Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams, 22 October 1803
Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams
Quincy October 22d 1803
My dear Son
I received your Letter from Providence and rejoiced in the favorable account you gave of your journey thus far, but a Letter Since received by your Sister dated at Newark gave us all much anxiety upon Mrs Adams’s account.1 We hope her disorder was only occasiond by over fatigue; and that a little rest would restore her. She is a veteran in journeying, and has frequently gone through what would appal stoughter constitutions than hers, yet we shall feel a degree of uneasiness untill We learn your safe arrival at Washington.
Your Sister leaves us tomorrow for N-York. we have not recoverd our spirits occasiond by your long expected absence which we feel most keenly, and now she leaves a void, without any one to supply her place; Thomas I hope will come to us, yet I fear he will not be happy; he will feel his Situation too sensibly to be at ease; I know he will meet with mortifications of various kinds. yet he had better encounter them than remain where he is. he has promised to converse with you. I hope he has done it with freedom—
We have not any thing new to communicate, except the death of the late Govr Adams our family were sent to by Mrs Adams & yours to attend as Relatives. Your Father Sister and Louissa went, and Mrs Adams rode to the funeral with your Sister in our Carriage; it is said the Republicans were much gratified upon the occasion—2 We look to your city for the Great and the Marvelous;
My Love to Mrs Adams Caroline & George. a kind remembrance to Mrs Johnson and family Let Judge Cranch know that his Father & Mother are well as are his sisters and their families—
My own Health has been daily mending since you left me. I have been three Sundays to meeting, to day all day, and I rode to Weymouth & back the same day last week.
I fear through neglect, you left in Louissas Room all your Neck handkerchiefs pocket Handkerchiefs &c I found many in a draw there, which I suppose you must have designd to have taken—
Let us hear from you as often as you can. if I cannot Scrible with freedom—I can at least, tell you the state of the weather and the health or sickness of Your Friend’s
Your affectionate Mother
A. A.—
RC (Adams Papers); addressed by Louisa Catharine Smith: “John Quincy Adams Esqr. / Senator in Congress / Washington”; endorsed: “My Mother— 22. Octr: 1803 / 1. Novr: Recd: / Ansd:.”
1. JQA’s letter to AA from Providence, R.I., has not been found. In a 10 Oct. letter to AA2 (MHi:Misc. Bound Coll.), he reported that LCA was suffering from a “violent fever” that “is less alarming than it was in the Night, but far from being subdued.” He also recounted the family’s travels from Providence to Newark, N.J., and described a visit with Margaret Stephens Smith and SSA. On 12 Oct. JQA added a note to JA, directing the letter to him if AA2 had departed Quincy, and reporting that LCA had recovered enough to travel. JQA also wrote of visiting with WSS and Caroline Amelia Smith, noting that his niece was “much stronger in Constitution than when I saw her two years ago.”
2. Samuel Adams died in Boston on 2 Oct. at the age of 81. The Boston Gazetteer, 5 Oct., was one of several newspapers that paid tribute to him in the days that followed: “The opposition to the unjust colonial usurpation of Britain might have been soothed in its infancy … had it not been for the spirit and the nerve it received from his fostering care. To shine in arms, was never his ambition; but in marshalling the rising energies of freedom; in wielding the public will, and concentrating the moral force of a Nation to the attainment of the most exalted object and crown of human existence, LIBERTY; Samuel Adams was without rival.” The Boston selectmen invited area clergy, state and federal officials, foreign consuls, and the public to attend a 6 Oct. funeral. On the day of the funeral, bells were tolled, the guns of Fort Independence were fired, and flags were lowered to half staff during a procession from the State House to the Granary Burying Ground where Adams was laid to rest, as requested, in a plain coffin.
Adams was honored in Washington, D.C., as well as Boston. On 31 Oct. JQA opposed successful Senate resolutions calling for members to wear crepe for a month in tribute to Adams and the recently deceased Edmund Pendleton and Stevens Thomson Mason. While acknowledging that the deceased were “three illustrious patriots,” JQA argued that the tribute was misplaced because it was “tending to unsuitable discussions of character, and to an employment of the Senate’s time in debates altogether foreign to the subjects which properly belong to them.” The vote was one of the first made by JQA after he was sworn in as a U.S. senator on 21 Oct. (ANB; New-England Palladium, 7 Oct.; , 8th Cong., 1st sess., 3:300, 305; D/JQA/27, APM Reel 30).