Mary Smith Cranch to Abigail Adams, 24 November 1799
Mary Smith Cranch to Abigail Adams
November 24th 1799
My Dear Sister
I receiv’d your kind Letter of the 15th yesterday & am glad to find you able to receive so much company tho I fear it will not be advantagous to your nightly repose
I was in Boston last week & find the appointment of the Envoys is growing to be a very popular action Some extracts from Joel Barlows Letters has made the appointment appear an act of wisdom— these extracts were in John Russels paper close at the heels of those peices you sent me1
I have given Mrs Black the list of the Fashions I am fix’d for the winter & Shall have nothing to do with them
The weather is delightful I want to see your Building going on People have been ploughing eighteen Days at one of the Islands without interruption from Bad weather
mr Beal has painted your Floors as you desired & they look very Well— Mr Porter has kill’d the Hogs 2 of them weigh’d 20 score apeice & the other 15— the Legs shoulders &C are in our cellar, & shall be attended too
28th
I have been prevented from finishing this Letter till this evening you may remember tis our thanksgiving day & had you been here been highly entertain’d such Prayers & Such a Sermon oh! what a feast they are; so devoted & So truely evangelical! If I can prevale I Will send you the Sermon If possible I admire him more than ever If this People knew how to estmate Such Talents a hundred dollars Would not part us. next monday we are to have a meeting what will be the result I cannot conjecture2 He din’d with mr Black to day & is gone to Hingham this evening.
Sister Smith & miss Betsy Apthorp din’d with us to day. Sister was very well & went to meeting with me we cannot get Mrs Apthorp out yet—but I sent her some dinner. the Turkey was very good The raisons made a fine Pudding—& the Flour is exellent the Sugar corrected the acid of the Craneberry & we drank our wine with thankful hearts & did not forget the channel thro which these Blessings flow’d
mrs Apthorp behaves very properly, but the Family always do something different from other Folks When they bury their Friends— after Mr A was put into his Coffen, the young Folks thought the Head of it would look better lin’d with white Flannel so the Son & Daughter went to work with a Hammer & nails one held up his head & the other tack’d it on Mr A’s wife got her Brush & Paint & painted the edge Black, then the widow & all the People in the house were call’d to see what an addition to the beauty of the Coffen it was had I been present I should have proposed puting a little rouge on his Face— I am sure it would have look’d as much better as the coffen did for the Flannel & paint. They were not children of Sorrow. how could they be, but they Should not have made a Baby house for him3
I went to see uncle Quincy Twice last week. he is very well I never saw him look better. I call’d upon Mr Wibird both times he look’d more like a dirty Beast than any thing else I was affraid to set by him—
mr Nortons Family & Mr Greenleafs were well yesterday. I saw mrs Foster last week sh[…] & hers were well Except herself She had a cold which settled in her Breast but it was better Mr Smiths Family were well Mrs Smiths children were very well when Mr Smith was at atkinson John perform’d at the exhibition as well as any one in the Schooll Sister will not make us a visit this season, but I hope we shall all meet in the Spring the antisipation of it cheers in your absence / the Heart of your affectionate Sister
Mary Cranch
RC (Adams Papers); addressed by Richard Cranch: “Mrs: Adams / the President’s Lady / Philadelphia”; endorsed: “Mrs Cranch / October 24 1799.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed.
1. The Boston Russell’s Gazette, 21 Nov., featured a piece by “American Independence” that was reprinted immediately in pamphlet form as American Independence, in Vindication of the President’s Nomination of a New Embassy to France, Boston, 1799, No. 35103. The writer supported JA’s decision to dispatch the second mission to France and criticized Joel Barlow to His Fellow Citizens, of the United States of America: Letter I, Paris, 1799, as being “written by the express order of the Directory” to obtain favorable terms for France (p. 10).
2. On 17 Oct. acting governor Moses Gill proclaimed a thanksgiving day for 28 November. The Quincy sermon was given by Rev. Peter Whitney Jr., who would be offered the pastorate of the First Church on 2 Dec., for which see Descriptive List of Illustrations, No. 2, above, and Cranch to AA, 8 Dec., below (Gill, Proclamation [naming 28 Nov. 1799 as a fast day], Boston, 17 Oct. 1799, MHi, No. 35790).
3. James Apthorp (b. 1731) died in Quincy on 10 Nov. and was interred at Trinity Church in Boston. The Massachusetts Mercury, 12 Nov., reported that his funeral was to take place the next day in Quincy. Apthorp’s widow was Sarah Wentworth Apthorp, and their surviving children were Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton, Charles Ward Apthorp, Elizabeth “Betsy” Apthorp, Lucy Ann Apthorp Nash Winbolt, and George Henry Apthorp (vols. 6:376–377, 12:263; John Wentworth, The Wentworth Genealogy: English and American, 3 vols., Boston, 1878, 1:519–526). JQA also claimed the family was eccentric, for which see , 2:267.
4. This line was written vertically in the left-hand margin.
5. This line was written on the address page. AA’s letter to Cotton Tufts was probably that of 13 Nov., for which see AA to Tufts, 22 Nov., and note 3, above.