Adams Papers
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Abigail Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 7 November 1802

Abigail Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams

Quincy Nov’br 7th 1802—

my dear Thomas

I received Your Letter after your return in october to the city. I had written to you as soon as I supposed it probable You had returnd.1 the Letter I presume reachd you, soon after you wrote to me; I am glad to find your Health improved by your excursion I cannot however but repeat my apprehensions that you are not planted in a soil to flourish, to obtain reputation honour or profit; I regreet that you did not determine to try your lot in this place when you last visited us. a Son of col Thayers has opend an office in this Town about a year since, and has a considerable Share of Buisness; Whether enough to Support him I cannot Say.2 I know You feel reluctant at the thought of quitting a place where you had determined to spend your days, and I know there are other objections resting in your mind against Sitting down here which also have their due weight with me; but which We neither of us chuse to write upon— If you wish to become a Farmer, the cultivator of the Soil, in an other year you may have an opportunity. Your Father is going to build a House and Barn upon the lower Farm which belonged to our late uncle Quincy and it is in a situation where Salt Works may be establishd I presume to much advantage and profit, So that you may Join your Stock with your Father and Brother, and become a manufacturer by all means keep up your spirits. if you cannot make Your profession support you where you are, quit it, and try Some other buisness.—

You will learn how the Elections have terminated in this State, to the supineness of the federalists, and there confidence in their Strength the loss of their candidate is wholy oweing. not to my I regreet it not as you will know for not a Jacobin is more sincerely rejoiced than I am. he will be spared a load of abuse and revileing which he must have endured with out the smallest prospect of serving his country—3 I am sorry col Pickering lost his Election.4 I would have rejoiced that he might have obtaind it, for the pleasureable sensations it would have given the Jacobins to have had him continually before their Eyes.— I cannot avoid thinking that we are a degraded people—

Your Friend mr White has made us a visit.5 I was very glad to see him, tho unfortunately that day I was very sick;

our Friends here are all well— our venerable uncle Thaxter dyed about a month since.6 he has been almost helpless for these two years past— Your Brother is here keeping Sunday with us, which is a great pleasure to us Gorge Gorge George Gorge begins to talk and is a Beautifull Boy— Mrs Adams is very delicate in her constitution and I fear will never be any otherways— Susan grows a fine Girl I keep her at School at Milton with Mrs Cranch who keeps a Boarding School.

Brisler wrote to our Baker a Month Since requesting him to send me two Barrels of his best flower; I have not heard a word since. I wish you to apply to him immediatly and desire him to send me four which will last me till Spring. if he has shipt two he may by the next vessel send me two more— I cannot get any like his, and I am too dainty now to use any other— I want it as soon as he can Send it—

My kind regards to all my old Friends, / your affectionate Mother

Abigail Adams

RC (Adams Papers).

2Gideon Latimer Thayer (1777–1829), Harvard 1798, the son of Ebenezer III and Rachel Thayer, practiced law in Quincy (Sprague, Braintree Families description begins Waldo Chamberlain Sprague, comp., Genealogies of the Families of Braintree, Mass., 1640–1850, Boston, 1983; repr. CD-ROM, Boston, 2001. description ends ; D. Hamilton Hurd, comp., History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Phila., 1884, p. 16).

3In September and October several Boston newspapers proposed slates of Federalist candidates for the 1 Nov. congressional elections that included JQA as a nominee for the Suffolk District. The Boston Columbian Centinel, 29 Sept., called on Federalists to vote for “those men of talants, who are most likely to unite the greatest number of voters in their favour” and stated that if the candidates “choose to decline after they are elected, the consequences will be on their heads, not on yours.” JQA wrote that he initially expected to refuse this first foray into federal elective politics in deference to Josiah Quincy III, who had unsuccessfully sought the post a year earlier, but Quincy visited JQA on 4 Oct. and assured him he was not a candidate. JQA therefore made no public statement rejecting his candidacy. On 1 Nov. he narrowly lost to the incumbent representative, William Eustis, by a vote of 1,898 to 1,839. The Boston Columbian Centinel, 3 Nov., blamed JQA’s defeat on low Federalist turnout owing to “weather, sickness, absence from town, or unpardonable apathy.” JQA provided a similar assessment, concluding, “This is one of a thousand proofs, how large a portion of federalism is a mere fair-weather principle, too weak to overcome a shower of rain. … For myself, I must consider the issue as relieving me from an heavy burden, and a thankless task” (vol. 14:439; Boston Commercial Gazette, 30 Sept.; New-England Palladium, 1 Oct.; A New Nation Votes; D/JQA/24, 2, 4 Oct., 1, 3 Nov., APM Reel 27). For JQA’s subsequent election to the U.S. Senate, see Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody to AA, 9 March 1803, and note 2, below.

4In the 1 Nov. 1802 congressional election, Jacob Crowninshield defeated Timothy Pickering for the House seat representing the Essex South District (A New Nation Votes).

5JQA reported that William Smith Shaw and a Mr. White went from Boston to Quincy on 29 October. This was probably Thomas Harrison White (1779–1859), University of Pennsylvania 1795, a Philadelphia wine merchant and son of Episcopal bishop William White (vol. 14:371, 385; D/JQA/24, APM Reel 27; Felt, Memorials of William Smith Shaw description begins Joseph B. Felt, Memorials of William Smith Shaw, Boston, 1852. description ends , p. 91, 111; Doris Devine Fanelli, History of the Portrait Collection, Independence National Historical Park and Catalog of the Collection, ed. Karie Diethorn, Phila., 2001, p. 329; General Alumni Catalogue of the University of Pennsylvania, [Phila.], 1922, p. 11).

6AA’s uncle John Thaxter Sr. (b. 1721), Harvard 1741, died on 6 Oct. (vol. 2:252; Sibley’s Harvard Graduates description begins John Langdon Sibley, Clifford K. Shipton, Conrad Edick Wright, Edward W. Hanson, and others, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge and Boston, 1873– . description ends , 11:69).

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