By Jeremy Dibbell

As John Quincy Adams and his family continue their voyage to St. Petersburg (they began, you’ll recall, way back on 5 August), and you can follow along on Twitter, we’ve been tracking JQA’s shipboard reading as noted in his line-a-day and long diary entries (see the August and September posts for prior entries). For the first six dates of October there is no mention of his reading, but on 7 October he resumes his chronicle:

10/7/1809: Voltaire’s Peter. Voltaire, The History of the Russian Empire Under Peter the Great, first published in French as Histoire de l’Empire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand (1759). There were several English editions before 1810. I didn’t find a contemporary edition in English available in my quick web-search, but there is a 1901 edition of Voltaire’s works on the Internet Archive, of which the Peter the Great text comprises Volume 34 and Volume 35. In his long diary entry, JQA writes “I read something of Voltaire’s Peter the Great.”

10/8/1809: Two Sermons of Massillon: Religious inconstancy, and small number saved. See entry for 8/6. In his long diary entry, JQA adds “read also part of Paley’s Horæ Paulinæ.” See entry for 9/10.

10/9/1809: Voltaire. See entry for 10/7. In his long diary entry, JQA notes “I am reading Voltaire’s History of Peter the Great.”

10/12/1809: Chantreau. See entry for 8/8. In his long diary entry, JQA writes “I am reading Chantreau’s Voyage into Russia.”

10/15/1809: Two Sermons of Massillon and Horæ Paullinæ. See entry for 8/6. In his long diary entry, JQA says that the sermons were “the last two in the second volume of Lent Sermons – On the mixture of good and evil persons in the world; and on real Religion. I read also some sections in Paley’s Horæ Paullinæ.” See entry for 9/10. He adds “This is the first day, of ten, in which I have found it possible to read or write with the composure which admits of due attention.”

10/16/1809: Chantreau. See entry for 8/8. In his long diary entry, JQA writes “I took a minute of the ship’s papers; and read in Chantreau’s travels into Russia. Commenced reading the New Testament.

10/30/1809: Oddy’s European Commerce. In his long diary entry, JQA writes that he spent time “at home, principally reading Oddy’s European Commerce; the second volume of which has lately come into my hands, and which contains much information which I was seeking.” This is Joshua Jepson Oddy, European commerce, shewing new and secure channels of trade with the continent of Europe: detailing the produce, manufactures, and commerce, of Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany; as well as the trade of the rivers Elbe, Weser, and Ems: With a general view of the trade, navigation, produce, and manufactures of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland. It was first published in one volume at London in 1805, but the two-volume Philadelphia edition of 1807 is that most likely being read by JQA. It’s available online via Google Books: Volume 1, Volume 2.

10/31/1809: Read Oddy. See entry for 10/30.

By Jeremy Dibbell

October’s Object of the Month is a letter from Rachel Revere to her husband Paul, dated 2 May 1775 (just a couple weeks after his famous ride). “The Revere Family papers (collection guide) held by the Massachusetts Historical Society contain only a small number of documents by or about Rachel Revere, so we know relatively little about her life–the life of an ordinary woman in 18th-century Boston–compared to that of her celebrated husband. In this letter, we get a brief glimpse of her character at a moment of crisis in their lives. It shows her to have been engaged by the momentous events taking place around her, but anxious to be of practical help to her husband. Torn by the necessity of offering bribes to the servant of a British officer she clearly detested to secure her family’s safety, and by the necessity of leaving her fifteen-year-old stepson, Paul, behind the British lines in Boston, she concerned herself with settling family business affairs and supplying her husband with money and clothing.”

You can see images of the letter, read a transcription, and find more background about Rachel and Paul Revere here.

By Jeremy Dibbell

In October’s issue of Boston magazine, writer Adrianna Borgia examines a few of the more macabre artifacts in the collections of the Society and other local institutions. Among the items highlighted from MHS are a lock of John Quincy Adams’ hair, some cloth stained with the blood of Abraham Lincoln, and a fishhook supposedly made from a bone of Captain James Cook. The ashes of Sacco and Vanzetti (a portion of which are now at the Boston Public Library) and the book bound in human skin from the collections of the Boston Athenaeum round out the ghastly set.

You can read the whole article, and see pictures (if you wish), here.

We have a few other “relics” here in the MHS collections, including a piece of tanned human skin which accompanies a pamphlet (“Argument before the Tewksbury Investigation Committee by Governor Benj. F. Butler, upon facts disclosed during the recent investigation, July 15, 1883”), the death masks (casts of faces made soon after the subject’s demise) of artist Washington Allston and historian Francis Parkman, some hair jewelry and other locks of hair (including that of Abraham Lincoln, John Brown, and the very creepy “hair of Josiah Winslow of Plymouth Colony, taken from his head in 1740, sixty years after he was buried”). We’ve also got a noose which its donor believed was the very one used to hang John Brown in 1859, and the windpipes of a chicken and a turtle, both given to the Society by S. Hall of Bridgewater in 1833.