Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
r:1803.
I received last evening with much pleasure your favour of the 5th: instt:—1 I had been so long without any intelligence from
home that I began to be uneasy— And even now, I cannot but wish you had said something
about the family at Quincy— I believe it is more than a month since I have heard from
thence, at-all— I am anxious particularly to know the state of health of my dear
mother.
I am much obliged to you for the care you have taken of my business; and have already written to you about the tenth assessment on the Neponset Bridge Shares— As the Middlesex Canal assessments have ceased, I presume Whitcomb’s rent in January with what you have left in your hands will suffice to meet the bridge assessment.2
We have done a great deal of business here this session, and are
like to have much more to do— I have some pamphlets for you from Mr: Wagner which I will take with me when I come home—3
Mr: Gurley and Mr: R. Sullivan are here— The former makes slow progress in his tour to
Louisiana.4
Your’s faithfully
RC (MWA:Adams Family Letters); addressed: “Mr:
William S. Shaw. / Boston. / Massachusetts.”; internal address: “Mr: W. S. Shaw.”; notation by JQA: “Free / John Quincy Adams. / Senr: U.S.”
Not found.
JQA wrote to Shaw on 5 Dec. (MWA:Adams Family Letters), requesting that he pay a $38
assessment on each of JQA’s six shares in the Neponset River Bridge
Corporation. He instructed Shaw to draw upon 316 rent due on 1 Jan.
1804 from Tilly Whitcomb, who was leasing for $200 per quarter a house in Half-Court
Square that JQA purchased on 6 Nov. 1802. The Neponset River Bridge
Corporation was established by the Mass. General Court on 11 March 1802 to construct
and maintain a toll bridge on a new highway from Quincy to Boston. JQA
was a founding shareholder, purchasing five shares initially, adding two more on 10
Sept. 1803, then selling one a week later. He retained the remaining six shares for
more than four decades, a lucrative investment that yielded shareholders a combined
profit of $145,272 by 1841. JQA also referred to his longer held
investment in the Middlesex Canal, recording on the day he wrote this letter that he
received from Shaw a receipt for the payment of the 88th assessment on the shares
(vols. 13:51, 248, 545–546; 14:175–176;
M/JQA/12, APM
Reel 209; D/JQA/24, APM Reel 27; D/JQA/45, 8 July 1845, APM Reel 48; Pattee, Old Braintree
, p.
71).
Jacob Wagner (1772–1825) was chief clerk of the U.S. State
Department from 1794 to 1807 and assisted both JA and JQA
with administrative matters (Marshall, Papers
, 4:30;
Doc. Hist. Supreme Court
,
1:167; Wagner to JA, 12 July 1800; to JQA, 11 Sept. 1801,
both Adams Papers).
Attorney John Ward Gurley (1778–1808), Yale 1799, of Lebanon,
Conn., leased JQA’s Court Street house in Boston early in 1803.
JQA recorded in September that Gurley had “forfeited the lease, by a
breach of its agreements,” and had announced his intention to remove to New Orleans.
Gurley was residing in New Orleans by 1804, and Thomas Jefferson appointed him land
office register for the Eastern District of Orleans Territory in March 1805. Boston
lawyer Richard Sullivan (1779–1861), Harvard 1798, of Groton, Mass., was the son of
Massachusetts attorney general James Sullivan (Albert E. Gurley, The History and Genealogy of the Gurley Family, Hartford,
Conn., 1897, p. 70–71; M/JQA/12, APM Reel 209;
Boston Directory, 1803, Shaw-Shoemaker 3862;
D/JQA/24, 20 April, 21 Sept., APM Reel 27; Madison, Papers, Secretary of State Series
,
9:123, 125; Thomas C. Amory, Memoir of Hon. Richard
Sullivan, Cambridge, 1885, p. 3, 7, 8;
Harvard Quinquennial
Cat.
).