Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 5
1834-09-13
Cool morning with probably a slight frost. I persevere in taking the shower bath although it is now pretty trying. Went to Boston alone as Mr. Brooks was going to Salem.
385I had intended to have devoted my time to the investigation of title of the Boylston Estate but my father came in with bad accounts of my Mother’s condition and with commissions which kept me pretty busy the remainder of my morning. He saw me only for a minute, then disappeared with a promise to see me again, but he did not and when I went to look after the Carriage, an alarm of fire in the Stable had put every thing in such confusion as to render it impossible for me to find out any thing positively but that the Carriage was safe, and gone.1
Home to dinner. Quiet afternoon finished the fourth volume of Madame de Maintenon, and the third book of the Epistles from Pontus. He says in the beginning of his fourth book that his correspondents complain of uniformity, and I think justly enough. Evening, German.
“At half-past one, I went to Charles’s Office. The key was in his door but he was not there. Just then the Bells were ringing for a fire; and the Engines were rattling over the pavements; and the People were running to and fro in the Streets with much confusion. The fire was in a Blacksmith’s shop next door to Foster’s Stable where my Carriage and Horses were put up.... I was a full half-hour approaching it ... before I could reach it.... When I came to the Stable, the man told me that at the first cry of Fire, my Coachman Wilson had gone off with the Carriage and Horses, without saying where”