Scholars investigating early American women’s political activity, the rise of the partisan press, and the dynamics of executive power will find much to explore in this volume. Abigail centered her attention on Jefferson, focusing on his actions as the third president of the United States and breaches in the long relationship between him and the Adamses. Abigail’s [post 18 March 1801] essay on American politics was largely a response to Jefferson’s inaugural address and its treatment by Federalist printers. The essay also grew from her reading of a 25 November 1800 letter from John Quincy to his father that described the nation’s debt to the outgoing president for a lifetime of public service. Abigail’s essay opens with remarks on Jefferson’s address and calls on Federalists to match previous Democratic-Republican attacks on her husband with broadsides against Jefferson. Her focus then shifts to John’s legacy as a public servant, xxi drawing from an extract of John Quincy’s letter in which she sharpened her son’s message by modifying the language of selected passages. Abigail signed the essay “a Lover of Justice,” a term that appears again in a later letter.8

Abigail did not pursue publication of her essay, but she did bring her case to Jefferson. Three years later the death of Mary Jefferson Eppes, Jefferson’s 25-year-old daughter, prompted Abigail to renew her correspondence with the president. Abigail’s empathy as a parent who had “tasted the bitter cup” of an adult child’s death, her respect for their long friendship that endured despite their political differences, and her fondness for the “beloved and deserving” Eppes all led her to initiate the exchange. Abigail grew close to Mary in London in 1787 when the then nine-year-old stayed with the Adamses on her way to meet her father in Paris. Abigail recalled those memories in her opening letter to Jefferson, writing that “the attachment which I formed for her, when you committed her to my care … has remained with me to this hour.” Jefferson responded by assuring Abigail that Mary had always spoken of her with affection. He then ruminated on his relationship with the Adamses, declaring that his friendship with John was unshaken despite a single break in faith on her husband’s part. The appointment of numerous Federalist judges under John’s nomination in the closing weeks of the Adams administration was “personally unkind” and a violation of “common justice,” Jefferson wrote. The comment ignited Abigail’s ire.9

Since Jefferson had “been pleased to enter upon some subjects which call for a reply,” Abigail took “off the Shackles I should otherways have found myself embarrassed with” and answered his charge. Throughout the exchange, the former first lady reiterated her belief in the corrosive nature of party politics and unbridled newspaper commentary, and she demonstrated her fierce loyalty to family. John’s actions in making the nominations were not personal, Abigail contended, since it was a president’s constitutional duty to nominate qualified individuals to vacant posts when they stood open. The highly partisan printers—and not her husband—were to blame for misrepresenting John’s actions as a personal affront toward Jefferson. But the press, to Abigail’s mind, was not the only party at fault.10

Abigail believed a president was the moral leader of the nation, and she charged Jefferson with two violations of the people’s trust, adding a personal note by disclosing that these breaches were “what has severed the bonds of former Friendship.” A president must rise above party, yet Jefferson provided financial aid and a presidential pardon to partisan commentator James Thomson Callender. Abigail condemned Callender for his vociferous attacks on John, calling out his subsequent turn on Jefferson. “The Serpent You cherished and warmed, bit the hand that nourished him,” Abigail chided. Jefferson bolstered his support of Callender, characterizing it as charity to a destitute immigrant rather than payment for newspaper attacks on political adversaries. In turn, Abigail advocated the constitutionality of limits on speech and defended the Alien and Sedition Acts by arguing that, without limits, civil society degraded to a state of anarchy. Jefferson fired back with a defense of free speech and was unabashed in his defense of the presidential pardon, flatly stating his rejection of the Alien and Sedition Acts.11

As her fellow New Englanders readied to cast their votes for Jefferson, Abigail turned to the painful and very personal politics at play. She wrote that she would not abandon a friend of long standing despite their ideological differences, but that Jefferson had already done so. She believed that Jefferson’s “intentional act of unkindness” in replacing John Quincy as a federal bankruptcy commissioner was a personal attack on the family, especially given previous assurances to Abigail that he would provide assistance to the Adamses if he could. In reply, Jefferson denied knowing that her son held one of the Massachusetts bankruptcy commissions when he proposed it for another. Had he known, the president wrote, “It would have been a real pleasure to me to have preferred him to some who were named in Boston,” citing his “knolege of his integrity as well as my sincere dispositions towards yourself and mr̃ Adams.” Abigail seemed to accept his account before she closed the correspondence. “I have written to You with the freedom and unreserve of former Friendship,” she declared. “My Sincere wishes, that you may be directed to that path which may terminate in the prosperity and happiness of the people over whom You are placed.”12

A little less than a month after penning her last missive, Abigail—who had noted in her second letter to Jefferson, “No Eye but my xxiii own has seen what has passed”—presented the entire exchange to her husband. John reviewed it all, adding a brief notation to Abigail’s draft of her fourth and final letter: “The whole of this Correspondence was begun and conducted without my Knowledge or Suspicion. Last Evening and this Morning at the desire of Mrs Adams I read the whole. I have no remarks to make upon it at this time and in this place.”

John only once engaged directly with Jefferson in this period, but his successor was frequently on his mind during his first years of retirement. John wrote eighteen of the letters printed in the volume, continuing as always to offer his views on American political life. On Jefferson’s call for a strong navy to resist the powers of Europe and to fight the First Barbary War, John averred, “I feel myself irresistably inclined to agree with him.” Few other actions by Jefferson found favor, however, and John’s assessment of the president’s character was not flattering: “His Ambition and his cunning are the only Steady qualities in him.” John also advised son John Quincy as a freshman senator, echoing Abigail’s support of his independence and counseling his son on specific issues, claiming that the right of British sea captains to impress their own deserters was inarguable and any law of Congress against impressment should not infringe it. Impressment was “a Subject of great delicacy” in Anglo-American relations, he wrote, and one of “danger from irritations of temper.”13

Given time to ruminate on his life away from the halls of power, the past became an important focus as John settled into the role of a retired president. The “Young Gentlemen of Boston” highlighted the statesman’s return to the life of a New England farmer when they escorted him to the city for a dinner in the spring of 1801, declaring that “in the shade of retirement, and humble walk of a private citizen, he was still revered and beloved as their patron, their father, and their friend.” Prompted by Thomas Boylston Adams to recall earlier days, he reflected on his time in the Continental Congress and his relationship with George Washington. In these first years of retirement John continued the process of curating his legacy, and his letters hint at his decision in 1802 to embark on what would be a five-year process of writing his autobiography. The former xxiv president’s letters mingle a relief with being free of the demands of leading a nation and a sense of loss. “I mourn over the accumulated disgraces we are bringing on ourselves,” he wrote to daughter Nabby, “but I can do nothing.”14

On 26 April 1801 John Quincy Adams received his recall as United States minister to Prussia, one of his father’s last acts as president, bringing to an end a seven-year residency in Europe. After Louisa Catherine Adams recuperated from giving birth and infant son George Washington Adams grew strong enough to travel, the family came to the United States in September. They landed in Philadelphia and news of their safe arrival reached Quincy on the 11th, prompting John Adams to declare it “among the happiest days of my Life.” After a sojourn in Quincy, John Quincy returned to the Massachusetts bar, leasing a law office in Boston and investing his savings in city real estate. John Quincy was elected to the Massachusetts state senate in April 1802, but his tenure on Beacon Hill was brief. On 8 February 1803 he returned to federal service when he was elected to the U.S. Senate to fill the seat of the retiring Jonathan Mason.15

John Quincy’s entry into Senate service provides a view of early Americans’ struggle to balance goals of liberty and national expansion. When he was sworn in to the Democratic-Republican controlled U.S. Senate on 21 October 1803, John Quincy was considered a Federalist by his peers, though in his letters he claimed allegiance to personal conviction over party. The young senator found himself “between two rows of batteries … neither of which consider me as one of their soldiers.” John Quincy felt the effects of that crossfire soon after arrival. His fellow senators had already ratified the Louisiana Purchase, but several enabling bills were yet to be considered before the acquisition of the immense territory was final. Among the 81 letters written by John Quincy in this volume, many chronicled his role in these debates. One of his first actions xxv was consideration of a bill to fund the $11.25 million purchase and the $3.75 million pledged by the United States to cover claims by U.S. merchants against France. Voting in favor of the funding bill, John Quincy broke with Federalists who feared the new territory would be dominated by the opposite party. The opportunity to greatly expand the bounds of the United States was too great to pass by, he argued. Condemnation was swift, with a Boston newspaper publishing criticism from an unnamed colleague in Congress. John Quincy remained steadfast, writing to his brother, “If the principles which I advocated are not formed of sturdier stuff than to be put down by votes of a Senate, or even Acts of a Congress, it is time to know that they must be abandoned as solemn impostures.” He voted under the assumption that a constitutional amendment would be passed to legalize the acquisition and the people of the territory would be given a voice in the process. The Senate refused to consider either measure, causing John Quincy to vote against the imposition of a territorial government. He similarly opposed restrictions on slavery in the new territory, arguing that subjecting residents to regulation of any kind without their consent was no better than the British tyranny the American colonies had so recently thrown off.16

While her husband made an impression in the Capitol, Louisa Catherine settled into Washington society. On arriving in the city she pronounced it “one of the most beautiful spots in the world,” adding that, “the Presidents house and the capitol are two most Superb buildings and very well worth coming to see.” The competing attractions of family in Washington, D.C., and Quincy led to periods of separation between John Quincy and Louisa Catherine that were similar to those experienced in earlier years by John and Abigail Adams. While those separations were challenging for both generations, the results were troves of letters. In 25 letters in this volume Louisa Catherine captured for Abigail and John Quincy the social whirl of the capital. A ball celebrating the Louisiana Purchase was attended by 460 guests in a hall decorated with a portrait of Thomas Jefferson, though the president, she reported to her mother-in-law, “did not grace the Ball with his presence.” As Louisa Catherine gained her social footing, she called on the skills she developed in European courts, drawing from that experience to offer deft analysis xxvi of the intersection between the social and the political. She witnessed local skirmishes over etiquette and understood their implications for diplomacy. When Anthony Merry, the new British minister to the United States, arrived in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Elizabeth, Louisa Catherine grasped the impact of Jefferson’s eschewing some diplomatic protocol, leading to the Merrys’ eventual refusal to socialize with Jefferson. Despite this retreat, the British minister and his wife grew close to the Adamses, sometimes dropping by for unexpected visits. When Louisa Catherine witnessed additional “difficulties” the Merrys encountered when an enslaved man they employed was removed from their household without notice, she wrote that the breach in protocol would “probably be made a national question.” John Quincy in his response placed blame on both sides, declaring that the best solution to the resulting affray was for each party to stand down. “Disavowals, in diplomatic controversies,” he wrote, are “great peace-makers.”17

John Quincy and Louisa Catherine revealed in their letters that the separations from each other, the first since their courtship, were indeed painful. Each of them attributed to the other the responsibility for the decision to reside separately at times. In one instance John Quincy’s insistence that they go on as planned to Quincy despite the declining health of Louisa Catherine’s father, Joshua Johnson, proved trying when the news arrived of Johnson’s death. These were challenging times for a young family, and especially for Louisa Catherine, as she assumed the demands of parenthood while she and her husband were apart. She wrote of infant John’s trials with teething and sought advice on controlling George’s exuberant behavior, also telling of a poignant moment when her older son mistook a passing stranger for his absent father. John Quincy included messages to George in French to improve his language skills and sent a toy drum as a gift. The letters show the joy they shared in their children and in each other. “Our dear George—how I long to kiss even his slavering lips!” John Quincy wrote to Louisa Catherine. “As for those of his mother I say nothing— Let her consult my heart in her own and all that pen can write or language express will shrink to nothing.”18

Thomas Boylston Adams’ decision to settle as an attorney in Philadelphia in April 1799 never met with great professional success. His difficulties finding work were exacerbated by the departure of the federal government to Washington, D.C., in May 1800, and the Adams name and Federalist pedigree were often a detriment to business in a city where the political culture was dominated by Democratic-Republicans. Thomas Boylston in 45 letters printed in the volume described efforts frustrated by a legal community where sponsorship by an established mentor was essential for advancement. His inability to secure adequate employment brought on what the young lawyer called “the Blue Devils” and led him to seek other pursuits to fill his time.19

A continued association with Joseph Dennie Jr. provided Thomas Boylston the avocation he sought. Dennie’s Philadelphia literary journal, the Port Folio, enjoyed a growing readership. From the earliest issues, Thomas Boylston passed along to Dennie contributions from John Quincy, who sent translations, reviews, and poems from Europe for the pages of the “portable-foolery.” Thomas Boylston served as the publication’s business manager for a time, as he continued to relay his brother’s various offerings, as well as reflections on French literature from his father’s quill and contributions of his own composition. Thomas Boylston published pseudonymous political tracts in the Port Folio on the high cost of federal construction in the nation’s capital and the rivalry between Massachusetts and Virginia, despite the publication’s tendency to avoid partisan commentary. He engaged in a political debate with the young editor of the Worcester, Massachusetts, National Aegis, trading barbs on Thomas Paine’s contention that John Adams was a monarchist. Thomas Boylston drew on his legal training in a Port Folio response, writing that the accusation was mere “hear-say, and, except a fool, every body knows that hear-say is no evidence.”20

Thomas Boylston’s growing romance with Ann Harrod of Haverhill provided another focus. He later claimed that his interest first took hold in 1783 when he was an eleven-year-old student of his xxviii uncle John Shaw, first husband of his aunt Elizabeth. Late in 1802 Abigail queried her son about “some entanglement, which has long perplexd and embarressed you.” On learning his interest, Abigail signaled her approval of Ann (Nancy) as a young woman who was “serious solid sensible amiable.” Thomas Boylston’s maturing connection with Nancy, combined with the challenges of finding success in Philadelphia legal circles, led him to return to Massachusetts in late 1803.21

The youngest Adams son might never have resettled in Massachusetts if his brother’s suggestion that they move to lands in upstate New York had come to fruition. Thomas Boylston initially embraced the idea: “I am your man, for a new Country, & manual-labor— Head-work is bad business.” The proposal went no further, however, with Thomas Boylston instead finding the change he craved when he moved permanently back to Quincy. “I feel, that there will be ample time to reflect on my future course of conduct, but all my thoughts seem to begin & terminate with the practice of law,” he wrote to his brother soon after arriving at Peacefield. “When Spring approaches I will do something at farming, that I may learn a little of practical husbandry, before I undertake to assume the management of a farm.” The exchange of Democratic-Republican Philadelphia for the Federalist fold of Massachusetts soon bore fruit, with an appointment as a justice of the peace, a first step in a career in the Massachusetts judiciary.22

Whether by design or not, it was John Quincy rather than his brother who announced to their parents that Thomas Boylston was returning home. In conveying the news, he asked his mother to refrain from actively guiding his brother’s life once Thomas Boylston was back in her neighborhood. Abigail brushed off the request as an impertinence, but the message was clear. Both sons were coming home, but it would be on terms decidedly different from when they left. Despite continuing challenges, Abigail and John were safe in their chosen home, removed from the turbulence of past years, and with their two sons nearby. The good far outweighed the bad as Abigail assessed the future from the prospect of Peacefield: “In the Rural shades of Quincy: and the domestic occupations of a Farm; we xxix enjoy a tranquility unruffeld by party Spirit, hopeing for peace upon Earth, and breathing good will to Man.”23

For a complete statement of Adams Papers editorial policy as revised in 2007, see Adams Family Correspondence, 8:xxxv–xliii. Readers may also wish to consult the descriptions of the editorial standards established at the beginning of the project in Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 1:lii–lxii, and Adams Family Correspondence, 1:xli–xlviii. These statements document the original conception of the Adams Papers project, though significant parts of them have now been superseded.

The only major addition to the 2007 policy regards the selection for publication in the Adams Family Correspondence series of John Quincy Adams’ letters from his diplomatic posts to his father. In general, we will include those letters only when they focus substantially on family matters. If their contents revolve largely or entirely around diplomatic and political affairs, they will be reserved for consideration and likely inclusion in the Papers of John Adams or the Papers of John Quincy Adams. John Quincy’s letters to other family members—especially Abigail, to whom he often wrote at the same time as he did to his father—will continue to be published routinely in the Adams Family Correspondence books.

The Massachusetts Historical Society is committed to making Adams family materials available to scholars and the public online. Four digital resources of particular interest to those who use the Adams Family Correspondence volumes are the Adams Papers Digital Edition; The Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive; The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection; and the Online Adams Catalog. All are available through the Historical Society’s website at www.masshist.org.

The Adams Papers Digital Edition, a project cosponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Harvard University Press, xxx and the Massachusetts Historical Society, offers searchable text for 48 of the Adams Papers volumes published prior to 2017. There is a single consolidated index for volumes published through 2006, while the indexes for more recent volumes appear separately. This digital edition is designed as a complement to the letterpress edition by providing greater access to a wealth of Adams material.

The Adams Family Papers Electronic Archive contains images and text files of all of the correspondence between John and Abigail Adams owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society as well as John Adams’ Diaries and Autobiography. The text is fully searchable and can also be browsed by date.

The Diaries of John Quincy Adams Digital Collection provides digital images of John Quincy Adams’ entire 51-volume Diary, which he composed over nearly seventy years. The images can be searched by date or browsed by diary volume. Access to the diaries is being expanded through the John Quincy Adams Digital Diary, the goal of which is to provide verified and searchable transcriptions alongside the digital images of the Diary. The project is supported by the Amelia Peabody Charitable Fund, Harvard University Press, and private donors.

The Online Adams Catalog represents a fully searchable electronic database of all known Adams documents, dating primarily from the 1760s to 1889, at the Massachusetts Historical Society and other public and private repositories. The digital conversion—based on the original Adams Papers control file begun in the 1950s and steadily updated since that time—was supported by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the Massachusetts Historical Society, and was initiated with Packard Humanities Institute funds in 2009. The catalog allows public online access to a database of nearly 110,000 records, with some 30,000 cross-reference links to online, printed, and microfilm editions of the items, or to websites of the holding repositories. Each record contains information on a document’s author, recipient, and date and on the location of the original, if known.

The letters printed here may be supplemented with material from the same time period included in John Quincy Adams’ Diary available online (as described above) and in the letters of John Adams and John Quincy Adams published, respectively, in The Works of John Adams, edited by Charles Francis Adams, 9:99–101, 578–589, and Writings of John Quincy Adams, edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford, 2:509–531, 3:1–46. Also of interest may be the Diary and xxxi Autobiographical Writings of Louisa Catherine Adams, edited by Judith S. Graham and Beth Luey, 1:151–217. Future volumes of the Papers of John Adams will provide considerably more coverage of John’s public activities during these years.

A nation and a family in transition are the themes of volume 15 of the Adams Family Correspondence. John and Abigail Adams went from the President’s House to the fields and gardens of Peacefield as the people of the United States handed power from the Federalists to the Democratic-Republicans. Massive territorial expansion created both opportunity and challenges as the young nation moved into the new century. Within the Adams family the second generation came to the fore, with John Quincy Adams and Louisa Catherine Adams relocating from Berlin to Washington, D.C., and Thomas Boylston Adams returning to Quincy. These stories of growth and change unfold in the letters of the people who lived them, the Adams family of Massachusetts.