Sympathy for the Devil: John Quincy Adams’s Brush with Aaron Burr

By Gwen Fries, Adams Papers

It was an open secret that the Adamses were no fans of Alexander Hamilton. Senator John Quincy Adams couldn’t even be prevailed upon to wear crape, join in a funeral procession, or “join in any outward demonstration of regret” after Hamilton’s untimely death. When chastised by his wife, JQA responded that he “had no respect” for the fallen statesman.

Nor did he much respect the man who had stood opposite Hamilton in the early hours of 11 July 1804, and his respect for Burr only plummeted further when Burr dared to return to his station as President of the Senate. Adams admitted he had kept Burr “at arms length the whole Session of Congress,” feeling it “a cruel degradation to the Body itself, to have for a President at such a time, and on such an occasion, a Man under a legal accusation of Murder.” Adams “could not forgive him for taking the Seat.”

Detail of letter from John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams
 John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 1 April 1805 (Adams Papers)

When the second session of the Eighth Congress came to a close on 3 March 1805, Burr gave a farewell address—“the last act of his political life,” as Adams thought—and John Quincy left the Senate Chamber for home, convinced he had seen the last of Burr.

On 19 March, John Quincy and Louisa Catherine boarded a ship in Baltimore, sweating in the unseasonably warm weather, two sick and fitful toddlers in their arms, ready to get the trip over with and reach their next destination of Philadelphia. (When they later arrived in Philadelphia, the Adamses’ old friend Dr. Benjamin Rush diagnosed the boys with chicken pox and whooping cough.) An overwhelmed Louisa Catherine recorded in her diary that “the Children were both quite unwell and of course very troublesome It was the first time that I had the entire charge of them.”

One can imagine the sinking of already low spirits when the Adamses got on board and were greeted by Aaron Burr. Having been much affected by Hamilton’s demise, Louisa confided to her diary that she “felt a sort of loathing for this Col Burr.”

Within a few hours, Louisa—and everyone else on board—had fallen under his spell. “He appeared to fascinate every one in the Boat down to the lowest Sailor and knew every bodies history by the time we left— He was politely attentive to me . . . At Table he assisted me to help the Children with so much ease and good nature that I was perfectly confounded.”

Detail of letter from John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams
John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 1 April 1805 (Adams Papers)

When relaying the event to his brother, John Quincy wrote, “Whether the original seducer of mankind, has embodied himself in the person of the little ex-vice, I am not competent to pronounce— This I will say; that I defy Man, Woman or Child, so to withstand the powers of his fascination, as to part from him after such a transitory association, without feelings of good-will towards him.”

After a particularly rough passage—so rough, in fact, that at one point Louisa rolled out of her high berth and onto the floor—the Pennsylvania soil was a sweet sight to the passengers. Taking pity on the sleep-deprived parents of fussy young children, Burr swooped in, taking little John Adams II in one arm, taking Louisa’s luggage in the other hand, and offering her his arm to disembark. John Quincy followed behind them, George Washington Adams in his arms, his jaw on the gangplank.

“It was all done with so little parade and with such entire good breeding that it made you forget that he was doing any thing out of the way,” Louisa recalled. “He talked and laughed all the way and we were quite intimate by the time we got to Philadelphia where he called to see us, and this the first and last occasion on which I ever saw this celebrated man.”

After two weeks’ rumination, John Quincy summed up the experience by writing, “I had not strength of mind enough to retain in their full inflexibility the resentments even of Virtue— I felt a degree of compassion for the Man, which was almost ready to turn to Respect— He was more than barely civil to me and my family— I could not help feeling for him in return more kindness, than I was willing to acknowledge to myself—infinitely more than I suffered myself to shew him; and perhaps more than is justly consistent with that character which on a cool and distant estimate I cannot help believing to be his.”

The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our sponsors. Major funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Packard Humanities Institute, and the Amelia Peabody Charitable Fund. All Adams Papers volumes are published by Harvard University Press.

Posted in From Our Collections Tagged

“Who thought then of civil war?”: Antebellum Activism, War, and Memory

By Evan Turiano, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, MHS African American Studies Research Fellow

The activists and politicians who made up the Boston Vigilance Committee—an interracial organization committed to securing protection and legal aid for fugitives from slavery—appeared confident in their work. After a man named Joe, who escaped slavery by stowing aboard a ship from New Orleans, was discovered in South Boston and forcibly returned to slavery, Henry Ingersoll Bowditch welcomed movement leaders including Samuel Gridley Howe, John A. Andrew, and Elizur Wright to his home for a discussion of how to mobilize the public outcry over Joe’s re-enslavement most effectively.[1]

Photograph of Henry Ingersoll Bowditch
Henry Ingersoll Bowditch. From: Massachusetts Historical Society, Portraits of American Abolitionists, Photo 81.63

They called a public meeting at Faneuil Hall, over which the infirmed former president John Quincy Adams presided, and from that meeting mobilized Boston’s Black and white abolitionist leaders to provide legal aid to accused fugitives from slavery and to petition the Massachusetts legislature for stronger protections against rendition and kidnapping. It was, according to historian Manisha Sinha, an example of how “fugitive slaves fostered abolitionist organization.”[2] Boston would play host to many of the most dramatic, high-profile battles over fugitive slave rendition in the 1850s, events that radicalized the northern public and painted a picture of abolitionist hostility for southern slaveholders. From a twenty-first century perspective, it is easy to imagine this Boston abolitionist vanguard as ready for anything the struggle could bring, war included.

When Henry Ingersoll Bowditch revisited his records of the Faneuil Hall meeting and the movement it precipitated forty years later, in 1886 at the age of 77, he viewed those fights of his (relative) youth differently. In the margins, below the meeting minutes, he scribbled a note: “Who thought then of civil war? We were no prophets & could not see the doleful extremities to which we were tending.”[3] In the fall of 1846, for context, David Wilmot had just introduced his antislavery proviso for new lands claimed in the ongoing war with Mexico to be free of slavery, a proposal that would demonstrate the feebleness of the second party system in face of sectional discord.

1886 margin note
1886 margin note in Boston Anti-Man-Hunting League Records. From: Boston Anti-Man-Hunting League Records, Box 1, Folder 9, Vol. 9, Vigilance Committee, 1846-1847, Massachusetts Historical Society, p.7

Looking back, Bowditch knew the landscape of the struggle over the status of accused fugitive slaves and the future of American slavery, had a long way to go in the next 14 years. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Law would change things dramatically. While the fugitive slave crisis of the 1850s may have rendered war evident to some, it clearly was not so for those activists in 1846.

And yet, in the face of all that unfolded in the two decades following the formation of the Boston Anti-Man-Hunting League, Bowditch did not express regret. Instead, he was glad that their resistance unfolded without any clarity about impending war. “It is well we were not able to foresee this,” he wrote, “for if the people had clearly seen the consequences of opposition to slavery, I fear that they would have shrunk from view.” Southerners, the author knew, would not have shrunk—“The South would have had its way, with liberty crushed and slavery rampant.”[4]

This last clause of the 1886 marginalia is telling. Even when Bowditch feared that knowledge of war would have softened northern resolve and led the antislavery masses toward acquiescence, he knew what most northerners knew before the war: that the proslavery elements that guided southern politics would not flinch at the threat of war. The North had balked first in 1820, again in 1850, and, as Kenneth Stampp showed some seventy years ago, were by and large unwilling to fold again.[5]

So yes, as Bowditch looked back on a nation turned upside down by a war that had cost hundreds of thousands of lives, those years of struggle on behalf of freedom seekers must have looked naïve and short-sighted. Recollection of the past is often inflected with the profound knowledge of one’s prior ignorance. But Bowditch and his colleagues were, in many ways, more steeled for war than he knew in 1846 or in 1886. Decades of struggle had prepared them well.

[1] Sinha, The Slave’s Cause: A History pf Abolition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016) 391-393.

[2] Sinha, The Slave’s Cause, 393.

[3] Boston Anti-Man-Hunting League Records, Box 1, Folder 9, Vol. 9, Vigilance Committee, 1846-1847, Massachusetts Historical Society, p.7

[4] Boston Anti-Man-Hunting League Records, Box 1, Folder 9, Vol. 9, Vigilance Committee, 1846-1847, Massachusetts Historical Society, p.7

[5] Kenneth M. Stampp, And the War Came: The North and the Secession Crisis, 1860-1861 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1950)

Posted in From Our Collections, Research fellow

Small Children Love Clowns

By Viv Williams, Processing Assistant and Library Assistant

In preparation for spooky season, I decided to pick up Stephen King’s infamous It. This 1100 page tome (45 hours in audiobook format, in case you were curious) and its 1990s television miniseries adaptation are largely credited in the U.S. for sparking many people’s fear of clowns or coulrophobia.

[There be spoilers ahead.]

In the novel, Pennywise the dancing clown is the most common and recognizable appearance of It–story’s star monster. Pennywise is described as, “wearing a baggy silk suit with great big orange buttons. A bright tie, electric-blue, flopped down his front, and on his hands were big white gloves, like the kind Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck always wore.” He has a white face and a bald head, with tufts of orange hair on either side of his head and a large red clown smile. King actually compares Pennywise to Ronald McDonald within the text of the book.

It claims to favor the form of Pennywise because “small children love clowns.” Having grown up in the post-It world, this baffles me. I don’t actually know what it’s like to NOT find the characteristics of a typical clown innately menacing, Ronald McDonald comparison or no.

The protagonists of the novel find several old photos of It appearing as different versions of Pennywise. The earliest photo, dated vaguely as the early 1700s, pictures a bare-bones street-performing Pennywise with juggling pins and the distinguishable bald head with tufts of hair to either side. It lacks the white face makeup, though the narrator mentions It’s face still looks painted on. It is not until 1850 that the Pennywise persona takes on the full effects of the previous quintessential Ronald McDonald-like clown description. This sent me down a curious rabbit-hole regarding the history and representations of clowns.

Precursors to the clown can be found as early as early back as Ancient Greece under names like Buffoon, Jester, or –most highly esteemed– the Harlequin. They get their start in early theatre, cast as the comic relief or butt of the joke. However, with the rise of the Harlequin in the 16th century, this poor, overly abused character gets retribution and takes on the role of the trickster in later theatrical writings.

The original Grecian buffoon was often recognized by his bald head and padded clothing. Medieval minstrels and court jesters would be distinguished by the “fool’s hat”: a hat with three points that end with jingling bells. The trickster Harlequin of the 16th century would don a thin black mask (much like Zorro’s or Robin’s masks) and often a bat– for mischief, of course. However, from what I can tell, as far back as the 17th century the most common characteristics of the clown included the bald head, white face makeup, oversized shoes, hats, and that classic ruff that even Pennywise eventually sports. So, not much has changed since then.

Encyclopedia Britannica credits Joseph Grimaldi for being the first “true” circus clown appearing in 1805– in England at that. The first mention of circus clowns in the U.S. I’ve been able to track down dates from the 1860s.

As for the MHS collections, most of our clown-esque depictions exist in the form of political cartoons. If you’ve been following any of our exhibition content for the past year or so, this news will find you humorously unshocked and unmoved.

Cartoon image of Abraham Lincoln as a jester
Jester Lincoln and his puppets, John Volck, 1860s

This 1860s John Volck cartoon titled [Jester Lincoln and his puppets] depicts Abraham Lincoln as a jester taking part in a puppet show. Note the aforementioned fool’s hat. The staff or “bauble” as it would have been called was also a common effect of the jester.

Image of a cartoon depicting a large man dressed as a jester sitting on a throne, stirring a cauldron with numerous negative qualities listed on paper. The background of the image depicts words such as demagogism and scandal.
Benjamin F. Butler cartoon by Charles Bush,  1883

Additionally, this slightly more disturbing 1883 Charles Bush cartoon depicts Benjamin F. Butler as a jester sitting on a throne, stirring a cauldron of numerous negative qualities. This jester was robbed of a few hat points, but has no shortage of jingling bells–I’m sure there’s some significance there, but I’m here to talk about clowns, so I’ll leave that bit to you– and what he lacks in pointy hat, he makes up for in frilly ruff! He seems to be up to mischief so perhaps he is in metamorphosis on his way to Harlequin-hood.

While the MHS collection may not be spilling over with scrapbooks of clown photography, we do have quite the array of traveling circus broadsides from the late 1800s featuring famous names like P.T. Barnum and the Ringling Bros. Unfortunately, only the more recent publications include actual clown illustrations. Here are a few snippets from a delightful 1919 newspaper advertising a combined show between the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey.

Two newspaper clippings with advertisements for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey combined shows.
1919 newspaper advertisements for a Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey combined show

You will immediately notice the similarities between these depictions and Pennywise. The Ringling circus clowns wear masks that mimic the white face makeup and wide red smile. Their silk suits are complete with large red buttons and thick neck ruff, and considering this color image is from the front page of a four page newspaper advertisement spread, we are clearly meant to perceive the figure as inviting and exciting. The black and white photo depicts clowns waving in a crowd of other circus performers– a clear indication that in 1919 these characteristics hold no menacing connotations to a general public.

Today, clown horror is so prevalent that it has arguably become its own subgenre throughout multiple artistic mediums. How do you feel about clowns? Do you want a balloon?

If you are interested in seeing more clown or circus related collections, check out our online catalog, ABIGAIL!

Posted in From Our Collections

“A sad hart sore feet and poor courage”: The Experiences of an Itinerant Working Man

By Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

The MHS holds the papers of some of the most preeminent people in Massachusetts and U.S. history, including presidents, governors, senators, ambassadors, business leaders, you name it. What about the less privileged and well-connected? They tend to leave a smaller documentary footprint, but their papers can also be found in our stacks. One of my favorites is the 1878 diary of an anonymous itinerant laborer.

anonymous diary
Anonymous laborer’s diary, 1878

The small leather-bound volume is well-preserved and the writing very neat, with no deletions or insertions, so it may be a manuscript copy, rather than the original. The name Charles A. Clifford of Lowell, Mass. is inscribed inside the front cover, and his handwriting matches the writing inside. Clifford’s calling card, printed with an address in Lawrence, is also enclosed. I located an attorney in Lowell and Lawrence by that name, but he wasn’t born until 1883. If my identification is correct, this volume is an early 20th-century copy made by Clifford, but I can’t be definitive.

Whoever the author, the content is fascinating. The diary begins:

Saturday Sept 7th 1878 Finished working for the Boot Corp. Am not feeling veary well and am thinking of goin West. Tuesday the 10th went down to Ballards Vale. to see Edward Jones. and see if he would not like to go with me. he makes up his mind to go.

The “Boot Corp.” was the Boott Cotton Mills in Lowell. Our diarist left Lowell with Edward Jones and from there headed west and south in search of work, never staying very long in one place. I did my best to map his route, which included legs by train, steamboat, and on foot. He went to Ballardvale, Mass.; Boston; Fall River, Mass.; New York; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Indianapolis; St. Louis; Pacific, Mo.; Chamois, Mo.; St. Louis again; Carbondale, Ill.; Cairo, Ill.; Hazlehurst, Miss.; New Orleans; and Cincinnati.

map of first half of journey
First half of his journey
Map showing second half of journey
Second half of his journey

He began his trip with $35 in his pocket, the remainder of his pay from the Boott Mills, and he carefully documented all his wages and expenses. Two undershirts: 50 cents. Two pairs of drawers: 50 cents. Use of the Union Depot washroom in St. Louis: 10 cents. Bribing a train brakeman for a ride: 50 cents.

All these specific details combine to create a vivid picture of his experiences. For example, outside St. Louis, he described roads so muddy that he collected 3 to 4 pounds of mud on his shoes as he walked, “and one also slips back every step of 3 feet about 18 inches makeing progress very slow and tiresone.”

Of course, he had to be careful with his belongings. One day, he and Jones dropped their blankets into a wet ditch. Soon after that, when boarding a train, Jones nearly lost another precious possession, his revolver. I’ll quote this passage in full to give you a sense of how the diary is written.

Ed droped the revolver juest as the train was starting and we both had to jump of to finde it. which cheated us out of 11 Miles we had paid for. and which took us till noon to walk. this was the day that Ed was bit by the Bloodhound. we tried very hard to get work at Chemois cuting corn. but did not succead and as we could get nothing to do or eat. we thought we might as well set our faces toward the riseing Sun Again so we do so at 3 P.M. but we do it with A sad hart sore feet and poor Courage. we walk about 3 or 4 Miles which seams like 10 to us and then cross the Misouri which cost us 10 Cts

Our writer had apparently lived this nomadic life for some time. He’d once worked at the West End Hotel in Philadelphia. He was obviously resourceful, but he also got help on more than one occasion from a “kind harted and whole soled” stranger who cut him a break or referred him for a job.

In the diary, he described what sounds like a nearly idyllic three months (at least by comparison) working on the farm of a Mr. Samuel Reed in Carbondale, Ill. He made 13 dollars a month for a variety of chores, including planting—“I dug the first sweet potatoes I ever saw growing”—milking cows, and tending horses. He had a room of his own “which was carpeted and had A good Soft Bed,” and his washing and mending was done for him.

But that job ended, and after he restocked with supplies in preparation for another stretch of unemployment, he was left with 20 cents to his name. His life remained precarious. And having parted with Jones when he took the job at Reed’s farm, he was also lonely.

As it was Christmas Eve. I thought of home. and where I was One Year Ago. […] not A friend on earth that had any Ida where I am. with no money or work and the City full of tramps and men in search of work. what am I to do. Well God knows and time will tell.

But he proved his resourcefulness again when he heard about work in Cincinnati. With no money for the steamship, he secured a spot by leaving his watch and chain on deposit with a clerk, to be redeemed when he received his pay. The descriptions of his hunger and desperation during this part of the journey are some of the most moving passages in the diary.

I thought I could and would wait 1 or 2 days before telling them I was hungry as I was affraid they would not take me any way if they thought they had got to feed me. on the way. […] my guts felt as though they wer all stuck to geather with muserlage. and the Potatoes meat & Grits I receaved that night with coffee with out milk or sugar […] was one of the best if not the best meal I ever Eat. […] hear and now is what I call hard times & rufing of it

He and the other workers slept on deck, leaning against bales of cotton and frequently waking up from the cold.

by the by I find A man can sleep any where after he gets used to it. the sweetest sleep I ever had I had on this boat. & the plesantest dreams I have woke out of dreams that wer like half-hours. spent in heaven. to finde my body so cold that I could scercely walk to the deck stove. to warm me. […] one can not realize it till they experance it.

The diary ends abruptly on this Mississippi River steamboat somewhere north of Memphis. I doubt we’ll ever know any more about the man whose experiences are recorded in this diary, but whoever he was, he has left us a valuable historical record.

Posted in From Our Collections

Finding Benjamin Franklin in the archives & collections of the MHS

By Heather Rockwood, Communications Associate

I grew up in Franklin, MA so I always knew the true legend about how in 1778, the town changed the name from Exeter to Franklin, in honor of Benjamin Franklin, in the hopes that he would donate a bell for the church. He never donated money, but sent books instead, which the town debated how to use. In the end, they formed a library where every member of the town could read equally. This started the first public library in the United States. Those books still reside in the Franklin Public Library today. And I know that Benjamin Franklin spent time in Boston during his youth, but I had no idea how often his name would come up while searching the online collections of the MHS. I’d like to share with you a selection of my favorite items and stories I have come across about Benjamin Franklin.

Black and white image of Benjamin Franklin
Portrait of Benjamin Franklin

Franklin was born in Boston in 1706 and lived there until 1723 when he ran away from his apprenticeship with his brother, James, who was a printer, to Philadelphia. He only had two years of formal schooling, attending what is now Boston Latin; however he was a voracious reader and even became a vegetarian to spend less money on food and more on books! While he was apprenticed with his brother, James started The New England Courant, the third newspaper created in Boston, which featured literature, opinions, and humor. Franklin knew his brother would not take him seriously if he offered to write something for The New England Courant and so wrote under a pseudonym, “Silence Dogood,” a woman who had opinions. He slipped the first story under the door of the print shop and it was printed in the paper. In all, 13 essays from Silence Dogood were printed in The New England Courant ranging in topic from a dramatic story of her birth, to her opinion on the vice of drunkenness.

After landing in Philadelphia, Franklin relied on his skills in printing throughout his life. After travelling to London, England and being stranded without funds, he was hired there for his printing skills. He earned a loan to return to Philadelphia, worked off his loan, and began to have great success in his own printing endeavors. He created the first franchise in America by opening a print shop with a partner in another colony; became the official government printer of Pennsylvania, purchased the Pennsylvania Gazette; published the first Poor Richard’s Almanack, an instant bestseller; was appointed clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly; organized the Union Fire Company of Philadelphia which endorsed fire safety in the city; was appointed Postmaster of Philadelphia; and became the official printer for New Jersey. During that time, he purchased brass matrices in France, which the MHS now holds! He used these in his print shop and later passed them down to his grandson.

30 brass type casting matrices
Benjamin Franklin’s brass matrices for casting type, made in France, circa 1740.

During his successful print shop endeavors and after, Franklin entertained his interest in electricity and began conducting experiments. The most famous experiment is the one in which he placed a key on the string of kite and flew it during a thunderstorm. When the kite was struck with lightening, it demonstrated the connection between electricity and lightening. However, a story I “discovered” in the MHS collections is in a letter from Franklin to his brother, John, in Boston. As part of his electrical experiments, Franklin was attempting to electrocute a turkey. The experiment went awry and he electrocuted himself instead! In the 25 December 1750 letter he writes:

“I have lately made an Experiment in Electricity that I desire never to repeat. Two nights ago being about to kill a Turkey by the Shock from two large Glass Jarrs containing as much electrical fire as forty common Phials, I inadvertently took the whole thro’ my own Arms and Body.”

The best part of this story, for me, is that he asks that John tell only one mutual friend who is also interested in electricity, as a warning. “You may Communicate this to Mr. Bowdoin As A Caution to him, but do not make it more Publick, for I am Ashamed to have been Guilty of so Notorious a Blunder.” But letters at the time would be passed around to friends and family and read aloud as a leisure time activity. I wonder if John did keep it to himself, or like me, would have run to his social media of the time, evening letter reading?

It is during and after this time that Franklin retired from printing and became more involved with politics. When he was as young as 15 years old he divided his leisure time between reading and occupying coffee houses. Coffee houses at the time were more like taverns. You could get a meal and a low alcohol beverage, such as cider or small beer, as well as tea or coffee, and men would congregate there to talk about the news of the day and relax. He liked to chat and because of his humble workman upbringing, he was very comfortable chatting with the lower classes. Due to his intelligence and well-read nature, was equally as comfortable chatting with the upper classes and eventually, the nobility and crowned heads of Europe. Through this practice, Franklin became well-connected in Philadelphia and regarded for his intellect. In 1753, he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly. He had been a clerk since 1736 and was tired of listening to debates he could not join. In 1764, he lost his seat after petitioning for a Royal Governor for Pennsylvania, something most people in the colony did not desire. That year he was elected as a colonial agent to England and lived there for over a decade, eventually becoming a representative of Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. During his time in England, Franklin gained an honorary doctorate from Oxford University and was there after called Dr. Franklin. After five years in England, Franklin came back to the colonies. Travelling through Boston, on 11 October 1763 he wrote a letter to James Bowdoin, the same friend to whom he cautioned about electricity in his letter to John. In this letter, he gives a recipe for a drink that seems vile to me, milk punch. It is a drink that crosses milk, a base, with lemon juice, an acid, therefore curdling the milk on purpose. The curdled milk is eaten with a spoon and the rest is drunk as is, or drunk from a special spouted cup to drink the liquid first, and eat the curds later. Through the years, MHS staff members have attempted to make Franklin’s milk punch recipe. Read about one such account here.

Handwritten recipe for milk punch
Benjamin Franklin’s milk punch recipe.

After he returned from England in 1775, Franklin was committed to the cause of Independence. He was elected as a Pennsylvania delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Postmaster General of the Colonies, and in 1776 was appointed as part of the committee of five who drafted the Declaration of Independence. He was then appointed to the French court as one of the commissioners of the Continental Congress and spent the next nine years in France creating an alliance with the King of France and signing the Treaty of Paris which ended the Revolutionary War. In the next five years he invented bifocal glasses, returned to the US, was elected President of the Pennsylvania Executive Council, signed the US Constitution, and submitted the first antislavery petition before the US Congress.

In a 12 May 1784 letter to Samuel Mather, son of Cotton Mather, Franklin describes his birthplace of Boston with nostalgia, knowing he would never visit again:

“I long much to See again my native Place, and once hoped to lay my Bones there. I left it in 1723; I visited it in 1733, 1743, 1753, & 1763. In 1773 I was in England; in 1775 I had a Sight of it, but could not enter, it being in Possession of the Enemy. I did hope to have been there in 1783, but could not obtain my Dismission from this Employment here. And now I fear I shall never have that Happiness. My best Wishes however attend my dear Country, Esto perpetua. It is now blest with an excellent Constitution. May it last forever.”

His fear became reality as he died in 1790 of a life-long ailment of pleurisy. He is buried in Philadelphia.

Posted in From Our Collections

National History Day in Massachusetts Receives State Funding

By Kate Melchior, Assistant Director of Education

Gov. Charlie Baker approved the FY22 Massachusetts state budget recently. We are thrilled to share the news that $25K is included in the budget to support National History Day in Massachusetts (NHD)!

This is really wonderful news, especially as we employ new ways to strengthen the NHD program this fall. External funding for NHD makes it possible to:

  • Reduce or eliminate registration fees for students
  • Offer high-quality professional development and curricular support for teachers
  • Make inroads in our ultimate goal of making NHD accessible to all grades 6-12 students across the Commonwealth

 

This spring we held the first Virtual Advocacy Day for NHD in Massachusetts and it really made an impact. So many of you called, e-mailed, and Tweeted about the importance of NHD to you and to the students and teachers in your district. And your legislators listened. Please consider writing to your legislators to thank them, especially if you received a response to your advocacy back in April.

We are so grateful to the MHS community for your continued support of this important program. We are excited to celebrate NHD 2022 and this year’s theme of “Diplomacy and Debate in History” with all of you!

Posted in MHS News