Adams Papers

20th.

20th.

Mr. Tyler was again taken up the whole day. In the afternoon I went with my Cousins, over to Weymouth to see Mrs. Tufts1 who is recovering from a long and dangerous illness. We spent about an hour and drank tea there. I saw at a distance the solitary house which was my Grandfather’s:2 but had no inclination. Whence arises this antipathy, to places where those who are dear to us have died? Why does the involuntary tear, start from the eye, at the sight of them? It surely must arise from a good principle, for although these feelings are painful, yet I would not be free from them.

While we were gone, Miss Lucy Apthorp, with her future husband Mr. Nash,3 came in to pay a visit to my Cousins. They afterwards set off together for Boston, where they are next Saturday, to be united. The family will go to-morrow.

1. Lucy Quincy Tufts (1729–1785), wife of Dr. Cotton Tufts Sr., and JQA’s great-aunt; she died after a lingering illness on 30 Oct.

2. Rev. William Smith (1707–1783), father of AA, had been minister of the First Church of Weymouth.

3. Lucy Ann Apthorp, daughter of James Apthorp, of Braintree, married Richard Nash of Cornwall, England, an officer in the British navy, four days later (entry for 24 Sept., below; John Wentworth, The Wentworth Genealogy, 2 vols., Boston, 1870, 1:306; Boston Gazette, 26 Sept.).

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    Adams Papers
    Title
    20th.
    Author
    Adams, John Quincy
    Date
    20 September 1785

    Reference

    Cite as
    “20th.,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/03-01-02-0007-0011-0020. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Diary of John Quincy Adams, vol. 1, November 1779 – March 1786, ed. Robert J. Taylor and Marc Friedlaender. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981, pp. 326–327.]