By Rakashi Chand (she/hers), Senior Library Assistant
The COVID-19 Pandemic continues to loom over all aspects of our lives—well past the point any of us initially imagined—and our patience wears thin. Many wonder if there will ever be a return to ‘normal’.
In researching the diaries of people who survived the 1918 influenza pandemic, it is apparent that after a public health emergency was declared to stop the spread of the influenza, things seemed to settle and daily routines resumed.
Two collections at the MHS show how people managed, survived, and thrived during and after the 1918 Influenza Pandemic: the Eleanor Shumway diaries, 1913-1918 and the Clara E. Currier diaries, 1918-1932. In the diaries kept by Shumway and Currier there is one striking commonality. Both diarists record that on 29 September 1918 everything shuts down ‘on account of’ or ‘because of’ the Epidemic.
The Eleanor Shumway diaries consist of two diaries kept by Eleanor Shumway of Newton, Mass. while she was in her late teens and early twenties. The collection was acquired in October 2020. It accompanies the Eleanor Shumway scrapbook already held by the MHS, and the Eleanor Shumway photographs removed from the Eleanor Shumway Scrapbook. Entries in the diaries primarily describe her social activities, lessons at Newton High School, sports and other recreation, church and Sunday School attendance, and family matters. Beginning 16 September 1918, entries describe Shumway’s training as a nurse at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.
Eleanor Shumway Line-A-Day Diary, cover
From 1914 to 1917 Eleanor consistently wrote in her Line-A-Day diary, but in 1918 she was not as consistent. Her entries trail off on 31 May 1918 and are left blank until 16 September when Eleanor records:
“Mon. Entered P.B. Brigham Hospital. Madeline Wentworth and I room together in a funny apartment house on Wigglesworth Street. 26 in our class. Very nice girls. 3 other girls on our floor.”
On 17 September she writes:
“Tues. Great time getting into our uniforms and over to breakfast at 6:40. Books were given out and we were given rules and regulations. In eve Madeline, Gertrude [–] and I walked up Parker Hill.”
18 September through the 26 September are left blank.
On 27 September 1918 Eleanor records only one line:
“Fri. Carried trays and took temperatures.”
28 September 1918:
“Sat. Carried trays for past [week? Hour] Got 1 O’Clock car home. Walked down street with mother and Mrs. Shute. In eve-ning wrote letters.”
On 29 September 1918, Eleanor notes the epidemic:
“Sun. Slept late. No Church because of Epidemic. Went to dinner at Taylors. May & [–] & I went to walk in woods. Came back at 10 with Madeline.”
Eleanor Shumway diary entry for September 29, 1918
30 September 1918:
“Mon. Patient for bed [evaluating] in PM. Madeline and I went down town. Did errands & went for dinner at café de Paris. Walked home & studied in eve.”
1 October 1918:
“Tues. Cleaned House. Beat rugs. Patient for Bed [making/walking] P. M. Madeline and I walked over to Coolidge Corner. Got eats and walked back. [–] supper. Danced in evening.”
The days go on filled with studying, exams, walks to Coolidge corner, dinners and even trips to the Orpheum Theatre. Life returned even more so as Eleanor wrote on 11 November 11 1918:
“Mon. End of the War. Fighting stopped at 6AM. Everyone wild with Joy. Bells rang, whistles the all day. Went in town with Mad. Stayed un till 7. Then went home. [–] The town had a victory parade.”
Again, the entries continue with walks, dinners, and nursing exams, until 12 December when Eleanor writes:
“Fri. Wallace Seaward died of influenza..”
Eleanor Shumway diary page, December 12th 1918
After a few more diary entries, mostly about Eleanor’s nursing exams, the last entry in the Line-A-Day diary is on 18 December 1918:
“Wed. Did lab work all day long. Dissected a frog in anatomy. In P. M> went down town to do errands. Didn’t accomplish much. Met Gerty & had a sundae at Baileys. Met [Stanley] May. Slept in Mary Ellen’s room.”
The Clara E. Currier diaries consist of three paperbound diaries kept by Clara E. Currier of Haverhill, Mass. (1 July 1918 to 31 December 1919, 1 January 1925 to 31 March 1926, and 1 January 1928 to 1932. Brief entries describe her daily activities; social calls; letters written and received; church and Sunday School attendance; sewing, gardening, and canning; sightings of early airplanes; attendance at minstrel shows; events such as eclipses and earthquakes; her attack of measles in 1925; family matters; and the weather. In 1918, Currier references the influenza epidemic and the end of World War I. The Clara E. Currier diaries were acquired in September of 2020.
Cover, Clara E. Currier diary 1918-1919
While most entries describe the weather, daily activities, meeting friends and family, and efforts to assist the Red Cross, beginning in September we start to see entries that reflect the impact of the Influenza Pandemic in Haverhill, Mass. On 22 September 1918, Clara writes:
“Went to Church morning and evening and S.S. A pleasant autumn day. Ada called, went to the Y.W.C.A. with flowers for Ethel who is sick with gripe or Influenza.”
On 29 September 1918, Clara mentions the epidemic:
“A beautiful day. No Church on account of Epidemic. Schools and theatres closed for the week. Took a little walk and called on Alice B. Laisdall. Wrote to Elsie and Mary.”
Clara E. Currier Diary page inclusive of September 29, 1918 entry
Skipping ahead a few days, the next mention on the epidemic is on Saturday, 5 October:
“A dull day. Went down town on errands. Influenza still raging.”
The days of October and November are filled with crocheting, dress making, jam making and calling on friends – and sometimes calling on friends while going to volunteer at the Kenoza Base hospital, which at the time was set up for Influenza patients.
On 7 December, she mentions being sick though she does not identify her sickness as influenza:
“A cold day. Awful tired and lame.”
8 December 1918:
“A dull day. Went to church in the a.m. and S.S. Am not feeling well. Wrote to Elsie and Mary.”
9 December 1918:
“A pleasant day. Don’t feel much better. Crocheted and knit a little.”
December 10, 1918:
“A beautiful winter day. Felling better but not very strong. Did a little sewing. Had a letter from Mary.”
Clara E. Currier Diary page describing her illness, December 1918
Clara recovered from her illness, and continued canning, sewing, and paying visits to friends. Based solely on the number of days she was ill, we can likely conclude that Clara was sick with and overcame the 1918 Influenza Pandemic.
MHS library staff members answer reference questions from far and near through e-mail, chat, mail, social media, and by phone on a daily basis. While working on one such reference question, I needed to consult a box from the Ellery Sedgwick papers. Sedgwick was the Editor of America’s most noteworthy literary magazine in the early 20th century, the Atlantic Monthly. As I read through the names of correspondents in the collection guide, one name jumped out at me. This was a name that I know well but never thought I would see at the MHS: Rabindranath Tagore. ‘Could this be?’ I thought to myself. As an Indian-American raised in the United States, I have always admired Tagore so I was astounded by this serendipitous discovery.
Ranidranath Tagore was and is India’s literary giant. Tagore was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1913, the first non-European to be awarded a Nobel Prize, in any category. Tagore was knighted by King George V in 1915. He renounced the knighthood in 1919 in response to the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre when British troops gunned down hundreds of innocent Indians. A supreme hyphenate, Tagore was a poet, writer, spiritualist, and artist, and he wrote the Indian national anthem. Tagore helped define the culture of modern India. He represented India in his travels and lectures around the world, not as a British colony, but as a unique country with a long history, rich culture, and a diverse people. Cumulatively, Tagore spent the greatest amount of time outside of India in the United States over a series of three trips.
I eagerly awaited the arrival of the offsite box and was filled with elation when it arrived. The letters, five in total, plus one from his private secretary, span the years 1914 to 1930.
Most of the letters discuss submissions to be published in the Atlantic Monthly. One letter dated 12 October 1930 was very unusual and intriguing. In it Tagore writes to Sedgwick as a friend seeking guidance on how to handle the American media. In this letter, Tagore reveals his thoughts not only about his experience of coming to America, but what he feels as an Indian in America at that moment in time trying the grasp and understand American culture. The letter is magnificent in depth, intimacy, and detail. Please see below for an unofficial transcription. The letterhead is of Williamstown, Mass. where Tagore would have been staying at the time.
Rabindranath Tagore to Ellery Sedgwick, 12 October 1930
Williamstown
MassachusettsOct. 12, 1930
My Dear Mr. Ellery Sedgwick,
Some time ago while travelling in Europe I got your letter and in a fury of movement I completely forgot that I had not answered it. Can you forgive me?
I hope I shall be able to elbow my way to a meeting with you while I am here and shall have the opportunity of a talk. In the meanwhile I ask your friendly advice in my present state of helpless bewilderment. Let me state my case in brief.
Directly my steamer came to the dock in New York, my cabin was invaded by a host of strangers before I could guess their intention and adequately prepare myself for the attack. In my own country I am used to such unannounced and unforeseen catastrophe. We are a democratic people with our doors open to all kinds and conditions of men. My position in the world offers no barricade against intrusion into my privacy, interruption of my work or disturbance of my peace of mind. So with a spirit of resignation which has become habitual to me, I silently suffered these unexpected guests of mine to fill up all of the available space in my cabin. At first, in my pathetic vanity, I though it was deputation from some committee which tried in its own manner to express its obligation to offer me welcome at the moment of my reaching your shore. But their object was made clear to me when they brandished their pencils and notebooks and began to question me about matters that were personal to myself or that concerned my own country. I meekly accepted the inevitable decree of my fate and did my best to satisfy their curiosity in as clear a language as was in my ability to use. Let me assure you that I did not court this publicity nor did I appreciate it as a favour. However, the next day to my painful surprise I found in the first newspaper that came to my hands my words twisted to give a contrary suggestion to what I tried to convey to them. Then I came to know from my friends that several other newspapers have followed the same track of misinterpretation on questions vitally important for my people and for the cause of truth. I am sorely puzzled. I cannot ascribe this to a sudden epidemic of unintelligence among the American reporters and my vanity forbids me to think that I failed to make my meaning clear specially on points which would lead to mischief if vaguely expressed. I fully know that all earlier misinformations have the advantage over the contradictions that follow later as the wound creates a deeper impression than the bandage. And yet I did send my own original version to one of the most important of these papers and waited for its appearance on the next morning. But I find that they are not as prompt in publishing the correction as they have been in giving currency to the wrong statement. I am a simple man from the East and I hate to carry in my mind distrust against any section of your community specially the one whose duty it is to supply information to the public. I tell you truly it has made me feel afraid, for I do not know the technique of your public life and it tires me to be always on my guard. I am beginning to feel like a pedestrian from my country trying to walk in his own absent-minded manner in some busy street in New York and suddenly finding some necessary portions of his limbs disappearing in the dust. I only wish I could laugh at my misadventure, but that has become impossible even for an oriental philosopher owing to its extremely mischievous nature. I have come to the conclusion that the only place which is safe for the eastern simpleton is his own remote corner of obscurity. Waiting for some advice and consolation from you
I remain
Very sincerely yours
Rabindranath Tagore
Sent from:
Buxton Hill
Williamstown
Massachusetts
Page 2 of letter from Rabindranath Tagore to Ellery Sedgwick, 12 October 1930Page 3 of letter from Rabindranath Tagore to Ellery Sedgwick, 12 October 1930Final page of letter from Rabindranath Tagore to Ellery Sedgwick, 12 October 1930
This poetic letter reveals so much about Tagore and his experience in America and with the American public. Tagore embarked on his journeys to connect with to learn as much as possible about people across the globe, while also sharing the wealth of culture, philosophy, ideology and art from his own country, a country fighting for freedom against colonial oppression.
In February of 1653, twenty-one-year-old Michael Wigglesworth listened as Henry Dunster, clergyman and president of Harvard College, gave a sermon at the public assembly. But Wigglesworth was distracted from the sermon. Instead, he was fretting over one of the students he tutored at Harvard who was absent from the assembly due to illness. Later, reflecting on the day, Wigglesworth wrote in his diary:
“I feel not [love] to god as I should, but more [love] to man, least I should [love] man more than god. I am laden with a body of death, and could almost be willing to be dissolved and be with christ free’d from this sinful flesh.”
Why did this young man feel so terrible for worrying about his pupil? The answer may lie in coded diary entries. In these entries he wrote about having feelings of love and desire (what he called “unnatural filthy lust”) for his male pupils.
This entry from February 1653 reads in part: “I feel not loue to god as I should, but more loue to man, least I should loue man more than god. I am laden with a body of death, and could almost be willing to be dissolved and be with christ free’d from this sinful flesh.”
In 1653 Wigglesworth was a fellow at Harvard College, from which he had graduated in 1651. He was assigned to a group of freshmen, the class of 1656. The students ranged in age from about 13 (the young Increase Mather) to 27, the majority being teenaged.
Perhaps some of the guilt he felt for his desire toward his students was due to the age and power difference between them, and his responsibility for both their academic and their spiritual development. (Richard Crowder, who published a biography of Wigglesworth in 1962, reports that as a student Wigglesworth was “fondly attached” to his own Harvard tutor.[1]) Furthermore, to put it lightly, Puritans frowned upon same-sex desire and acts. Laws prohibiting sodomy classified it as a capital punishment—though it was seldom prosecuted to the full extent of the law.[2]
For these reasons, it makes sense why Wigglesworth would want to write portions of his diary in code. The code he used was based on a stenography shorthand. It was quite popular at the time and used for both personal and business purposes, but Wigglesworth made his own alterations to the code which would have made it more difficult to decipher.[3] This must have allowed him the peace of mind to write without fear of someone stumbling across the diary and reading his most intimate secrets.
According to Edmund S. Morgan, who published a transcribed version of the diary, this July 1653 shorthand entry when decoded reads: “In the next 2 days I found so much of a spirit of pride and secret joying in some conceived excellence in my self which is too hard for me and I cant prevail over and also so much secret vice and vain thoughts in holy duties and thereby weariness of them and such filthy lust also flowing from my fond affection to my pupils whiles in their presence on the third day after noon that I confess myself an object of God’s loathing as my sin is of my own and pray God make it so more to me.” (Morgan pp. 30-31)
Puritans hold a peculiar place in the modern imagination. They are stereotypically portrayed as fixated on sin and delighting in punishment. And this particular Puritan seems to lend himself rather unfortunately to stereotype. His name alone sounds laughably quaint and silly to the modern ear. Because of his diary, Wigglesworth has been described as overwrought, neurotic, a distillation of Puritanical anxieties. One notable entry sees him worrying over whether he has a duty to let his neighbors know that their stable door is blowing open in the wind as if it is a life-or-death situation. Many of the entries read the same way, whether about pride, lust, or some other perceived shortcoming.
But Wigglesworth’s diary was actually quite typical in its anxious fixation on sin. Diaries like his were a common method of religious devotion for Puritans. The purpose was for the diarist to meditate on their sins to come to a greater assurance of salvation through divine grace. And Wigglesworth indeed used his diary as a place to wrestle with his feelings about his pupils. He wrote in one entry, “I find my spirit so exceeding carried with love to my pupils that I cant tell how to take up my rest in God.”
As decoded by Morgan, this March 1653 shorthand entry begins: “I find my spirit so exceeding carried with love to my pupils that I cant tell how to take up my rest in God.” (Morgan p. 11)
His love for his pupils often took the form of deep concern for their religious development. In one instance, he wrote about a pupil whom he had instructed to focus solely on schoolwork and religious devotion. Upon seeing the student enjoying music the next day, he wrote, “For these things my heart is fill’d and almost sunk with sorrow and my bowels are turned within me.” His identification with the sins of others, their physical effect on his body, seems appropriate (if rather intense) for an aspiring minister. Yet worrying over his pupils’ souls also evoked guilt—he once wrote, “whilest I seek him for others I loose him and my love to him my self.”
The pain and suffering he experienced was also quite literal, as Wigglesworth was in ill health for much of his life. He frequently complained of being prone to colds, bouts of weakness, and “rhewms.” He appealed in one entry, “heal my soul and body for both are very loath and unable to do thy service.”
Though his diary describes almost unrelenting physical and spiritual struggles, to his contemporaries he was a man of high spirits. He was described in an 1863 biographical sketch by nineteenth-century historian John Ward Dean as “[seeming] generally to have maintained a cheerful temper, so much so that some of his friends believed his ills to be imaginary.” Cotton Mather remarked in Wigglesworth’s eulogy that
“He used all the means imaginable, to make his Pupils not only good Scholars, but also good Christians; and instil into them those things, which might render them rich Blessings unto the Churches of God. Unto his Watchful and Painful Essayes, to keep them close unto their Academical Exercises, he added, Serious Admonitions unto them about their Interiour State, and (as I find in his Reserved Papers) he Employ’d his Prayers and Tears to God for them, & had such a flaming zeal, to make them worthy men, that, upon Reflection, he was afraid, Lest his cares for their Good, and his affection to them, should so drink up his very Spirit, as to steal away his Heart from God.”
It is striking to see Mather’s complimentary interpretation of something that caused Wigglesworth such grief. Mather mentions having had access to Wigglesworth’s “Reserved Papers” and appears to quote from the diary in an appendix to the published eulogy. Could he make sense of the shorthand? His father was one of Wigglesworth’s pupils. Would he have still made special mention of Wigglesworth’s time as a tutor if he had discovered the coded passages? It is difficult to say, but it seems possible that the shorthand indeed preserved some of Wigglesworth’s privacy.
Michael Wigglesworth’s diary only covers a short period of his life. Nearly ten years after he began writing it, he would go on to publish his apocalyptic poem Day of Doom, which has been called the first American bestseller. He was married three times, had several children, and had careers in medicine and in the ministry until his death in 1705. The MHS holdings contain collections of materials representing many of Wigglesworth’s descendants. Yet the diary he kept as a young man survives as a record of his pained meditations—and it affords us some historical insights into one man’s personal experience of same-sex desire in seventeenth-century New England.
In a more optimistic September 1655 entry, Wigglesworth sketched a triumphant drawing of the biblical Ebenezer stone—“A pillar to the prayse of his grace.”
Sources
Dean, John Ward. Sketch of the Life of Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, A.M.: Author of the Day of Doom. Albany: J. Munsell, 1863.
Mather, Cotton. A faithful man, described and rewarded. Microfiche, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1213 Evans fiche.
Michael Wigglesworth diary, 1653-1657. Pre-Revolutionary War Diaries, microfilm, Massachusetts Historical Society, P-363 reel 11.19.
[1] See Richard Crowder, No Featherbed to Heaven: A Biography of Michael Wigglesworth, 1631-1705 (United States: Michigan State University Press, 1962), p. 32.
[2] See Robert F. Oaks, “‘Things Fearful to Name’: Sodomy and Buggery in Seventeenth-Century New England” (1978), Journal of Social History 12 (2).
[3] Edmund S. Morgan published a transcription of the diary in 1965 in which he decoded the shorthand passages. See Edmund S. Morgan (Ed.), The Diary of Michael Wigglesworth 1653-1657: the Conscience of a Puritan (United States: Harper, 1965).
By Benjamin D. Remillard, University of New Hampshire, Benjamin F. Stevens Fellow, MHS
Seeking opportunity and community following the War for Independence, growing coastal hubs like Boston became attractive destinations for free people of color. Many of these residents and recent migrants were engaged members of their communities. Cato Newell, for instance, was a twenty-three-year-old baker from Charlestown, MA, when he enlisted alongside the rebels after the violence at Lexington and Concord.[1] Boston’s Wenham Carey was a bit older by comparison, enlisting multiple times for short periods when he was already in his thirties.[2] Luke (or Luck) Russell, meanwhile, while not a veteran, is believed to have been a member of Prince Hall’s growing African Freemason Lodge.[3]
Life after the war, however, did not come without risks. Newell, Carey, and Russell discovered this for themselves when they were hired by a man named Avery to make boat repairs in February 1788. They travelled to Boston Harbor’s Long Island, where their employer directed the trio below deck to begin their work. After locking away his human cargo, the ship’s captain set sail for warmer waters.
It was not long before word of the abduction reached the men’s families. Writing from Charlestown, they decried the capture of those “three unhappy Africans,” and insisted that their loved ones were “justly intitled” to “the protection of the laws and government which they have contributed to support.”[4]
The news “roused the spirit of all consistent advocates for freedom.”[5] Heeding the outcry, Gov. John Hancock and Philippe André Joseph de Létombe—the French Consul at Boston—alerted governors around the Caribbean and the South of the crime. Other civically engaged Bostonians similarly sprung to action when the Quakers, about 90 clergymen, and Prince Hall submitted petitions to the Massachusetts legislature.
The clergymen’s petition was couched in the Revolutionary era’s language of “universal liberty.” They were especially interested in banning American involvement in the international slave trade, framing it as an “inglorious stain upon our national character.”[6]
Hall’s petition, meanwhile, was personal, asserting that this was not the first time this happened. He claimed that “maney of our free blacks that have Entred onboard of vessles as seamen and have ben sold for slaves,” and that only “sum of them we have heard from.” Fearing similar fates, “maney of us who are good seamen are oblige to stay at home.”[7]
While Jeremy Belknap referred to Hall’s petition as an “original and curious performance,” they and the Quakers’ combined efforts produced a change.[8] On March 26, 1788 an act passed “to prevent the Slave Trade, and for granting Relief to the Families of such unhappy Persons as may be Kidnapped or decoyed away from this Commonwealth.”
Meanwhile, the kidnapped Bostonians arrived at Saint Barthélemy, in the Caribbean, and protested to anyone who would listen that they were free men. Perhaps miraculously, Governor Pehr Herman von Rosenstein interceded to stop their sale into slavery. Unfortunately, the island’s laws were “greatly to their disadvantage in all kinds of Disputes between them and White Persons.” Despite those restrictions von Rosenstein was “obliged” to detain (and thus save) the Bostonians until they “procured sufficient and authentic proofs of the Right of their Cause.”[9]
Hancock’s initial efforts came to fruition in the ensuing months, finally reaching von Rosenstein. Massachusetts’s governor assumed the costs to return the kidnapped men home in July 1788, and Newell, Carey, and Russell were welcomed home to a “jubilee.”[10] After surviving the threat of enslavement, the three understood as well as any how precarious life could be on the margins of early American society. The support they garnered from Boston’s different communities, however, also documents the growing wave of abolitionism and support for free Black Americans spreading across the Northeast.
[1]Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, v. 11 (Boston, MA: Wright & Potter Printing Co., State Printers, 1896-1908): 345 [MSS], MHS.
[2] MSS v. 3: 179-180, for the entries for Cary, Windham/Wenham/William.
[3] Sidney Kaplan and Emma Nogrady Kaplan, The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989), 209.
[4] James Russell, Richard Cary, Elipha. Newell, “Advertisement,” The Massachusetts Gazette, 7 March 1788, AHN, though the piece was written 20 February.
[5] Belknap to Hazard, 17 February 1788, in Jeremy Belknap Papers, Part II (Boston, MA: Published by the Society, 1877), 19-20, MHS.
[6] Belknap to Hazard, 2 March 1788, Belknap Papers, II, 21-3, MHS.
[7] Hall to the Massachusetts General Court, February 27, 1788, https://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=670&br=1.
[8] Belknap to Hazard, March 2, 1788, Belknap Papers, II, 22, MHS.
[9] von Rosenstein to Hancock, 6 July 1788, Miscellaneous Bound 1785-1792, MHS.
[10] Belknap to Hazard, August 2, 1788, Belknap Papers, II, 32, MHS.
Like many younger siblings, Thomas Boylston Adams experienced a combination of gratitude and annoyance at his older brother John Quincy’s protectiveness. In the autumn of 1794, they voyaged together to Europe, where John Quincy was to work as foreign minister to the Netherlands with Thomas as his secretary. As they approached the chalky cliffs of Beachy Head, Thomas climbed to the highest part of the ship’s mast in order to get a better view — a stunt the twenty-two-year-old only felt comfortable performing because his brother was not “upon Deck.” In his diary (M/TBA/1, Adams Papers), Thomas confessed, “I should hardly have done it in his presence lest his fraternal solicitude about my discretion and safety” cause an embarrassing scene for them both. Thomas admitted that he felt “grateful for his tenderness…on many occasions,” but could not help but wonder why John Quincy seemed to think he lacked his own sense of “self preservation.”
Twenty-three-year-old Thomas Boylston Adams in a 1795 miniature painted by a friend named Mr. Parker, while Thomas was in Europe with John Quincy.
John Quincy’s concern for his youngest brother would not subside. After four years in Europe together, during which Thomas had been his brother’s “constant companion,” the younger Adams sailed back to the United States to resume his law practice in Philadelphia – a decision which his concerned sibling had some thoughts about, as well. “I do not think…his inclination…suited to the contentious part of that profession,” John Quincy wrote to their mother shortly after parting ways with Thomas. He saw in his younger brother an incredible mind and talent, who could be a “valuable…citizen of his Country,” but believed that law may be too fierce a profession for Thomas’s more sensitive nature. John Quincy’s judgment proved prophetic, as Thomas struggled to find much success as a lawyer, instead preferring to spend his time writing and publishing political pieces for Philadelphia newspapers and the literary journal Port Folio. He even wrote to his father, John Adams, on 22 October 1799 (Adams Papers) that he feared his “strong natural want of confidence” in himself ensured his failure in the field of law.
Whether Thomas was ever aware of that prescient piece of “fraternal solicitude” is unclear, but he certainly continued to reap the benefits – and, presumably, the inconveniences – of John Quincy’s anxiety for the rest of his life. And after a varied career in the early part of the nineteenth century that included service in local politics, on the Massachusetts state legislature, and as a circuit court chief justice, the youngest Adams sibling began to give his brother significant cause for worry. “If in any instance I have…wounded your feelings I am sorry for it,” the elder Adams wrote gently in 1818, entreating Thomas “to be kind to yourself.”
Thomas was showing signs of having inherited the same struggle that plagued both his maternal uncle and his brother Charles before him, as alcohol addiction damaged his health and put a strain on many of his familial relationships. The youngest Adams sibling, formerly applauded by relatives and acquaintances for his genial personality, became what his nephew Charles Francis Adams described as “a bully in his family” through the effects of his disease. Disliked, feared, or ignored by many of his loved ones, Thomas retained a consistent ally in John Quincy, who provided financially for not only his younger brother but Thomas’s wife and six children, as well. It was, according to John Quincy, merely his “brotherly duty of kindness.”
One of the first extant letters from John Quincy Adams to his youngest brother was penned in Paris, where the ten-year-old had traveled with their father, and addressed “To My Brother Tommy.” John Quincy reminded his five-year-old sibling that, difficult as it may be to accept, “Providence…has seperated us so that we cannot expect to see one another very soon.” Yet after the separations of their childhood, the brothers were hardly ever apart: partners in business, intimate confidants, close companions — and, finally, provider and dependent.
In his diary entry for 17 March 1832, John Quincy Adams writes of receiving the news that his “dear and amiable brother” had died.
And when, on 12 March 1832, Thomas Boylston Adams died, his devoted sibling — now the only surviving child of John and Abigail Adams, the last remaining member of his famous immediate family — turned to his trusty diary to mourn the “dear and amiable brother” whom he loved.
Lucy Wickstrom interned with the Adams Papers in fall 2021. She is a graduate student at Tufts University, where she is pursuing her master’s degree in history and museum studies, with a special interest in early U.S. history and all things Adams family.
By Neal Millikan, Series Editor for Digital Editions, The Adams Papers
Transcriptions of more than 2,500 pages of John Quincy Adams’s diary have just been added to the John Quincy Adams Digital Diary, a born-digital edition of the Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society. The new material spans the period January 1830 through December 1838 and chronicle Adams’s experiences serving in the United States House of Representatives.
John Quincy Adams left the presidency on 4 March 1829 believing that his tenure in public service had ended, yet uncertain how to fill his days. When on 17 September 1830 congressman Edward Everett approached Adams to see if he would again stand for office, the statesman was unsure how to respond. He recorded in his diary: “To say that I would accept, would be so near to asking for a vote, that I did not feel disposed to go so far— I wished the People to act spontaneously; at their own discretion.” Upon learning of his congressional election, Adams commented that “My Election as President of the United States was not half so gratifying to my inmost Soul— No election or appointment conferred upon me ever gave me so much pleasure.”
View of the Capitol of the United States, by Joseph Andrews, 1834.
Adams took his seat in the House of Representatives in December 1831, representing the Plymouth district of Massachusetts in the 22d Congress. During his first years of service in that legislative body, Adams became chairman of the Committee on Manufactures, helping to compose the compromise tariff bill of 1832. He was also involved in the rechartering of the Bank of the United States, producing a minority report in support of the bank after traveling to Philadelphia as part of a House committee to inquire into its affairs. And he became increasingly interested in the Anti-Masonic political party, unsuccessfully standing as their Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate in 1833.
Adams subsequently served in the 23d through 25th Congresses, and it was during this period that he gained the sobriquet “Old Man Eloquent” for the speeches he gave against slavery and the annexation of Texas. He regularly presented antislavery petitions that he received from across the nation. When the House voted to pass a Gag Rule in May 1836 that would table all petitions relating to slavery, he was outraged: “On my name’s being called . . . I answered I hold the Resolution to be a direct violation of the Constitution of the United States—of the Rules of this House and of the rights of my Constituents.” Although the Gag Rule passed, Adams continued to present the antislavery petitions he received. His actions led southern congressmen in 1837 to draft a resolution of censure against him, the vote of which failed. Adams noted in his diary that his defense of the right of petition at that time so consumed him that it was “The first time for more than forty years” that he had “suffered a total breach in my Diary for several weeks— At one of the most trying periods of my life.”
The other national issue that consumed John Quincy Adams during these years was protecting Englishman James Smithson’s $500,000 bequest to the United States. Adams chaired the House committee that created a bill stating that the national government would apply the bequest to the founding and endowment of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, D.C. He marveled that a foreigner should provide the means to found in America “an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men,” and he believed that this was “an event in which I see the finger of Providence compassing great results by incomprehensible means.”
Silhouette of John Adams 2d (1803–1834).
John Quincy Adams lost two close members of his family during these years: his brother Thomas Boylston Adams died on 13 March 1832, and his middle son John Adams 2d passed away on 23 October 1834. After his son’s death, Adams found himself, “In a state between stupefaction, and a nervous irritation aggravated by the exertion to suppress it.” He became the legal guardian of his son’s two daughters, Mary Louisa Adams and Georgeanna Frances Adams, and his pecuniary duties toward his brother’s and son’s widows and children created significant financial responsibility for the congressman.
He and his wife Louisa Catherine Adams welcomed five new grandchildren into their family during this period, bringing the total to six. In his free time, he continued to walk, swim, and garden. He also found time to compose the 2,000-line poem “Dermot MacMorrogh, or The Conquest of Ireland,” which met with lukewarm reception from reviewers. As he entered his seventies, John Quincy Adams came to increasingly rely on his only surviving child, Charles Francis Adams, for financial and familial advice. “All my hopes of futurity in this world are now centered upon him,” Adams wrote.
For more on John Quincy Adams’s life, read the headnotes for the 1830–1834 and the 1835–1838 periods, or, navigate to the entries to begin reading his diary. The addition of material for the 1830–1838 period joins existing transcriptions of Adams’s diary for his legal, political, and diplomatic careers (1789–1817), his time as secretary of state (1817–1825), and his presidency (1825–1829), and brings the total number of transcriptions freely available on the MHS website to more than 8,300 pages.
The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our sponsors. Major funding for the John Quincy Adams Digital Diary was provided by the Amelia Peabody Charitable Fund, with additional contributions by Harvard University Press and a number of private donors. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in partnership with the National Historical Publications and Records Commission also support the project through funding for the Society’s Primary Source Cooperative.
In my last two posts (part I and part II), I shared the story of Mary Breed, as told in an autobiographical manuscript she sent to the MHS in 1933. I can’t in good conscience conclude her story without discussing some particularly interesting passages which relate less to the specific circumstances of her life and more to the history of Lynn, Mass.
Mary was born in 1869. When she wrote to the MHS, she was 64 years old and had lived in Lynn her whole life. Thankfully for us, she devoted the last two pages of her manuscript to describing the dramatic changes she’d seen in the city. She included details of daily life in a 19th-century industrial center, and I think it’s worth excerpting these passages at length.
Many of the Old Houses in Lynn Mass have been razed or destroyed by fire. One of the Oldest houses at the corner of Hesper and Boston Streets No 799 was razed within this year. It was two hundred and seventy eight years old. It was told that our First President George Washington Stopped there for Tea one time, as he was passing through Lynn on his way to Boston. This House was built by one of the oldest of Lynn’s Residents A Mr. Raddin. […]
I could write of many changes in West Lynn Mass, That I know of where acres of land was nothing but fields, and hills, where I used to play when a little girl, is all made into Streets, and houses are built there on Summer St. I rode in the Horse Cars, and the old barges to my work before the Electric Cars were started. Everything is changed now. And when my father was a boy, He said that Lynn Common was nothing but a Swamp and cow pasture. That was 1823 because he was 9 years of age at that time. […]
My father used to walk from Lynn to Boston over the road. So did my Grandfather and my mother when she was only 8 years of age, also to Stoneham to visit her Aunt Ellen. People didn’t mind a ten or twenty mile walk in the days when there wasn’t any cars. Everybody had to walk, except those who could afford to keep a horse and carriage. That was before my time of life.
The MHS holds a number of historical postcards of Lynn, including these:
Postcard showing Market Street, ca. 1900Postcard showing Lynn Common, ca. 1900View of Lynn, probably mid-20th century
I also found in our collections a book called Lynn: One Hundred Years a City, published in 1950, which contains a number of “then and now” photographs that give us an idea of the changes Mary was talking about.
While all this local history is of course interesting to us as archivists and historians, it was personal for Mary. As a child, she had lived on Tower Hill, formerly known as Willis’s Hill according to a county history. Willis’s Hill can be seen on this 1829 map by Alonzo Lewis, which means Mary grew up not far from the Raddin home built in 1655 and demolished in 1933.
It wasn’t just the Raddin family that stretched far back into Lynn history. Mary’s birth name, Newhall, was also an old one in the city. In Lewis’s map, you’ll see that someone named J. Newhall managed a tavern not far from the Raddin home. Mary’s married name, Breed, was apparently even older. The map shows an Allen Breed living on Mill Street in 1650. Other searches for Breeds in Lynn turn up a Breed Square, a Breed Pond, and a Breed Wharf. I wasn’t able to confirm whether Mary and her husband were related to these other Newhalls and Breeds, but it seems likely they were.
Mary may have felt nostalgic about the Lynn of her childhood, but she was certainly right when she said “everything is changed.” The city had undergone tremendous growth during her lifetime. I checked census data, and the population of Lynn in 1870 was about 28,000. By 1930, it had almost quadrupled to over 102,000, its peak. It has taken almost 100 years for the population to inch up close to that number again.
I was especially interested in Mary’s description of how modes of transportation had changed. According to my research, horse cars operated in Lynn from 1860 to 1888, with the first electric car appearing in 1887. As for travel outside the city, many people, even children, regularly walked to Boston, which Google Maps tells me is over 11 miles and would take almost 4 hours.
I’ll let Mary have the last word. Here’s an excerpt from the final paragraph of her reminiscences.
Well I would like to have been a writer if I could of had a chance to go around to places and see the Country. I have been to Maine as far as New Sharon and Belgrade Lakes and to Wilton, and North Jay, and Farmington Maine. And To Farmington, Milton, and Union, N.H. Alton Bay on the Lakes, where I have spent my vacations. But now I cannot go anywhere, but stay at home and sew to take up my time. I read a lot of magazines and books.
With the start of a new year, many of my thoughts turn toward the zodiac, since many friends’ and family’s birthdays are around the holidays and early in the new year. And the turn of the Chinese zodiac is on 1 February 2022, beginning the Year of the Tiger. It made me wonder how much people in the Adams’s world thought about the zodiac in the way we, or at least some of us, base life decisions on what the stars tell us.
What I found was surprising! We already know that John Quincy Adams (JQA) was an avid reader and could read in both Latin and Greek. But in 1811, while serving as the United States minister to Russia, he embarked on a reading journey that few today would likely take: reading the books of Roman poet Marcus Manilius, from the first century AD. Here is what Britannica has to say about him: “He was the author of Astronomica, an unfinished poem on astronomy and astrology probably written between the years AD 14 and 27. Following the style and philosophy of Lucretius, Virgil, and Ovid, Manilius stresses the providential government of the world and the operation of divine reason. He exercises his amazing ability for versifying astronomical calculations to the extreme, often forcing unnecessarily complex constructions upon his lines. The poem’s chief interest lies in the attractive prefaces to each book and in the mythological and moralizing digressions. The five extant books, consisting of 4,000 hexameters, are rarely read completely.”
But it seems that JQA was ready to take on the challenge of reading all Manilius’s writings. However, he did not like, or agree with, what he found within them. He wrote this in his diary on 28 November 1811:
“After Breakfast I read the second Book of Manilius, which is altogether Astrological— He is continually extolling reason, and her discoveries— Such for instance as the conjunction and opposition of the Constellations— Their trine, tetragon, sextile aspects, their dodecatemories, and octotopes, and especially their undoubted influence on the destinies and Passions of Men— In this Book he unfolds the system of friendships and enmities of all the signs of the Zodiac; How they are alternately of different sexes (which I do not understand considering the two first are Ram and Bull) how they stand affected towards one another— their loves— their hatreds, and their mutual designs of fraud— The system is extremely complicated, and as the translator remarks, abounds with inconsistencies— But the poetry is beautiful—the astronomy is often incorrect, even for the age and place of the writer; and Pingré says it is entirely borrowed from Eudoxus of Cnidos, who wrote more than three Centuries before—”
He continues his reading journey and writes on 4 December 1811:
“Manilius continues a profound and incomprehensible Astrologer— This book laboriously prepares the student of the Stars, for the Art of drawing the horoscope. — As it depends on the state of the Zodiac, he gives rules for ascertaining the time and period of the rising and setting of every sign, throughout the year—”
I think my favorite part of this reading journey is JQA’s droll lamentation that the Americas did not factor into Manilius’s world and as such had no patron constellation. This diary entry is from 6 December 1811:
“I also finished reading the fourth Book of Manilius which contains an account of the influence of each sign of the Zodiac, upon the character of those born under it, and also upon the different parts of the Earth— There is a tolerably minute geographical description of the world then known— But as none of the Signs are reserved for the superintendence of the Terrae incognitae, the American Hemisphere has no patrons or foes among the Constellations—”
The last two entries that I found were a few years later and were much more about observing the zodiac and less about reading a series of frustrating poems. He wrote the following on 18 December 1813:
“I went out on the Square to observe the positions of some of the Stars— The great Bear was as nearly as possible in the Zenith, and I remarked very distinctly all the Stars of the little Bear. I found that the Constellation under which I have for several days observed Jupiter, and which I had taken for Libra, was the Lion. The Calendar marks Jupiter, as being in the Virgin, and I had not recollected the difference between the Signs and the Constellations of the Zodiac— I ascertained by La Lande’s lines Arcturus and Lyra but missed several others— I went out again before Breakfast and saw the Sun rise quite clear, and he has now reached the extreme of his Southern Declination. I remarked also the Moon’s approach to him, it being now the fourth day before the Conjunction— I was in hopes of seeing her to the last day of her being visible; but the sky clouded up again in the course of the day, and I shall not see her again untill after the change.— It was however still clear enough this Evening to shew me Mars in the Meridian, and the Constellation of Aries, with the first star of the antient Equinox— My Observations abridged much of my reading.”
The last writing I found, on 26 April 1816 while he was acting as minister to Great Britain, presents a softer side of JQA, casually enjoying astrology with his son:
“In the Evening the weather being clear, I shewed George the six signs or Constellations of the Zodiac Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo and Libra; with several other Constellations. We sat up to see Antares rise, at about eleven O’Clock— The Planet Jupiter is in Libra. We compared the visible Stars, with the Charts of Bode’s Uranographia.”
Although JQA didn’t plan his life decisions around the zodiac, he did love to watch the stars, which will probably be an eternal occupation for humanity.
Sources:
The version of Astronomica that is linked in the text is in Latin, but here is a summary of the contents of the five books.
On 22 December 1874, two sisters wrote to Santa Claus from Columbus, Georgia. Lucy and Judy Caldwell attended the Claflin school, which was run by the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society and had opened in 1868. The New England Freedmen’s Aid Society was founded in Boston in response to an appeal from Edward L. Pierce on behalf of 8,000 formerly enslaved people at Port Royal, S.C. The Society was active from 1862-1874. Like other schools the Society operated, the Claflin school educated African Americans, and the Society provided teachers and additional funds. Students paid tuition to attend. Most of the teachers were white Northerners; one exception was Reuben Matthews, who had been a student at the Claflin school and then became the school’s only Black teacher. Judy and Lucy wrote to Santa on paper their teacher, Caroline Alfred, gave to them.
I first located the sisters in the 1870 United States census. Living in Columbus, Georgia, Lucy Caldwell, 9, and Judy Caldwell, 8, both Black, were listed as being born in Alabama. In the 1880 census, Lucy was still in Columbus and was listed as 20 years old and born in 1860, though her place of birth is listed as Georgia. In her letter, Judy says she is 12, which fits with the 1870 census record. Lucy would have been 13 or 14. I didn’t find Judy in the 1880 census. During Reconstruction, Black families in Columbus, GA lived under the constant threat of violence from white vigilante groups. Reading the Caldwell sisters’ letters to Santa provides a small glimpse into the lives of two Black girls, who hoped for a happy Christmas.
In her letter, Lucy, the elder sister, gives the impression that she only wrote because her sister asked her to do so. Lucy doesn’t ask Santa for any specific items; instead, she writes, “I have not much to say but I hope you will remember me and Judy also of what she says.” Lucy hopes Santa will bring her something (“remember” her), but mostly she writes to ask him to give Judy what she wants. And, in fact, Judy is very specific.
Judy wants a wax doll. The heads of wax dolls were made of – you guessed it! – wax, and they became popular in the United States in the 1870s. The bodies could be made of cloth. In her letter, Judy mentions she’d had a “China doll,” which had a head made of porcelain and was very delicate. A wax doll would have been sturdier. As I researched wax dolls from the 19th century, I only saw examples of white dolls. As I read Judy’s letter I found myself hoping not only that she got to unwrap a wax doll on Christmas morning, but that the doll would be Black like her.
One page of Judy Caldwell’s letter to Santa, 1874
Writing letters to Santa was a growing trend in the 1870s, and in their letters, children sought to assure Santa of their good behavior. Lucy and Judy specifically chose to write about their school conduct. (Perhaps they knew their teacher would also read their letters, and so wrote with two audiences in mind.) Lucy wrote that she was “promine[n]t in my studies although I have been absent a great many times.” Judy admits to having whispered once, but she provides many more examples of her hard work and dedication to school. She says she does her best at school “if nowhere else” and, because she is only twelve, knows Santa “can afford to bring me” a doll. By the end of her letter, Judy is at her wit’s end. Feeling she has made a strong case for the doll, she doesn’t know what else to say. Her words and punctuation become more adamant and she ends the letter by saying she “will be so glad to get it.” After writing so persuasively, how could anyone refuse her?!
Judy’s letter brims with personality and she makes a compelling case for the wax doll she wants! Here is a transcription of the letter in full:
Columbus Ga Dec. 22d. 1874
Dear Santa Clause I seat myself to ask you to please bring me a wax doll. I would like to have one very much. I never have had one, and I would be very pleased if you would bring me one. I have had a China doll, but I want a wax one. My teacher gave me this sheet of paper, so that I could write to you. I am only twelve years old so I think yo[u] can afford to bring me one. You may bring me anything else that you want to bring me, but bring me the doll. I have not failed this term, and have only whispered onec [sic]. I have got eight books out of the libary [sic], I do not want to have another bad mark, for I am going to study with all my might and will, and try to keep my lips closed. I have not been sent to my seat about my lessons, an [sic] I have always tried to do my best at school if nowheres [sic] else. I love to go to school, and I love to please my teacher. Now please Santa Clause bring me the wax doll, for I am impatient for it. I don’t know what to say all I want is you to bring me the doll. ! I will be so glad to get it.
Judy Caldwell
Age
twelve
The New England Freedmen’s Aid Society Records, 1862-1878, have been digitized. You can read Lucy and Judy Caldwell’s letters here. You can find the collection guide, and links to all of the digitized material, here.
A few weeks ago, I introduced you to Mary Breed of Lynn, Mass. and her fascinating family history. Now I’d like to continue her story, as told in her own words in a 12-page manuscript at the MHS.
When she wrote this manuscript in 1933, Mary was 64 years old. She had lived in Lynn her whole life, but now she and her husband Mayo were out of work and wanted to relocate to Boston. Not only would employment opportunities be more plentiful there, but Mary had ties to the city going back generations, and the move had been the express wish of her late grandfather John Bemis Ireland, a Boston blacksmith and wheelwright.
Mary hadn’t actually known her grandfather for the first two decades of her life. After his wife Nancy’s death in 1866, John moved to Boston and, for reasons that aren’t clear, “lost all track” of his daughter and her children. Then one day in 1888 (or 1889, Mary is inconsistent on this detail), John was strolling down a street in West Lynn on his way to a job, and “it just happened that they met each other.”
The family relationship reestablished, John began to visit the Breeds every week. Mary was obviously a fan of her newly discovered grandfather, writing, “we were glad and happy to meet him. I have his Photo now. Also a pair of fire tongs that he made when he was 21 years of age.” She bragged that he had “helped make the iron and steel works in Bunker Hill Monument, and the iron works in the old North Station and other places.” And according to her account, “he said he would have taken us all to Boston to live with him. He said he was sorry he hadn’t met us years before that he could have helped us out a lot.”
Unfortunately, this happy interlude didn’t last long. John died in November 1889, the day before the Great Lynn Fire. In one version of Mary’s timeline, this was only a month after their reunion.
In November 1933, Mary’s circumstances were dire. The country was in the depths of the Great Depression, her husband Mayo was unemployed, and she had been laid off from the shoe factory where she worked because of her age. She was also, incidentally, disabled since birth, “with a deformed left leg.” The only accommodation she asked for was a job she could perform sitting down. She had worked for 47 years and declared that she still could. Seeing her bold, clear, insistent handwriting, it’s easy to believe her.
She addressed her appeal to “To the Societys of Boston Mass. And The Historical Society,” hoping that some organization would help her to find work, possibly as companion to an elderly couple. Mayo could take care of the couple’s house. And surely the fact that her mother’s family hailed from Boston—not to mention that her grandfather had literally contributed to the city’s infrastructure—must count for something.
I love Mary’s spirit. She wrote, “I have lived a good respectable life and I have worked hard.”
Its pretty hard luck when I am able to do a good days work as ever before and I cannot work and help out a little. I am willing even now anytime to work if I could get something I could sit down at. I am pretty handy at anything I undertake to do. I make most of my own clothes by hand, I have never run a sewing machine. I have made Patchwork Quilts and sold quite a number. I love to sew and make pretty things that are usefull.
Mary’s only living relative was a brother in Maine. Mayo had a daughter from his first marriage, but she didn’t earn enough from her work as a housekeeper to support them. Mary complained that no one in Lynn cared about them except for one kind friend who sometimes gave her money for clothes. Some people, Mary said, would rather send them to the Poor House. Her frustration at the injustice is palpable.
They are not interested in anyone unless they are young. Those, they will try and help. The poor old has beens can beg or starve or be evicted from their tenements as I have been only a month ago.
One page is written directly to the reader.
Please don’t destroy this story. […] But I hope somebody will have a kind heart, and help a poor unfortunate Sister in need of work, and a permanent home where I can settle down and not have to worry anymore.
One page of Mary J. Breed’s manuscript, 1933
Mary’s plea was ultimately unsuccessful. She and Mayo didn’t relocate to Boston, at least not permanently; both died in Lynn, in 1950 and 1954 respectively. And while the MHS and other “Societys” could not or would not help Mary 88 years ago, we can at least share her story now.
