By Heather Rockwood, Communications Associate

When I look through the archives of the MHS, I find myself laughing a lot. Not everything is funny, of course, but enough to remind you that these towering figures from history were, in fact, human beings that made mistakes and experienced awkward situations, just like anyone else. I’ve gathered a few stories revolving around plants that I hope you enjoy as much as I do.

In his diary on 6 June 1771, John Adams recounts what I took to be an exaggerated and funny tale about eating fruit, told by his friend Mr. William Barrell. In the end, Adams moralizes that it’s a wholesome way to eat:

“Barrell this Morning at Breakfast entertained Us with an Account of his extravagant Fondness for Fruit. When he lived at New market he could get no fruit but Strawberries, and he used frequently to eat 6 Quarts in a Day. At Boston, in the very hottest of the Weather he breakfasts upon Water Melons—neither Eats nor drinks any Thing else for Breakfast. In the Season of Peaches he buys a Peck, every Morning, and eats more than half of them himself. In short he eats so much fruit in the Season of it that he has very little Inclination to any other Food. He never found any Inconvenience or ill Effect from fruit— enjoys as much Health as any Body. Father Dana is immoderately fond of fruit, and from several other Instances one would conclude it very wholsome.”

More from John Adams, this time when he was in Paris on 7 December 1779 on a diplomatic mission, when he had an unfortunate experience with caustic nut oil:

“Yesterday the Chevr. de la Molion gave me some Nuts which he call’d Noix d’Acajou. They are the same which I have often seen, and which were called Cooshoo Nuts. The true name is Acajou Nuts. They are shaped like our large white Beans. The outside Shell has an Oil in it that is corrosive, caustic, or burning. In handling one of these Shells enough to pick out the meat I got a little of this oyl on my fingers, and afterwards inadvertently rubbing my Eyes, especially my Left, I soon found the Lids swelled and inflamed up to my Eyebrow.”

If you have ever handled spicy food then rubbed your eye, I know you are cringing as much as I did when I read that!

Abigail Adams is famous for inoculating her children for smallpox while her husband was away at the Continental Congress in 1776. This was cutting edge medicinal science at the time. So, when her mother-in-law  took to carrots as a way to heal an arm sore, she did not believe it would work. However, in this letter to John on 21 February 1796, she remarks on the potential of carrots to heal this type of malady, perhaps as a joke.

“Tho I have not seen her since, I saw her Arm last week. There is not the appearance of a Soar upon it. It is matter of surprize and proves the powerfull efficacy of carrots in such cases as the rose kind.”

On 18 October 1820, John Quincy Adams was enjoying an evening with friends, including a beautiful young woman, when he was teased and challenged to come up with a poem about myrtle and geranium leaves for an album they were creating together. However, he disappointed the group, as he was unable to come up with anything imaginative on the spot. Afterwards, Adams notes that what was especially mortifying for him was the young woman’s impression of him as a man with an “inability” to produce a poem. Although he admits “I produce no impromptus,” later that night, he did write a poem for his friends to place in the album:

“Leaves of unfading verdure! here remain!
Myrtle of beauty! still thy place retain!
Still o’er the page, your hope-ting’d foliage spread;
Imprison’d still, your genial fragrance shed.
But Oh! could language, worthy of the theme,
Give instant utterance to fond fancy’s dream;
When your frail forms, her gentle hand shall raise,
The page should blossom with perennial praise:
A sweeter fragrance than your own should rise”

The Adams family may have been prominent, learned, worldly, and presidential, but these stories revolving around plants found in the MHS archives, are examples of the ways they could also be simply human. Perhaps what we can learn from the above is to always eat your carrots and fruit, and be careful which nut shells you handle—or, at least, don’t rub your eye afterwards!