Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
Wednesday.
We have been detained here since Sunday the 9th: instt: by the severe illness of my wife— We
think however to go on this day, as far as Elizabeth-town, and to proceed by easy Stages
to-morrow as far as Princeton, and the next day, (God willing) to Frankfort, where we
hope to find you—1 If you can procure for
us in that place, or on the other side of the City, towards Baltimore, convenient
lodgings in a private house, my wife will be more quiet and have a better prospect of
rest than at an open Inn— And I should be glad of an opportunity to stop and give her a
good day’s rest— But I presume this will not easily be obtained, as the neighbourhood of
Philadelphia, must doubtless be as much crowded as that of New-York— To meet you
therefore at Frankfort is all I can flatter myself with— And if you cannot do better,
engage us two chambers with two beds in each, at the best public House in Frankfort, for
Friday Night.
Your’s ever.
RC (MHi:Grenville H. Norcross Autograph Coll.); addressed: “Thomas B. Adams
Esqr / Philadelphia.”; internal address: “T. B. Adams
Esqr.”; endorsed: “J. Q. Adams Esqr: / 12th: Oct: 1803 / 13th: Recd:”; notation by JQA:
“Post-paid—.”
JQA wrapped up his affairs in Boston on 28 Sept. in
preparation for his departure for Washington, D.C., to begin his term in the U.S.
Senate. JQA, LCA, GWA, and JA2
left Quincy for Providence, R.I., on 1 Oct., and on 4 Oct. sailed for Paulus Hook,
N.J., aboard the sloop Cordelia, Capt. Crepon. After two
port stops due to a gale that made all in the family seasick, they landed on 9 Oct.
and took a carriage to Newark, N.J. The Adamses traveled to Elizabethtown on 12 Oct.,
to Princeton on the 14th, and to the outskirts of Philadelphia on the 15th. After
visiting with TBA for two days they arrived at the Washington, D.C., home
of Walter and Ann Johnson Hellen on 20 Oct. (JQA to TBA, 3
Oct., private owner, 1987; D/JQA/27, APM Reel 30).
15. October 1803.
I presume you had not left Bristol two hours before we arrived
there— Your advice to us to stop at the Fox-Chace, we could not follow— For we should
not have known how to get forward— Neither can we go into the City, because, if we did
they would exclude us from Baltimore.— We are now at Dover’s—The Rising Sun—Close by the
Bridge—1 We shall stop here to-morrow,
and proceed on 303 Monday— We hope you will be well enough to come out
and see us tomorrow— But I write you now more particularly, to request you would engage
of Hardy, an EASY
Carriage and four horses to take us on to Baltimore—2 He must come out and take us up here, early on
Monday morning— Make the bargain as favourable to us as you can.— We must have a private
Carriage; for my wife cannot possibly travel night and day as we must do if we were to
take the Stage— And we must have four horses for we have much baggage, and are four,
besides the two children.
Do come out and see us to-morrow if you possibly can— And let us know what bargain you have made for us with Hardy.
Your’s affectionately
RC (Adams
Papers); addressed: “Thomas B. Adams Esqr / N:
113. Walnut Street. / Philadelphia.”; internal address: “Thomas B. Adams Esqr.”; endorsed: “John Q Adams Esqr: / 15 Oct. 1803 / 16th: Recd:.”
TBA’s letter has not been found, but
JQA wrote his brother from Elizabethtown, N.J., on 13 Oct. (Gilder
Lehrman Institute of American History, New York) to alert him that they were delayed
in their travels. The Adamses did not venture into Philadelphia because Baltimore
officials subjected anyone arriving from Philadelphia or New York to a fifteen-day
quarantine. Skirting Philadelphia brought the Adamses into the vicinity of the Fox
Chase Inn, near the intersection of the Old York and Germantown Roads.
JQA and his family instead stayed at John Dover’s Rising Sun Inn in the
Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia, just across the Frankford Creek from
Frankford, Penn. (vol. 10:451;
Boston Gazetteer, 24 Sept.; Providence Gazette, 24 Sept.; Philadelphia Aurora
General Advertiser, 17 Sept.; D/JQA/27, 15 Oct., APM Reel 30; Townsend Ward, “The Germantown
Road and Its Associations,”
PMHB
, 5:16–18 [1881]; W. A. Newman Dorland, “The
Second Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry,”
PMHB
, 45:285–286 [1921]; 52:380 [1928];
Philadelphia American Daily Advertiser, 17 June).
Joseph Hardy leased horses and carriages in Philadelphia from a
livery stable associated with his Market Street inn (Jasper Yeates, Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania, 4 vols., Phila., 1817–1819, 2:347;
Philadelphia Directory
, 1803,
p. 111, Shaw-Shoemaker, No. 4858;
Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 12 Oct.
1804).