John Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 18 November 1794

John Adams to Abigail Adams Smith

Philadelphia, November 18, 1794.

My Dear Daughter:

After a journey without any accident, I arrived here, in good health, the Friday night after I left you, and went into lodgings, which I did not find convenient, and the next morning removed to Francis’s hotel, where I have good accommodations, with company enough.

I forgot to thank you for your kind present of patriotic manufacture; but I own I am not, at my age, so great an enthusiast, as to wear with much pride, these coarse homely fabrics. I was once proud of an homespun camblet cloak, and used to go to meeting in it, at Dr. Cooper’s tasty Society; but I own I was not sorry when a thief, by stealing it, furnished me with an excuse for wearing it no more.1 Those times were very different from these. My Hartford present of Connecticut broadcloth, I could not long endure;2 and the New-York cotton is not yet made up. I am not the less obliged to you, however.

I have not yet heard whether your brother has returned from his visit to Steuben.

Colonel Smith is well. My love to William and John—give them a kiss for me, and present them with the blessing of their / Affectionate grandfather,

John Adams.

Your mamma, on the 10th of November, went to Haverhill, on a visit to your unfortunate and afflicted aunt.

MS not found. Printed from AA2, Jour. and Corr., description begins Journal and Correspondence of Miss Adams, Daughter of John Adams, … Edited by Her Daughter [Caroline Amelia (Smith) de Windt], New York and London, 1841– [1849]; 3 vols. description ends 2:135–136; internal address: “To Mrs. Smith.”

1. That is, when the Adamses attended Rev. Samuel Cooper’s Brattle Street Church in the early 1770s (vol. 1:157).

2. For JA’s gift of broadcloth from the merchants of Hartford, Conn., see vol. 8:332–333.

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Source Project: Adams Papers
Title: John Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 18 November 1794
Author: Adams, John
Recipient: Smith, Abigail Adams
Date: 18 November 1794

Reference

Cite as: “John Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 18 November 1794,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-10-02-0164. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 10, January 1794 – June 1795, ed. Margaret A. Hogan, C. James Taylor, Sara Martin, Hobson Woodward, Sara B. Sikes, Gregg L. Lint, and Sara Georgini. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011, pp. 263–264.]

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