Abigail Adams 2d to Elizabeth Cranch, 4 February 1779
Abigail Adams 2d to Elizabeth Cranch
Plymouth Feb 4 1779
My Dear Myrtilla
If aney person had told me the night I left Braintree that I should have ben at Plymouth almost seven weaks and have received only one letter from my Mamma and too from my Myrtilla1 I should have thought they ware capable of telling a falshood but I find it too true. I had almost taken up a resollution not to have wrote to aney of my Braintree friends untill I had received letters from them, but you know that second thoughts are often the best and I think I will put them in mind that thare is such a person gone out of Braintree as one Nabby Adams. Perhaps they have forgot it; or thought her of so littel consequence that they never troubled themselves to write to her or even to think of her; I assure you she takes it not a little hard. You will suppose me prejudiced in her favour; and would it be strainge if I ware; why rearly I dont think it would.
I have this afternoon seen the farce no dought you will have seen before this rearches you. Some suppose it wrote by Mr. Gimey Huse.2 I should like to know your opinion of it. I think some caractters are taken of very well. It is much more severe upon the tories than the whigs which is something strange unless he is a turncoat.
Yesterday I had the pleasure to receive your kind letter of jan 31; I should write you a longer letter by this oportunity but I expect General Waren will go tomorow Morning and I shall not have time as it is now late in the evening. You will suppose I am quite contented here as I am when I tell you that I have ben hear seven weaks and have not ben out but twice excepting to Mrs. Lothrops whare I visiat often. Once I have ben to Mr. Watsons he has a very agreable Laidie and too Deaughters Miss Betsey and Miss Ellen3 they are very agreable young Laidies, but I cannot give you aney further decription of them as I have a very bad pen and so sleeppy that I dont know what I write and must bid you adieu.
RC (MHi:Cranch Papers); addressed: “Miss Eliza Cranch Braintree”; docketed: “A A plyth. Feb 7 1779.”
1. None of these letters has been found, nor has Elizabeth Cranch’s of 31 Jan., mentioned below.
2. Doubtless standing for “Jimmy Hughes,” who may have been the James Hughes (d. 1799) who graduated at Harvard in 1780. His “farce” has not been identified.
3. William Watson (1730–1815), Harvard 1751, a merchant and “indispensable town father,” was currently the Plymouth postmaster, later naval officer and collector of customs for Plymouth, and eventually chief justice of the Inferior Court. His daughter Elizabeth was to marry in 1789 Nathaniel Niles, a Vermont congressman. His daughter Ellen in 1785 married Judge John Davis of Plymouth and Boston. (Bradford Kingman, Epitaphs from Burial Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts, Brookline, 1892, p. 125; , 13:149–153.)