Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 2
1828-08-23
My idea of marrying this season is reluctantly abandoned and I shall be compelled to pass another winter as I did the last. My mind is gloomy enough. I rode to town, and passed the morning at the Office, reading Saunders. Received a letter from my Mother dated on my birth day and written in her kindest and most affectionate tones. 272It touched me at a moment when I was sore. It gave me a balm when all else was irritation. Her kindness is that of affection, it calls forth one’s best feelings in return. Dined at Mr. Gardiner Greene’s.1 Company large, consisting more particularly of the richest men in Boston. Lt. Govr. Winthrop, Genl. Morton, Mr. Quincy, Mr. Hubbard,2 Appleton, Joy, Parker, Ritchie,3 J. Russell,4 Mr. Brooks and others. Edmund Quincy and I did very well. After a handsome dinner, I rode to Medford in a beautiful evening.
Gardiner Greene, who owned much valuable Boston real estate, had a house on Tremont Street, behind which he developed “a hillside garden that was one of the wonders of the first third of the nineteenth century” (Whitehill, Boston: A Topographical History
, p. 106–107).
Boston Directory, 1829–1830).
William Ritchie, a merchant, who lived at 3 Cambridge Street (same).
Joseph Russell, who lived at 5 Park Street (same).