Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 3
1830-05-21
Morning clear but cool. Went to the Office after calling at several places to see about the different sorts of things necessary to be sent to Quincy. I almost made up my Mind upon several articles of Furniture which were offered at what appeared to me very fair prices, and I 242came very near an agreement with Forbes about a horse and Chaise for the Season. At the Office my time was spent for the most part in looking over the Papers of New upon which I have undertaken to Administer, but I only found enough to make it a little subject of regret that I took it at all. I see nothing but debts and bad paper which has accummulated on his hands.
As Abby let me know she was going to Medford with Mrs. Frothingham, I thought I would accept her husband’s invitation that I should dine with him. After dinner returned to my Study and copied for Mr. Savage the letter he requested of me. This occupied me all the time that I did not spend in looking over the Copies for Sparks. Received Letters from the Post Office this Evening from John and my father.1 The former informing me his Wife was coming, the latter authorizing me to sell the Stock of the State Bank. My plans are changed, and I wrote in reply that I should not go to Quincy.2 But my time passed so that I hardly saw my Wife.
The letter from JA2 is missing; that from JQA was written on 17 May (Adams Papers).
To JQA (LbC, Adams Papers). CFA, to explain the reversal, wrote that the earlier decision to spend the summer in Quincy had been made despite considerable inconvenience to himself and ABA and some opposition from Mr. Brooks, but now that Mrs. JA2 and child were to be in the house “the only idea which overbalanced all these considerations, your and my Mother’s probable solitude at Quincy, is not to have any foundation, my most advisable course is to stay where I am.”