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Browsing: Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Volume 2
Docno: ADMS-13-02-02-0003-0011-0001
Date: 1827-11-01
Thursday. November 1st.
Morning occupied in copying a Lecture upon Practice in Law.1 A subject of which as yet I know nothing. I pursued the subject at the Office. Received
a letter from my Mother2 which had a considerable effect upon my spirits for the remainder of the day. The
family have evidently been in a state of high excitement about probable arrangements
and I am much afraid that owing to the over earnestness { 179 } of my mother upon some unpleasant subject, my father has spoken.3 I then had a conversation with George which did not contribute to improve what had
already been shaken, inasmuch as it unfolded to me clearly all the errors of his mind
which are likely to operate upon his fate. Afternoon at the Office reading Cruise.
Drank tea at Mrs. Frothingham’s and went in the evening to a Ball at Mrs. B. Joy’s.4 Abby, Julia Gorham, and George went with me and we had a very agreeable evening.
The party was quite crowded. George seemed to have enjoyed himself very much and as
I thought was very much in the mood of forgetting Miss Abigail Adams altogether. If
this could only continue. I reached my room precisely at midnight.
1. The lectures which Judge Samuel Howe (1785–1828) delivered on the practice of law at his law school in Northampton were circulated
in manuscript. CFA copied them in his legal commonplace book for 1827–1829 (Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 311). After Howe’s death (see entry for 21 Jan. 1828, below), the lectures were published under the title The Practice in Civil Action and Proceedings at Law, in Massachusetts, Boston, 1834 (DAB).
2. Missing.
3. The recent rumblings from members of the Adams household in Washington probably concerned
JA2’s desire to marry Mary C. Hellen. Because his son was in no position to support
a wife, JQA had refused his consent. The young people became engaged nevertheless
(see entry for 8 Nov., below) but they were not married until February of the next year (Bemis, JQA, 2:118).
4. Mrs. Benjamin Joy, the wife of a merchant who lived at 33 Chesnut Street (Boston Directory, 1829–1830).
Docno: ADMS-13-02-02-0003-0011-0002
Date: 1827-11-02
Friday. 2d.
Morning at Mrs. Frothingham’s to see Abby. I felt very stupid in consequence of the
dissipation of the night before, and did not get over it during the whole of the day.
Afternoon at the Office. In the evening I went with Abby and George to Mrs. Gardner’s
party. She is a daughter of Mr. Peabody of Salem and this ball was given to Mrs. Peabody,
her brother’s lately married wife.1 It was tolerably pleasant and again twelve o’clock before I arrived safely at home.
1. Mrs. John Lowell Gardner, who gave the party, was the former Catherine Elizabeth Peabody,
daughter of Joseph Peabody of Salem. Her brother, George Peabody, had recently married
Clarissa Endicott. Information supplied by Mrs. Dorothy M. Potter, of the Essex Institute.
Docno: ADMS-13-02-02-0003-0011-0003
Date: 1827-11-03
Saturday 3d.
I awoke very early in the morning quite sick in consequence of some irregularity in
my diet of yesterday, and it was not until late in the day that I recovered. Morning
was passed at Mrs. Frothingham’s with Abby and at one o’clock I took her up and we
rode over to Winter Hill and dined with Mr. and Mrs. Everett. She is pregnant and
going { 180 } to Medford to be confined during his absence at Washington. We left them early and
passed the evening at Medford.
Cite web page as: Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, ed.C. James Taylor. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2016.
http://www.masshist.org/apde2/
http://www.masshist.org/apde2/