Louisa Catherine Adams to John Quincy Adams, 24 April 1804
Louisa Catherine Adams to John Quincy Adams
Washington April 24th 1804
I recieved your letter my best friend the day before yesterday which afforded me much pleasure as it assured me of your safe arval at home1 I know not but it appear’d to me that your letter were not in good spirits when you last wrote you do not say you are well and I fear the fatigue of your journey has proved injurious rather than serviceable beneficial I had 20 Cents to pay Postage for your letter the Paper had announced your arrival at home which was the reason I suppose that they made the charge—2
The Children are both well George grows so extremely wild it is almost impossible to do any thing with him I am fearful he has lost his french already though I take every possible means to make him speak it but I think his pronunciation very much altered which must be owing to me it grieves me very much but I have repeatedly told you this would happen if I undertook to talk to him—
I have not yet had an opportunity of sending your Trunks nor do I know when I shall be able I think of sending them to Alexandria to wait for a Vessel and you may depend on having them by the earliest opportunity—3
John has not yet been innoculated Dr. Weems has not been able to procure any infection I wish you would endeavour to get some of Dr. Waterhouse but you must do it immediately or the Season will be too far advanced4 he has two more teeth nearly through he bids fair to talk very early as he already says Papa Kitty & Esther I am sorry to say there is no prospect of his walking yet—
We have had a great Fresh in the Potomac which has brought down such quantities of Wood that almost all the poor families round have stocked themselves for the next Winter there were between 50 &. 70 Cords taken at Mr. Hellens Wharf the water had risen ten feet above the little Falls it has carried away a large part of the Potomac Bridge—5
We have no news here there is nothing stirring I saw Mr. Sheldon last evening—6
Adieu my most sincerely beloved friend that we may soon be reunited and never again suffer the misery of a separation is the ardent prayer of most faithful and affectionate Wife
L. C. Adams
P.S. Present me respectfully to your friends and tell Mrs. Whitcomb not to send the wine I wrote for as I can purchase it here but to send the other things as soon as possible.7
RC (Adams Papers).
1. JQA to LCA, 15 April, for which see JQA’s letter of the 24th, and note 2, above.
2. JQA’s 14 April arrival in Boston was reported in the Boston Commercial Gazette, 16 April, and the Boston Columbian Centinel, 18 April.
3. JQA in a letter to William Smith Shaw, 21 April, communicated a report that his trunks had arrived in Boston, information subsequently discovered to be mistaken. JQA also asked Shaw to purchase for TBA some shot and gunpowder (MWA:Adams Family Letters).
4. Harvard professor Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse promoted the use in the United States of Dr. Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccination, for which see JQA to TBA, 9 June 1801, and note 2, above. Waterhouse supplied Thomas Jefferson with the matter used to vaccinate his family in Aug. 1801, but supplies were unavailable in 1804. JQA wrote to LCA on 14 May (Adams Papers) that Waterhouse and the other Boston doctors he contacted were unable to provide the necessary material, and ultimately it was not until 1 March 1805 that JA2 was vaccinated by Dr. John Weems (vol. 4:33; , 35:2, 102–103, 120–121; D/JQA/27, 1, 18 March 1805, APM Reel 30).
5. No injuries were reported in the 23 April 1804 Potomac River flood, according to the Washington Federalist, 25 April. Though water was forty feet higher than normal at the Potomac bridge, “the main arch withstood its most fierce assaults,” and the bounty of wood collected from the banks resulted in the price of firewood dropping by half.
6. Daniel Sheldon Jr. (1780–1828) of Washington, Conn., was a 1799 graduate of the Litchfield Law School, and a clerk at the U.S. Treasury Department (History of Litchfield County, Connecticut, Phila., 1881, p. 148; D/JQA/27, 7 Jan. 1806, APM Reel 30).
7. LCA’s letter to Elizabeth Epps Whitcomb has not been found. LCA wrote to JQA again on 29 April 1804 (Adams Papers), expressing concern that she had not heard from him. She also reported that her sister Harriet was distraught after learning of the death of a suitor, John B. Risberg, who died on 16 Dec. 1803 at Calcutta, India, while serving as supercargo on the ship Ganges, Capt. Callender, of Philadelphia (Baltimore Telegraphe and Daily Advertiser, 19, 27 April 1804, 14 July).