Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 2
1827-09-19
I was at the Office in the morning excepting a short call to see Abby. Dined at the Exchange Coffee House with John and Thomas J. Hellen who has come down from Groton for a day or two. He looks badly. We recommended to him to leave Cambridge which he seemed to relish very little. His time has been much wasted in dissipation.1 In the evening I went to Mrs. Frothingham’s and was much entertained. The rain was tremendous all day, and more particularly this evening.
Thomas J. Hellen had entered Harvard in 1825, but during the second term of his sophomore year (March 1827), he was dismissed for six months when Professor Ticknor accused him of “licentiousness.” He left college in the first term of his junior year. (Harvard Archives; and see entry for 9