Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
r:1801.
After a passage of 58 days from Hamburg we have this day landed here, where we purpose to stay five or six days— My wife will then go to spend a few weeks with her parents at Washington, and I shall 117 hasten towards Quincy where I hope within three weeks to present myself before you—1 Her health though yet very infirm is better than we could have expected, and your little Grandson is as hearty as any sailor of his age that ever cross’d the ocean.
My brother Thomas is with us, and we have so much to say to each other that I have scarcely been able to snatch a minute to inform you of our arrival, and to renew the assurance of our ever faithful and dutiful affection
RC (Adams
Papers); internal address: “J. Adams Esqr.”
The ship America, Capt. Wills,
carrying JQA, LCA, and GWA, arrived on 4 Sept.
in Philadelphia, where they were reunited with TBA, who had booked
accommodation for them in Martha Roberts’ boardinghouse. The trio’s arrival was
reported in the Philadelphia Gazette of the United
States, 4 Sept., and other city newspapers. JQA and LCA
parted on 12 Sept., with LCA and GWA leaving for Washington,
D.C., to visit the Johnsons and JQA departing for Quincy.
JQA was reunited with AA2 in Newark, N.J., the following
day and on 14 Sept. they traveled to New York City, where they saw WSS.
JQA departed New York aboard the packet Fame, Capt. Justin, on 18 Sept., landing at Newport, R.I., on the 19th. The
next day he secured passage to Providence, R.I., “in a trading sloop, from Albany.” On
the 21st he took the stage to Boston and a chaise to Quincy, where he was reunited
with JA and AA. AA wrote to Catherine Nuth
Johnson on 21 Sept. (Adams Papers) for the
purpose of “expressing to you the joy and thankfullness I feel at the Safe return of
our dear Children to their Families and Friends. I hope e’er this reaches you that you
have folded to your Bosom, Your long absent Daughter, and the dear Boy for whom She
had So Severely Sufferd” (vol. 13:470, 471; Philadelphia Gazette, 4 Sept.; Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser, 5 Sept.;
D/JQA/24, APM
Reel 27; LCA, D&A
, 1:157–158, 2:779–780).