Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 2
1829-05-28
Morning at the Office. Occupied as usual in writing and engaged in making my changes. Mr. Farmer called upon me and had some Conversation upon my brother’s affairs. I was a little shocked by what he told me.1 George’s fate was melancholy but on the whole, I have been forced to the unpleasant conclusion that it was not untimely. He would have lived probably to give much misery to his friends and more to himself, and he died when his fate was not so evident as not to admit of a doubt, and a favourable construction so that his memory will be cherished by his friends, and his end lamented.
I commenced reading Starkie on Evidence. Went out to Medford in the Carriage with Mr., Mrs. and Abby Brooks. Afternoon and evening pleasant with her.
Miles Farmer looked after the Boston real estate, located on Hanover and Mechanic streets, owned by Martin Thayer, of Amherst; as partial payment for his services, he, along with his wife and four children, was allowed to live rent free in one of these houses. In January 1829, allegedly at GWA’s request, Dr. David Humphreys Storer persuaded Farmer to take Eliza Dolph (see entry for 13 May, and note, above) and her illegitimate child, now six or seven weeks old, into his family, as a measure “to restore the mother to her friends and society again.” According to Farmer’s subsequent account, GWA’s continued attentions to Eliza aroused the suspicion of other tenants and imperiled Farmer’s job. To persuade him to keep Eliza and their child, GWA offered to tell the whole story to Thayer or to give Farmer $100 in order to secure “the agency of the Union Soap Stone Factory,” on Front Street. Then GWA’s suicide deprived Farmer of both his character reference and his financial backer. Having lost his job with Thayer, he was now laying the groundwork for an attempt at blackmail (
Farmer-Storer Trial
, passim). See entry for 16 July, below.