Adams Family Correspondence, volume 14

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Descriptive List of Illustrations

1. “THE DEATH OF GENERAL WASHINGTON,” MEMORIAL HANDKERCHIEF, DETAIL, CA. 1800	76[unavailable]
“Washington is no More!” Abigail Adams wrote to her sister Mary Smith Cranch on 18 December 1799, the day that news of George Washington’s death on 14 December was announced in Philadelphia (below). The United States for the first time would mourn a president, and the Adamses would lead a grieving nation, a task that mingled their public roles with personal grief for a friend and colleague with whom they had shared a vision for an independent republic from the earliest days of America’s break with Britain.
Mourning of Washington began immediately. John Adams on 19 December ordered military personnel to wear armbands and lower flags to half-staff. Congress passed resolutions that laid out plans for a Philadelphia funeral, authorized the construction of a mausoleum in Washington, D.C., and called on the president to proclaim a national day of remembrance on 22 February 1800. Abigail presided over drawing rooms crowded with the bereaved, attiring herself in carefully selected mourning wear. The Adamses wrote separately to the grieving widow. On 25 December 1799 Abigail asked Martha Washington to “permit a Heart deeply penetrated with Your loss, and shareing Personally in Your Greif; to mingle with You the Tears which flow for the Partner of all Your joys and sorrows.” The bereaved recipient, who was reportedly overcome in reading the letters, responded on 1 January 1800: “May you long very long enjoy the happiness you now possess and never know affliction like mine” (both below). At the public funeral on 26 December 1799, Maj. Gen. Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee famously eulogized Washington as “first in war—first in peace—and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
This detail of a brown ink transfer print on cotton shows one of several handkerchief designs produced to commemorate Washington. The image borrows from an engraving by Amos Doolittle (1754–1832) and is taken from a print published early in 1800 by Edward Pember and James Luzarder of Philadelphia. Newspapers advertised the handkerchief for sale, noting that it was “lately imported from Glasgow” and depicted “a scene representing the x Death of the General” (vol. 8:xv; Marshall, Papers , 4:46–48; Annals of Congress , 6th Cong., 1st sess., p. 207–208, 223; AA to Cranch, 22 Dec. 1799, and note 2; to Cranch, 30 Dec.; to Cotton Tufts, 9 Jan. 1800, all below; Wendy C. Wick, George Washington: An American Icon, Charlottesville, Va., 1982, p. 66, 141–143; Philadelphia Gazette, 25 July).
Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
2. SUBSCRIPTION LIST FOR A GOWN FOR REV. PETER WHITNEY JR., 4 FEBRUARY 1800	115[unavailable]
Abigail Adams’ hopes had already been fulfilled when on 11 December 1799 she wrote to her sister Mary Smith Cranch,“It will be a real subject of rejoicing to me, if we obtain mr Whitney for our pastor” (below). On 2 December a Quincy town meeting had voted 48 to 8 to call Rev. Peter Whitney Jr. to succeed the aged Rev. Anthony Wibird as pastor of the First Church. On 5 January 1800 he accepted an offer of a $500 annual salary, concluding a search of several years’ duration for a minister.
Whitney’s ordination at Quincy took place on 5 February 1800, exactly 45 years after Wibird had been welcomed to the pulpit in a similar ceremony. In preparation for Whitney’s rite, Cranch organized a subscription for “a few of us Ladies to present mr whitney with a Ministerial Gown” to wear on the occasion (Cranch to AA, 19 Jan., below). On a two-page list she recorded 73 contributors in alphabetical order. Abigail’s name does not appear, probably because the ten dollars she contributed arrived after the 4 February list was transcribed by Cranch. In Cranch’s note to Whitney at the head of the document, she wrote, “We wish you to consider this small present as an evidence of that respect & reverence which we bear to the Sacred Character in which you are soon to appear as a Minister of Jesus christ.” A similar gown, made of striped calamanco lined with flannel, was presented to Wibird, who, Cranch reported, was “as much pleas’d with his Gown as a child would be.” Heavy rain on the day of the ordination made Cranch’s work as hostess more fatiguing, but she reported to Abigail that “every thing was conducted with peace Love & harmony” (Cranch to AA, 9 Feb., below). Whitney, who moved into the John Quincy Adams Birthplace following his ordination and remained there until 1804, continued as Quincy’s pastor until 1841 (vols. 11:140; 12:103, 104; Pattee, Old Braintree , p. 95, 594; William P. Lunt, A Discourse Delivered in the First Congregational Church, Quincy, March 7, 1843, at the Funeral of Rev. Peter Whitney, Quincy, 1843, p. 24–25; Cranch to AA, 5 Jan. 1800, below; AA to Cranch, 17 Jan., AA, New Letters , p. 208; AA to Cotton Tufts, 18 March; JQA to LCA, 24 April 1804, both Adams Papers).
Letter of Thanks to Rev. Whitney for Accepting Signed by All Female Members of Church, February 4, 1800, courtesy of Albany Institute of History & Art Library.
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3. “EXIT LIBERTÈ A LA FRANCOIS!—OR—BUONAPARTE CLOSING THE FARCE OF EGALITÉ,” BY JAMES GILLRAY, 21 NOVEMBER 1799	127[unavailable]
“For a few days past we have been swallowing with different appetites, no doubt, but with equal avidity, the strange & unaccountable history of a new & pretty complete revolution at Paris,” Thomas Boylston Adams wrote to his brother John Quincy Adams of Napoleon Bonaparte’s 9 November 1799 (An. VIII, 18 brumaire) coup d’état in France. “That ‘Corsican ruffian,’ as you seasonably styled him, has undertaken out of his abundant generosity to protect, in Concert with a few others, the liberties of the good people of France” (1 Feb. 1800, below).
Napoleon, with the support of French directors Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès and Roger Ducos, overthrew the French Directory in favor of a three-person Consulate with Napoleon as first consul. The Council of Elders and Council of Five Hundred were replaced by legislative assemblies that could approve but not create laws, a power that was instead vested in a Council of State controlled by Napoleon. The Adamses, as they had been throughout the many convulsions of the French Revolution, were skeptical the new government would last. “Buonaparta is an adventerous Man,” Abigail Adams wrote Mary Smith Cranch on 28 January, shortly after the news of the coup reached the United States. “One volcano burst forth after an other, and what current the lava will take; we must wait to learn” (below). John Quincy added his thoughts in an 18 February letter to Abigail, foreshadowing the Napoleonic Wars that eventually followed: “The first consul is commander in chief of all the armies, and Buonaparte has declared his intention if circumstances should require, to take part personally in the war” (below).
British caricaturist James Gillray drew this cartoon soon after news of the coup reached London. Napoleon, the only figure not depicted in caricature, stands at the vanguard as his troops drive off members of the Council of Five Hundred. One soldier beats a drum and another waves a banner while the first consul tramples a list of council members. Thomas Boylston in a letter to John Quincy of 1 February (below) evoked a scene remarkably similar to the one depicted by Gillray: “The dissmissal of the legislative Councils at the point of the bayonets of the Grenadiers might have been a novel proceeding, if Cromwel had not thought of and executed it first” (vol. 9:xiv; Hamilton, Papers , 25:335; DeConde, The Quasi-War , p. 223–224; Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism , p. 678; Thomas Wright, ed., The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist, London, 1873, p. 262).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
4. JOHN BATES’ PLAN OF THE ADDITION TO PEACEFIELD, 31 MARCH 1800	178[unavailable]
During John Adams’ tenure as president, the Adamses made significant changes to their home at Peacefield, including the addition of a new wing to the house. By the time John and Abigail Adams xii returned to Quincy from the nation’s capital for the final time in 1801, the new wing had nearly doubled the size of the house, offering them a comfortable home in which to retire. The extant addition was the final construction project undertaken at Peacefield during John’s lifetime.
The expansion of Peacefield is detailed in letters exchanged between the Adamses and Cotton Tufts, who oversaw much of the construction work. On 8 November 1799 Tufts informed Abigail that workmen under the direction of Lt. Elijah Veasey (1754–1827) would soon complete the cellar. As work resumed in earnest the next spring, on 9 April 1800 Tufts told Abigail that she would soon receive a floorplan of the addition (both below). The sketch by Weymouth housewright John Bates (1772–1842) depicted the ground floor of the eastern wing looking northwest from present-day Adams Street. The drawing was enclosed in a 31 March letter from Bates to Adams servant John Briesler Sr., in which Bates noted that the addition would measure 19 by 27 feet and include several windows, two closets, and front and back doors (Adams Papers). Two fireplaces were also planned, as well as staircases leading up to a second floor and down to the cellar. The framing of the house began on 10 April, and five days later stonemasons commenced the brickwork. By 22 April the framing was complete and construction of the fireplace and chimney was well underway. In May windows were installed, the chimney was completed, and the rooms were partitioned. When Abigail and John arrived in Quincy in March 1801, finishing touches were all that remained on the home they first saw on returning to the United States after John’s retirement from diplomatic service more than a decade earlier. The addition provided the couple with a comfortable space that they would enjoy together for the next seventeen years (vols. 12:160–162, 472–473; 13:282–283, 284; Katharine Lacy, Cultural Landscape Report: Adams National Historic Site, Quincy, Massachusetts, Boston, 1997, p. 10, 16–17; Sprague, Braintree Families ; Pattee, Old Braintree , p. 95; 1810 U.S. Census, Mass., Norfolk, Quincy, p. 2; Norfolk County Deeds, 25:53; History of Weymouth , 3:36; Tufts to AA, 9, 22 April; Tufts to JA, 20 May, all below; JA, Papers , 19:103–104, 105).
From the original in the Adams Family Papers. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
5. HANNAH PHILLIPS CUSHING, BY JAMES SHARPLES, 1797	195[unavailable]
“Your sisterly kindness to me my dear Madam induces me to believe that to hear of our welfare will not be uninteresting to you.” Hannah Phillips Cushing wrote those words in a 28 March 1800 letter to Abigail Adams, further noting that “a letter from you will be thankfully received by your friend” (below).
Cushing (1754–1834) hailed from Middletown, Conn. She married William Cushing in 1774 and settled in Scituate, Mass., and the couple was acquainted with the Adamses from an early period. William Cushing’s 1789 appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court meant that Abigail and Hannah socialized regularly in xiii Philadelphia. Abigail reveled in their common ties to Massachusetts, writing of Cushing’s “sisterly manner” and noting that when they spent the evening together she “could fancy myself at Quincy” (vol. 12:370). Abigail leveraged their friendship to introduce her nephew William Cranch as he sought the clerkship of the Supreme Court ( AA to Cranch, [4] Feb. 1800, and note 5, below). The two women continued their friendship after the Adamses retired to Quincy, exchanging 47 more letters before Abigail’s death in 1818.
Itinerant artist James Sharples captured this likeness of Hannah Cushing in Philadelphia in 1797. The pastel on paper measures nine by seven inches and depicts Cushing in a fitted gray satin dress with a white fichu. Her powdered hair is styled with ribbons. William Cushing noted that in painting his wife’s portrait, Sharples gave “her a prodigious handsome face, and yet, through the embellishments, one may see some of the original lineaments” (vols. 1:405; 8:412; 9:8, 231; 12:xi–xii, 334, 370, 443; ANB ; Doris Devine Fanelli and Karie Diethorn, History of the Portrait Collection, Independence National Historical Park, and Catalog of the Collection, Phila., 2001, p. 113).
Courtesy of Independence National Historical Park.
6. ABIGAIL ADAMS, BY GILBERT STUART, 1800–1815	249[unavailable]
American painter Gilbert Stuart submitted a receipt to Abigail Adams on 20 May 1800 acknowledging her payment of $100 “for a Portrait painted by me.” Five days later, William Smith Shaw reported to Abigail that the unfinished painting was causing a stir in Stuart’s Germantown, Penn., studio: “Your likness has attracted much company to Stewarts and has as many admirers as spectators.” Shaw added, “Stewart says, he wishes to god, he could have taken Mrs. Adams when she was young, he believes he should have a perfect Venus” (both below).
Despite his enthusiasm for the subject, Stuart took fifteen years to complete his portrait of Abigail. In May 1801 the work was among possessions of the indebted artist that were seized to satisfy creditors at auction. Thomas Boylston Adams wrote to his mother on 31 May that on hearing the news he “felt alarmed for the safety of your portrait” and hastened to reclaim it from “the fangs of the law” and return it to Stuart. Abigail replied on 12 June that she hoped that Stuart would soon finish the work so her descendants could gaze upon it and a companion portrait of John Adams when they were gone (both Adams Papers). The painting continued to languish in an unfinished state, however, prompting Abigail at the end of 1804 to enclose Stuart’s receipt in a letter to John Quincy Adams and ask that it be shown to the artist as a reminder to complete the work. “Genius is always eccentrick,” she wrote. “There is no knowing how to take hold of this Man, nor by what means to prevail upon him to fullfill his engagements” (30 Dec. 1804, Adams Papers). After Stuart relocated to Boston in 1805 Abigail sat for him again, but still the portrait remained unfinished. The 1815 death of Abigail’s sister Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody, who had also xiv engaged Stuart for a portrait, prompted the artist to at last complete the paintings. By then Abigail expressed indifference, telling John Quincy in a letter of 8 June, “I cared not whether he ever finishd it” (Adams Papers). The finished portrait bears evidence of its long gestation. Abigail’s face is depicted as she was in 1800, while her cap and embroidered shawl reflect the fashions of 1815 (Oliver, Portraits of JA and AA , p. 132–140; Carrie Rebora Barratt and Ellen G. Miles, Gilbert Stuart, New Haven, 2004, p. 130–131, 217–222; ANB ).
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., gift of Mrs. Robert Homans.
7. “A VIEW OF THE CAPITOL OF WASHINGTON,” BY WILLIAM RUSSELL BIRCH, CA. 1800	275[unavailable]
John Adams first viewed the developing city of Washington, D.C., in June 1800, after yielding to repeated calls that he visit the future capital. The president was “highly gratifyed with the situation of the city,” John’s secretary William Smith Shaw wrote to his aunt Abigail Adams on 8 June, further reporting that “one wing of the capitol is nearly compleated” (below). Captured here by the Philadelphia-based enamel painter and engraver William Russell Birch, the image depicts a city in transition, with the finished north wing of the U.S. Capitol serving as the federal government’s new home and construction ongoing to complete the remainder of the building.
Both houses of Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court occupied the new Capitol, which was the scene for many of the final acts of John’s presidency. On 22 November he addressed the first session of Congress to convene in Washington, D.C. In that same chamber, on 11 February 1801, Thomas Jefferson, as president of the Senate, officially reported the electoral voting results in the presidential election of 1800, conveying the news of John’s defeat when the president’s 65 votes fell short of the 73 garnered by Jefferson and Aaron Burr. It took six days and 36 ballots in the House of Representatives to break the deadlock and award Jefferson the presidency. Abigail vividly described how political tension mounted in the north wing: “It is Said one Member was so apprehensive that the feds would go in the night, carrying members enough from ten states to vote in a President, that he got ten armed Men & Watchd all night in the Capitol” ( AA to TBA, 14 Feb. 1801, below).
The Capitol also provided the backdrop for two of John’s enduring legacies. On 4 February John Marshall was sworn in as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in one of the building’s committee rooms. The previous April, the president signed into law an act allocating $5,000 to provide the members of Congress with a library (vol. 9:xvi; Annals of Congress , 6th Cong., 1st sess., p. 1494–1495; 2d sess., p. 722, 743–744; AA to JA, 13 Feb. note 2, below; Marshall, Papers , 6:69; ANB ; Jefferson, Papers , 33:xlvi).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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8. “MADONNA OF ST. GEORGE,” ENGRAVING BY NICOLAS DAUPHIN DE BEAUVAIS, AFTER CORREGGIO, CA. 1750	361[unavailable]
As John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams’ tour of Silesia was nearing an end in the summer of 1800, they stopped in Dresden and spent two days viewing the royal collection of prints, which John Quincy called “one of the finest in the world.” He reported to his brother Thomas Boylston that while at the museum he purchased three prints, “which I hope will one day, give some idea to our friends in America, of what these high famed paintings are” (A Tour of Silesia, 20 July 1800 – 17 March 1801, No. IX, below).
The Kupferstich Kabinett, or Print Room, of Dresden’s Royal Picture Gallery was founded in 1720 and housed in the Zwinger Palace when the Adamses visited. One of the prints purchased by John Quincy was “Madonna of St. George” by Renaissance master Antonio Allegri da Correggio (ca. 1489–1534). The work was drawn by Charles François Hutin (1715–1776) and engraved by Nicolas Dauphin de Beauvais (ca. 1687–1763), a Parisian artist who specialized in reproducing masterworks. The composition, which appears in reverse as a result of the printing process, features the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus and encircled by saints. Peter addresses Mary while Geminianus presents a model of Modena Cathedral. A young John the Baptist appears at the front opposite George, who rests his foot on the head of a dragon. In the foreground cherubs play with George’s helmet and sword. John Quincy also purchased prints of “The Night,” or “Adoration of the Shepherds,” by Correggio and the “Sacrifice of Isaac” by Andrea del Sarto (1486–1530). They are among more than a dozen fine art prints collected during his posting in Berlin that are housed at Peacefield.
An innovation of the Kupferstich Kabinett was the description of more than 130,000 prints in catalogs. Among the volumes that John Quincy likely perused was Recueil d’estampes d’apres les plus celebres tableaux de la Galerie Royale de Dresde, 2 vols., Dresden, 1753–1757, which describes the prints purchased by John Quincy and other works by Correggio and Sarto on 1:ii–ix (vol. 13:x–xi; LCA, D&A , 1:xi, 136; D/JQA/24, 13, 15 Sept. 1800, APM Reel 27; The Splendor of Dresden: Five Centuries of Art Collecting, N.Y., 1978, p. 243–244; Oxford Art Online; Leader Scott [Lucy Barnes Baxter], Correggio, London, 1902, p. 28–29; Wilhelmina S. Harris, Furnishings Report of the Old House, The Adams National Historic Site, Quincy, Massachusetts, 10 vols., Quincy, 1966–1974, 10:952).
Courtesy of the National Park Service, Adams National Historical Park.