Adams Family Correspondence, volume 12
I this day receiv’d your kind Letter from Springfield. I Set you down in Brookfield in my mind that day however I think you did right to go on as fast as you could the President must want both you & mr Brisler & could I think you would have any rest after you arriv’d I should feel better about you. but I do hope you will not think 103 of Staying thro the hot months your Life is of too much importance to be thus risk’d— I did feel—I cannot Say how the day you left me— I could not bear to stay at Quincy I Should have done like poor Prince wept all day it was necessary also for Cousin Betsy to get out She Set the greatest part of her time at the kitchen chamber window looking into the Burying Ground. I have not let her know I notic’d it but I lead her away as much as I can. Sister Smith has had a terrible [crazy] turn quite raving last Saturday & a monday She made mrs Brackit believe She was going to dye we were there the most of the day She made mrs Brackit lug & lift her about like a baby till I went over.1 She was very cross wanted a Doctor & a nurse. had nobody to take any care of her. wishd She could be among people who had some feeling I told mrs B it would not last long I had Seen her so many times we put her to Bed & I desired them not to let her get up till She could do it herself I knew she put all them airs on to fright them She hinted about her [Peuking] to fright Cousin Betsy. She was Strong enough the next morning. tis a Strange disorder which can make a person act so— She is now much better—but it has worried Cousin—
mr Whitney is gone a journey So we have no meeting to day. capn. Lindsey has had a drumb & a Fife playing all day at his house & all the worst drunkards in town with him & he has been fireing guns himself & this evening they have been before mr Apthorps house making a wretch’d noise—2 you will be Surpriz’d I believe when I tell you that mr whitney had a large majority of the votes on monday & more Still that upon a motion made to know if those who had voted for mr Flint would consent to join the others, that but eight Should Stand back & not one of them have any objection to mr Whiteny & that finally they consented to Suffer the Clerke to record it a unanimous vote
they chose a Committe to desire him to preach till the last of May & the Same Committe to draw up what they might think a proper offer to make him & lay it before the Town at a meeting they are then to have I hope it will be what he can accept. but mr Flint will be mortified I have a great value for him but I must say I had rather hear mr Whitney. this harmony is so unexpected that I hope we shall have him3
I hope you found your children well at new york & the President in good health I must send my Love to him if he was five times as big as he is— & now my Sister how is it possible for you to take your Pen & not write Politicks I see tis right that you Should not— I do 104 not want Secrets but I Shall want to See my Cousin Letters from abroad I Shall know what is taking or too take place just as I do when I read a Prophesy only I do not think him supernaturally inspir’d— will you be So kind as to send us all the inteligence from them that we may Safely know— I shall feel myself Shut out of the world if I cannot have your oppinion how it is going on—
my dear Louissa will keep up her spirits & write us often. Cousin Betsy will not leave me I hope or think of any other home untill She gets one of her own
I Shall tell mr Porter about your Trees & take every other care you wish me to— pray let me hear from you or Cousin every week it Will comfort the heart of your affectionate Sister
mr Cranch & madam welsh Send their affectionate regards
RC (Adams Papers).
Possibly Rachel Marsh Brackett (1746–1818), who had worked for the Adamses prior to her marriage to Capt. Joseph Brackett in 1767 (vol. 1:50; Sprague, Braintree Families
).
For Capt. John Linzee, see JA, D&A
, 3:227. James Apthorp, for whom see vol. 7:174, lived on School Street in Quincy, the same street as the Cranch family (vol. 7:255; Sprague, Braintree Families
).
At the Quincy town meeting of 1 May 1797 a vote was taken to settle a colleague for the aging Rev. Anthony Wibird. In the first round of voting Rev. Peter Whitney Jr. received 46 votes to Rev. Jacob Flint’s 34 votes; the second ballot saw the balance shift to 60 to 8 votes, respectively. Whitney, however, refused the offer at that time but would accept a subsequent call in 1800 (Pattee, Old Braintree
, p. 92, 95).
we reachd here yesterday being thursday the 7th day from leaving home. we had very bad Roads, the Rains having washd all the stones bare, and the ruts were very deep I was much fatigued; Brisler and Family went on to N york mrs Brisler much mended in her Health by her journey. I hope when we get over our fatigue we shall all be able to say so. Betsy does not seem the worse for it, tho I think I have run a risk in taking so feeble a Being, but I hope it may be a means of restoreing a Good Girl to Health— I found mrs Smith and her Children in good Health. mrs smith grows very fleshy as much so I think as before she first went abroad, tho being older and more moulded into the form of woman, she does not look so burdend. the col has been gone, a journey for a fortnight up to his New Lands—1 tomorrow I go into New york and on Monday proceed for Philadelphia. I think it a very fortunate circumstance that mr smith
105
accompanied us. it has renderd the journey much pleasenter, and he has taken a good deal of care and anxiety from my mind, which I should have felt if he had not been with me.
I want to hear how you all are, and how my Farming buisness goes on. I would wish you to go & look at them sometimes. my Love to all Friends and Neighbours Mrs smith joins me in a kind remembrance.
your affectionate Sister
RC (MWA:Abigail Adams Letters); addressed: “Mrs Mary Cranch / Quincy”; endorsed by Richard Cranch: “Letter from Mrs / A: Adams (E Chester) / May 5th. 1797.”
WSS departed Eastchester, N.Y., in April 1797 and did not return until late Jan. 1798. He first visited his lands in what would become Chenango County, N.Y., and from there traveled to Detroit in the Northwest Territory then to Fort Stanwix, N.Y., before returning home. During the months he was gone, WSS rarely wrote to AA2 (there are no extant letters), and the Adamses presumed he had abandoned his family. The lands in central New York were part of a land speculation scheme WSS had undertaken in 1791, when he applied to purchase six townships in the future Chenango and Madison Counties. Comprising 150,000 acres and costing £24,375, WSS received the patent to these lands on 16 April 1794, retaining two of the townships and entering into an agreement to be the agent for Englishmen Sir William Pulteney and William Hornby for the other four. WSS allegedly failed to pay Pulteney and Hornby for lands that were sold and failed to report advances amounting to £60,000, and in March 1796 Pulteney dismissed WSS. Patrick Colquhoun, another land agent, wrote on 6 May about WSS’s financial problems, “it was impossible that such a career of folly could end in anything but ruin,” and that Pulteney “could not be easily persuaded that Mr Smith’s intentions were not from the beginning very impure.” By 4 Oct. WSS owed Pulteney and Hornby nearly $231,000, a debt that remained unpaid in 1805 when Pulteney was informed that WSS was “totally bankrupt in fortune” and continually “pressed by his numerous creditors” (James H. Smith, History of Chenango and Madison Counties, New York, Syracuse, 1880, p. 68; Luna M. Hammond, History of Madison County, State of New York, Syracuse, 1872, p. 545; The Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton: Documents and Commentary, ed. Julius Goebel Jr. and others, 5 vols., N.Y., 1964–1981, 5:54, 55, 107, 110).