Adams Papers

John Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 18 November 1794

John Adams to Abigail Adams Smith

Philadelphia, November 18, 1794.

My Dear Daughter:

After a journey without any accident, I arrived here, in good health, the Friday night after I left you, and went into lodgings, which I did not find convenient, and the next morning removed to Francis’s hotel, where I have good accommodations, with company enough.

I forgot to thank you for your kind present of patriotic manufacture; but I own I am not, at my age, so great an enthusiast, as to wear with much pride, these coarse homely fabrics. I was once proud of an homespun camblet cloak, and used to go to meeting in it, at Dr. Cooper’s tasty Society; but I own I was not sorry when a thief, by stealing it, furnished me with an excuse for wearing it no more.1 Those times were very different from these. My Hartford present of Connecticut broadcloth, I could not long endure;2 and the New-York cotton is not yet made up. I am not the less obliged to you, however.

I have not yet heard whether your brother has returned from his visit to Steuben.

Colonel Smith is well. My love to William and John—give them a kiss for me, and present them with the blessing of their / Affectionate grandfather,

John Adams.

Your mamma, on the 10th of November, went to Haverhill, on a visit to your unfortunate and afflicted aunt.

MS not found. Printed from AA2, Jour. and Corr., description begins Journal and Correspondence of Miss Adams, Daughter of John Adams, … Edited by Her Daughter [Caroline Amelia (Smith) de Windt], New York and London, 1841– [1849]; 3 vols. description ends 2:135–136; internal address: “To Mrs. Smith.”

1. That is, when the Adamses attended Rev. Samuel Cooper’s Brattle Street Church in the early 1770s (vol. 1:157).

2. For JA’s gift of broadcloth from the merchants of Hartford, Conn., see vol. 8:332–333.

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    Adams Papers
    Title
    John Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 18 November 1794
    Author
    Adams, John
    Recipient
    Smith, Abigail Adams
    Date
    18 November 1794

    Reference

    Cite as
    “John Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 18 November 1794,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-10-02-0164. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 10, January 1794 – June 1795, ed. Margaret A. Hogan, C. James Taylor, Sara Martin, Hobson Woodward, Sara B. Sikes, Gregg L. Lint, and Sara Georgini. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011, pp. 263–264.]

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