Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
th1804
I recieved your letter my best friend the day before yesterday
which afforded me much pleasure as it assured me of your safe arval at home1 I know not but it appear’d to me that your letter were not in good spirits when you last wrote
you do not say you are well and I fear the fatigue of your journey has proved injurious
rather than serviceable beneficial I had 20 Cents
to pay Postage for your letter the Paper had announced your arrival at home which was
the reason I suppose that they made the charge—2
The Children are both well George grows so extremely wild it is almost impossible to do any thing with him I am fearful he has lost his french already though I take every possible means to make him speak it but I think his pronunciation very much altered which must be owing to me it grieves me very much but I have repeatedly told you this would happen if I undertook to talk to him—
I have not yet had an opportunity of sending your Trunks nor do I know when I shall be able I think of sending them to Alexandria to 367 wait for a Vessel and you may depend on having them by the earliest opportunity—3
John has not yet been innoculated Dr.
Weems has not been able to procure any infection I wish you would endeavour to get some
of Dr. Waterhouse but you must do it immediately or the
Season will be too far advanced4 he has
two more teeth nearly through he bids fair to talk very early as he already says Papa Kitty & Esther I am
sorry to say there is no prospect of his walking yet—
We have had a great Fresh in the Potomac which has brought down
such quantities of Wood that almost all the poor families round have stocked themselves
for the next Winter there were between 50 &. 70 Cords taken at Mr. Hellens Wharf the water had risen ten feet above the little
Falls it has carried away a large part of the Potomac Bridge—5
We have no news here there is nothing stirring I saw Mr. Sheldon last evening—6
Adieu my most sincerely beloved friend that we may soon be reunited and never again suffer the misery of a separation is the ardent prayer of most faithful and affectionate Wife
P.S. Present me respectfully to your friends and tell Mrs. Whitcomb not to send the wine I wrote for as I can
purchase it here but to send the other things as soon as possible.7
RC (Adams Papers).
JQA to LCA, 15 April, for which see JQA’s letter of the 24th, and note 2, above.
JQA’s 14 April arrival in Boston was reported in the
Boston Commercial Gazette, 16 April, and the Boston Columbian Centinel, 18 April.
JQA in a letter to William Smith Shaw, 21 April, communicated a report that his trunks had arrived in Boston, information subsequently discovered to be mistaken. JQA also asked Shaw to purchase for TBA some shot and gunpowder (MWA:Adams Family Letters).
Harvard professor Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse promoted the use in the
United States of Dr. Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccination, for which see
JQA to TBA, 9
June 1801, and note 2, above. Waterhouse supplied Thomas Jefferson with the
matter used to vaccinate his family in Aug. 1801, but supplies were unavailable in
1804. JQA wrote to LCA on 14 May (Adams Papers) that Waterhouse and the other Boston doctors
he contacted were unable to provide the necessary material, and ultimately it was not
until 1 March 1805 that JA2 was vaccinated by Dr. John Weems (vol. 4:33; Jefferson, Papers
, 35:2,
102–103, 120–121; D/JQA/27, 1, 18 March 1805, APM Reel 30).
No injuries were reported in the 23 April 1804 Potomac River
flood, according to the Washington Federalist, 25 April.
Though water was forty feet higher than normal at the Potomac bridge, “the main arch
withstood its most fierce assaults,” and the bounty of wood collected from the banks
resulted in the price of firewood dropping by half.
Daniel Sheldon Jr. (1780–1828) of Washington, Conn., was a 1799
graduate of the Litchfield Law School, and a clerk at the U.S. 368 Treasury Department (History of Litchfield County, Connecticut, Phila., 1881, p. 148;
D/JQA/27, 7 Jan. 1806, APM Reel 30).
LCA’s letter to Elizabeth Epps Whitcomb has not been
found. LCA wrote to JQA again on 29 April 1804 (Adams Papers), expressing concern that she had
not heard from him. She also reported that her sister Harriet was distraught after
learning of the death of a suitor, John B. Risberg, who died on 16 Dec. 1803 at
Calcutta, India, while serving as supercargo on the ship Ganges, Capt. Callender, of Philadelphia (Baltimore Telegraphe and Daily Advertiser, 19, 27 April 1804, 14 July).
I was two days last week at Dedham, where there was a Court
sitting, at which I had something to do—1
On Friday evening I received your letter of the 17th: of
last Month— Yesterday, being at Boston I found your’s of the 24th: and rejoyce to hear of your all being so well— They ought not to have
charged you with postage for my last Letter— However, 20 Cents is not worth disputing
with them. Mr: and Mrs: Morton
pass’d through Dedham on their return home; one of the days when I was there— They came
from New-York to Providence by Water; and had a bad time— Several days on the passage,
and bad weather
Mr: and Mrs: Quincy were out here this morning— Since the opening of the Bridge their
house here is no near them; that it is but a morning or afternoon’s ride, to come out
and return to Boston— He is building, both here and in Boston—2 I was much gratified at his election as a
Senator.
I desired Mrs: Whitcomb to procure all
the things for which you wrote, as soon as possible, and have them safely pack’d— There
is a vessel going in a few days to Alexandria, by which I hope to send them— The same
vessel may furnish an opportunity by which my trunks may come.3
Whitcomb quits the house on the first of July— He has engaged Concert-Hall, from that time— It has been much enlarged since last Summer; as you remember they were building there when we left Boston—4 Whitcomb is I believe well satisfied with his success hitherto.— His wife is much thinner than I ever knew her.
I went up and down Hanover Street to look at our old house, which
has undergone an entire metamorphosis— Your garden is broken up, and at the bottom of
the yard is a large brick Store— All the window-sashes in the house have been taken out,
and windows with large glass put in— The whole house is painted outside, of a light 369 colour, so that Mr:
Brown’s, at the next door looks quite shabby by the side of it— Mr: Odin the purchaser was not long since married.5
The Spring is just beginning to shew her face— The fields are in the act of changing from grey to green; and the blossoms on the peach-trees are just bursting open— I observe the progress of the vegetation, and think myself growing a farmer—
I will endeavour to procure some of the vaccine inoculating matter
from Dr: Waterhouse; and to send it you, as soon as
possible.
Shaw has just finished the terms required as a student at Law; and
has been admitted at the Court of Common Pleas in Boston— He intends to remain
there.6 He never sees me without
telling me how much he longs to see George— And if he longs
to see him, how much more must I to see him, and you; and John; indeed I think of scarce
any thing else— One Month has already past (this day) since we parted— And I count every
day— And every hour untill we meet again— Till then believe me, your ever faithful and
affectionate
RC (Adams
Papers); internal address: “Mrs: L. C. Adams.”
JQA attended the Court of Sessions with Moses Black on 27 April where a report was read regarding the proposed route for a “Quincy road.” Dispute over the road’s location led to proposals for multiple routes, and JQA recorded that the current petition was “against both the roads petitioned for— But in favour of a middle road, between the two.” The court deferred consideration of the issue until its June session, and JQA returned to Dedham, Mass., on 5 June, accompanied by Capt. Benjamin Beale Jr. The petition was rejected, and a subsequent petition introduced by Braintree residents was allowed “a new viewing” committee, prompting JQA to comment that the viewing would go on “ad infinitum” (D/JQA/27, 26, 27 April, 5 June, APM Reel 30). See also JQA to LCA, 9 June, below.
Eliza Susan Morton and Josiah Quincy III resided on Pearl Street
in Boston. Quincy had inherited the family’s estate at Mount Wollaston on the death of
his grandfather Josiah I in 1784. He also held lucrative investments in Boston and
South Shore property (
Boston Directory, 1805, p. 102, Shaw-Shoemaker, No. 8057; Robert A.
McCaughey, Josiah Quincy, 1772–1864: The Last Federalist,
Cambridge, 1974, p. 16–17).
LCA’s request to Elizabeth Epps Whitcomb has not
been found, although the goods were likely sent aboard the sloop Mary, Capt. Folger, which cleared Boston for Alexandria,
Va., on 9 May 1804 (Boston Columbian Centinel, 2, 9
May).
Boston’s Concert Hall was built in 1756 at Hanover and Court
Streets. Tilly Whitcomb assumed the property’s lease on 1 July 1804 and within days
was advertising both its renovation and availability for rental. In November he
advertised that the improvements were “so far completed, as to enable him to
accommodate large or small parties.” Although there were brief periods when he
relinquished the property’s lease, Whitcomb remained proprietor of the hall through
1822 (Caleb H. Snow, A History of Boston, the Metropolis of
Massachusetts, from Its Origin to the Present Period, Boston, 1825, p. 333;
LCA, D&A
, 1:166; Boston Commercial Gazette, 5 July, 22 Nov. 1804, 23 Oct. 1815, 18 July 1816;
Boston Yankee, 23 May 1817; Boston Repertory, 1 June 1819; Boston
Daily Advertiser, 29 Nov. 1820; Boston
Intelligencer, 19 Oct. 1822).
Samuel Brown, a Boston merchant who resided at 40 Hanover Street,
was the Adamses’ neighbor before JQA sold his 39 370 Hanover Street property to hardware merchant John
Odin, for which see
AA
to TBA, 26 April 1803, and note 2, above. Odin (1774–1854)
married on 4 Jan. 1804 Harriet Tyng Walter, a daughter of Rev. William Walter (
Boston Directory,
1805, p. 25, 93, Shaw-Shoemaker, No. 8057; Boston Columbian
Centinel, 7 Jan.; “Pedigree of the Odin Family,”
NEHGR
, 12:223 [July
1858]).
After finishing the required three years of legal study, for
which see Elizabeth Smith Shaw
Peabody to AA, 29 March 1801, and note 6, above, William Smith
Shaw qualified for admission as an attorney of the Court of Common Pleas of Suffolk
County in April 1804 (Felt, Memorials of William Smith Shaw
, p. 186; Rules and Regulations of the Bar in the County of Suffolk,
Boston, 1805, p. 8, Shaw-Shoemaker,
No. 9445).