Adams Papers Digital Edition

Papers of John Adams, volume 20

From Stephen Hall

To Henry Marchant
Roger Sherman to John Adams, 16 August 1789 Sherman, Roger Adams, John
From Roger Sherman
Augt. 16th [1789]

Mr. Sherman returns his respectful compliments to the Vice-President, and would have done himself the honor of Waiting on him to Dine on Thursday next but he was previously engaged.1

RC (MHi:Adams-Hull Coll.); docketed by JA: “Card.”

 1.

By early August, JA and AA had oriented themselves to the social responsibilities that came with the vice presidency. Owing to the city’s summer heat and a scarcity of cooks, AA waited until mid-August to set up weekly dinners for the social elite, which complemented Martha Washington’s Friday evening levees. On Thursdays the Adamses regularly hosted 24 guests, with congressmen, like Sherman, and their wives crowding into Richmond Hill’s single dining room. Between legislative sessions, making and receiving visits also consumed the Adamses’ time. AA recalled returning over sixty calls “in 3 or 4 afternoons” and hosting unplanned visitors who arrived at breakfast to meet with JA ( AFC , 8:397, 399, 406). Multiple dinner invitations dating from JA’s vice presidency, including loose notes accepting and declining, are in MHi:Adams-Hull Collection.