Adams Papers Digital Edition

Papers of John Adams, volume 19

From John Brown Cutting

To Theophilus Parsons
To John Adams from Jeremy Belknap, 20 October 1788 Belknap, Jeremy Adams, John
From Jeremy Belknap
Sir Boston Oct 20 1788

In a Letter of October 7th recd from Dr Rush of Philadelphia I find the following Paragraph1

“Mr John Adams will probably have all the [. . .] of our State for the Vice Presidents Chair.”

I have the Honor to be Sir / Yr respectful & obedt Servt

Jeremy Belknap

RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “The Hon Mr Adams”; endorsed: “J. Belknap / Octr 20. 1788.” Some loss of text where the seal was removed.

 1.

Rev. Jeremy Belknap (1744–1798), Harvard 1762, served as a Congregationalist minister in Dover, N.H., from 1767 to 1786; the following year he moved to Boston’s Long Lane Church. In early 1791 he and several colleagues founded the Massachusetts Historical Society, for which Belknap acted as the corresponding secretary. In his 7 Oct. 1788 letter to Belknap, Benjamin Rush indicated that John Hancock’s ill health “alone will preclude him from that mark of respect from Pennsylvania,” with regard to attaining the vice presidency. Pennsylvania was one of ten states to cast votes in 1789; eight of its electors chose JA and two chose Hancock ( ANB ; Rush, Letters , 1:489–490; A New Nation Votes). For JA’s notification of the election’s outcome, see John Langdon’s 6 April letter, and note 1, below.