Abigail Adams Smith to Cotton Tufts, 16 January 1787
Abigail Adams Smith to Cotton Tufts
Grosvenor Square London Jany 16 1787
Sir
By a Letter to my Mother from you, I Learnt that you had in your Possession the Letters and Picture which I requested you to take the Charge of.1 I now must once more trouble you upon the Subject, and request the favour of you, to address the Picture to Miss Margaret Smith at Jamaica on Long-Island New York,2 and forward it by some safe Conveyance, under Cover to Mr. Daniel Mc.Cormick3 No 39 Wall Street New York.
All the Letters I will request you Sir to Burn with your own Hands, after which I hope you will receive no further trouble on the Subject.
With much respect I am Sir your Humbl servt
A Smith
RC (ViU: Special Collections, Adams Family Letters #7231-A); addressed: “The Honble Cotton Tufts Esqr. Weymouth Massachusetts”; endorsed: “Mrs. A. Smiths Lettr. recd April 19. 1787.”
1. Of 15 Aug. 1786, above. See also Tufts to AA, 6 July, above.
2. Margaret Smith, named after her mother, was WSS’s eldest sister. She later married Felix de St. Hilaire, the French vice consul for the port of Alexandria, Va. (, 14:759; AA2 to Elizabeth Cranch Norton, 7 Feb. 1791, MHi: C. P. Cranch Papers).
3. Daniel McCormick (d. 1834), born in Ireland, was a New York merchant and one of the first directors of the Bank of New York (Walter Barrett, The Old Merchants of New York City, 2d series, N.Y., 1863, p. 249, 252–253, 264–265).