Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
d1803
I received your Letter from Providence and rejoiced in the favorable account you gave of your journey thus far, but a Letter Since received by your Sister dated at Newark gave us all much anxiety upon Mrs Adams’s account.1 We hope her disorder was only occasiond by over fatigue; and that a little rest would restore her. She is a veteran in journeying, and has frequently gone through what would appal stoughter constitutions than hers, yet we shall feel a degree of uneasiness untill We learn your safe arrival at Washington.
Your Sister leaves us tomorrow for N-York. we have not recoverd 304 our spirits occasiond by your long expected absence which we feel most keenly, and now she leaves a void, without any one to supply her place; Thomas I hope will come to us, yet I fear he will not be happy; he will feel his Situation too sensibly to be at ease; I know he will meet with mortifications of various kinds. yet he had better encounter them than remain where he is. he has promised to converse with you. I hope he has done it with freedom—
We have not any thing new to communicate, except the death of the
late Govr Adams our family were sent to by Mrs Adams & yours to attend as Relatives.
Your Father Sister and Louissa went, and Mrs Adams rode to the funeral with your Sister
in our Carriage; it is said the Republicans were much
gratified upon the occasion—2 We look to
your city for the Great and the Marvelous;
My Love to Mrs Adams Caroline & George. a kind remembrance to Mrs Johnson and family Let Judge Cranch know that his Father & Mother are well as are his sisters and their families—
My own Health has been daily mending since you left me. I have been three Sundays to meeting, to day all day, and I rode to Weymouth & back the same day last week.
I fear through neglect, you left in Louissas Room all your Neck handkerchiefs pocket Handkerchiefs &c I found many in a draw there, which I suppose you must have designd to have taken—
Let us hear from you as often as you can. if I cannot Scrible with freedom—I can at least, tell you the state of the weather and the health or sickness of Your Friend’s
Your affectionate Mother
RC (Adams
Papers); addressed by Louisa Catharine Smith: “John Quincy Adams Esqr. / Senator in Congress / Washington”; endorsed: “My
Mother— 22. Octr: 1803 / 1. Novr: Recd: / Ansd:.”
JQA’s letter to AA from Providence, R.I., has not been found. In a 10 Oct. letter to AA2 (MHi:Misc. Bound Coll.), he reported that LCA was suffering from a “violent fever” that “is less alarming than it was in the Night, but far from being subdued.” He also recounted the family’s travels from Providence to Newark, N.J., and described a visit with Margaret Stephens Smith and SSA. On 12 Oct. JQA added a note to JA, directing the letter to him if AA2 had departed Quincy, and reporting that LCA had recovered enough to travel. JQA also wrote of visiting with WSS and Caroline Amelia Smith, noting that his niece was “much stronger in Constitution than when I saw her two years ago.”
Samuel Adams died in Boston on 2 Oct. at the age of 81. The
Boston Gazetteer, 5 Oct., was one of several newspapers
that paid tribute to him in the days that followed: “The opposition to the unjust
colonial usurpation of Britain might have been soothed in its infancy … had it not
been for the spirit and the nerve it received from his
fostering care. To shine in arms, was never his ambition; but in marshalling the
rising energies of freedom; in wielding the public will, and concentrating the moral
force of a Nation to the attainment of the most exalted object and crown of human
existence, LIBERTY; Samuel Adams was without rival.”
The Boston selectmen invited area clergy, state and federal officials, 305 foreign consuls, and the public to attend a 6
Oct. funeral. On the day of the funeral, bells were tolled, the guns of Fort
Independence were fired, and flags were lowered to half staff during a procession from
the State House to the Granary Burying Ground where Adams was laid to rest, as
requested, in a plain coffin.
Adams was honored in Washington, D.C., as well as Boston. On 31
Oct. JQA opposed successful Senate resolutions calling for members to
wear crepe for a month in tribute to Adams and the recently deceased Edmund Pendleton
and Stevens Thomson Mason. While acknowledging that the deceased were “three
illustrious patriots,” JQA argued that the tribute was misplaced because
it was “tending to unsuitable discussions of character, and to an employment of the
Senate’s time in debates altogether foreign to the subjects which properly belong to
them.” The vote was one of the first made by JQA after he was sworn in as
a U.S. senator on 21 Oct. (
ANB
; New-England
Palladium, 7 Oct.; U.S. Senate, Jour.
, 8th Cong., 1st sess., 3:300, 305;
D/JQA/27, APM
Reel 30).
th1803
I have the pleasure to inform you that I had a pleasant journey and
arrived safe here on Tuesday after I left you. I found Mrs
Pain a very amaible agreeable Lady and Mr P was politely
attentive.1 the accounts that we
received on the road were so favourable respecting the decline of the fever that I did
not feel any apprehensions of coming into the City— I had the pleasure to find Colln
Smith and my Daughter in perfect health.
I have so frequently my Dear Madam experienced your kindness and Hospitalyty—that I feel myself largely in your debt upon the score of friendship and I fear the only return that it will be in my power to make is the acknowledgement of the obligations I feel—which are I assure you strongly impressed upon my mind
Caroline desires me to present her Love to Miss Hannah and to thank her for the Elegant little Basketts—and requests her acceptance of a Lockett with a Lock of her Hair, in it
be so good as to remember me to Mr
Smith Cousin Betsy and your Children and believe me Dear Madam your / obliged friend
RC (MHi:Smith-Carter Family Papers); endorsed: “A. Smith / N Yk 1803.”
AA2’s travel companions were probably Boston
merchant William Payne (1762–1827) and his wife, Lucy Gray Dobell Payne (1776–1809)
(Whitmore, Families of Payne and Gore
, p. 20–23).