1From William Cranch to Abigail Smith Adams, 16 November 1811 (Adams Papers)
I have not words, my dear Aunt, to express my gratitude for your kind and consoling letter of the 25th. ulto.—It was, as I wished, minute and particular respecting the last moments of my dear and venerable parents. Mr. Norton’s letters having been directed to George town remain’d there some days, so that your letter was contain’d the first information I received of the death of my mother,...
2To John Adams from William Cranch, 23 February 1815 (Adams Papers)
I congratulate you on the news of Peace; and thank God that you and my most excellent Aunt have lived to see this happy day. Although we have suffer’d much we have gain’d wisdom; and, I hope, honour. Our Country has learnt the value of a navy, and the imbecility of commercial restrictions as a measure of coercion. The embarrassments of the Administration have taught them the inexpediency of...
3From William Cranch to Abigail Smith Adams, 7 July 1811 (Adams Papers)
Upon receipt of your kind letter of the 17th. ulto. I was too deeply afflicted by the information it contained even to thank you for it, as I aught to have done. I inferr’d from it that my dear mother had gone to join the departed spirits of her mother, her father and those other friends from whom she had been so long separated by death. It was A day or two pass’d before I was undeceived; so...
4From William Cranch to Abigail Smith Adams, 22 October 1811 (Adams Papers)
I received yesterday your kind letter of 17th. instant, informing me of the death of my dear and venerable father, and of the hopeless state of health of my dear Mother. I rejoice and am thankful that my father was not left to linger out a painful and solitary existence deprived of the dear partner of all his comforts. which It seems like a special interposition of the all–merciful hand. My...
5To John Adams from William Cranch, 3 September 1813 (Adams Papers)
I beg you to be assured, my ever honourd & venerated Uncle, that we sympathize most sincerely with you in your late affliction. But while one friend after another drops around you, I know you have all the consolations which Philosophy and Religion can afford; and how inexhaustible are they !— My dear Aunt, I know, will rouse all the energies of her great and noble mind to sustain the shock....
6To John Adams from William Cranch, 15 March 1812 (Adams Papers)
Upon the representations of Mr. Quincy, I made, through him, to Mr. Elwyn, the agent of Lewis Brotherson Verchild, an offer of 2000 Dollars for the title of the Verchilds to that part of the estate which was holden by my father. He has declined accepting it, and I am not sorry, because I am satisfied, that the claim of the Verchilds is good for nothing. I understand that Lewis B. Verchild...
7From William Cranch to Abigail Smith Adams, 1 September 1811 (Adams Papers)
I thank you most sincerely for your excellent letter of 5th. ulto. which I should have answer’d before, but for the sickness & removal of my family. The precarious state of my dear mother’s health, for some time past, has, I trust, in some measure prepared me for an event, which is certainly inevitable and which we know can not be long procrastinated. Indeed our term of existence here is so...
8From William Cranch to Abigail Smith Adams, 21 February 1817 (Adams Papers)
I know you will rejoice with me that Mrs. Cranch is again the mother of a daughter. This event happend last Evening. Mrs. Cranch requests you to permit us to name her with your name, not only as a testimony of our gratitude to you r for all your kindness to us and our connections, but as an incentive to the little stranger to in imitate the virtues which she will hear recounted when she shall...
9To John Adams from William Cranch, 22 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
I received your very kind and flattering letter of 1st. ulto.—On the morning before I received it I settled an account with Mr. Gales who is my tenant, and in doing so ask’d him if anything was due from you to charge it to my account. He look’d at his books and told me that somebody had paid for you in advance and that nothing was due. However, after receiving your letter I wrote him a note...
10From William Cranch to John Quincy Adams, 15 March 1809 (Adams Papers)
Enclosed you have a copy of the agreement in the case of Fletcher v. Peck, which has been this day signed by Mr. Martin & filed with the Clerk. The Court this morning, contrary to our expectations, decided the question of Jurisdiction as to corporations. A flood of light, it seems, burst upon the Judges, from a case cited yesterday, or the day before, by Mr. Swann, in arguing the case of...