Elbridge Gerry to Abigail Adams, 3 September 1801

Elbridge Gerry to Abigail Adams

Cambridge 3d Sepr 1801

My dear Madam

In our absence from home, you was so obliging as to address a line to Mrs Gerry, which she has desired me to acknowledge, & to inform you, that in leiu of the first volume of Wraxall, that of Volneys travels was by mistake enclosed to her. this is sent to Mr Smiths, & if the volume of Wraxall should be sent there, or at Mrs Catharine Davis’ in tremont Street, I will order my servant to call for it.1

please to present our best respects to the President, accept them yourself, & be assured I remain dear Madam With the highest esteem your friend, & / very huml sert

E Gerry

at N. York we had the pleasure of frequently seeing Colo & Mrs Smith: whose absence the day before we left it prevented our receiving their orders for their friends here—

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs Adams—”; endorsed: “Mr Gerrys / Rect Sepbr 3d.”

1. AA’s letter to Ann Thompson Gerry has not been found but was intended to accompany the first volume of Nathaniel William Wraxall’s Memoirs of the Courts of Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw, and Vienna, 2 vols., London, 1799, rather than one of Constantin François Volney’s Travels through Egypt and Syria, 2 vols., N.Y., 1798, Evans, description begins Charles Evans and others, American Bibliography: A Chronological Dictionary of All Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Publications Printed in the United States of America [1639–1800], Chicago and Worcester, Mass., 1903–1959; 14 vols.; rev. edn., www.readex.com. description ends No. 34949, a copy of which is in JA’s library at MB. Boston shopkeeper Catharine Davis (1742–1805) was a distant cousin of AA’s through the Quincy family. She was also connected to the Gerry family through marriage (Catalogue of JA’s Library; Boston Directory, 1800, p. 36, Evans, description begins Charles Evans and others, American Bibliography: A Chronological Dictionary of All Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Publications Printed in the United States of America [1639–1800], Chicago and Worcester, Mass., 1903–1959; 14 vols.; rev. edn., www.readex.com. description ends No. 37024; New-England Palladium, 17 July; Barrett Wendell, “A Gentlewoman of Boston, 1742–1805,” Amer. Antiq. Soc., Procs. description begins American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings. description ends , 29:242, 243, 248 [Oct. 1919]).

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Source Project: Adams Papers
Title: Elbridge Gerry to Abigail Adams, 3 September 1801
Author: Gerry, Elbridge
Recipient: Adams, Abigail
Date: 3 September 1801

Reference

Cite as: “Elbridge Gerry to Abigail Adams, 3 September 1801,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-15-02-0056. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 15, March 1801 – October 1804, ed. Hobson Woodward, Sara Martin, Christopher F. Minty, Neal E. Millikan, Gwen Fries, Amanda M. Norton, Sara Georgini, and R. M. Barlow. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021, p. 116.]

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