The viability of the Adams Papers as an ongoing enterprise and the completion of each unit the editors project depend upon a number of collaborating agencies and upon the individuals who in their continuing commitment to the Papers have come, in our view, to personify those institutions. The gratitude of all who are a part of the Adams Papers to these institutions and persons has been expressed many times. Because the present volumes are the last that will be brought to editorial completion while he remains the director of one of the most important of all these institutions and because it was he who, from the outset, perhaps more than any other person understood the scope and import of the enterprise and has labored always and in a multitude of roles to forward it, we here single out as in certain vital respects “the onlie begetter,” Thomas J. Wilson, Director of Harvard University Press, 1947–1967.

Had we not many times observed them with all professional skill and eagerness serving the needs of other scholars who come to use its superb collections, we would believe that the members of the staff of the Massachusetts Historical Society reserved the major part of their time and energy to satisfying our wants. Each person at the Society has been many times a friend of the Adams Papers. Sensible of each of them, from their number we must here name Mr. Stephen T. Riley, Mr. Malcolm Freiberg, Mr. John D. Gushing, and Miss Winifred V. Collins.

An institution second only to the Massachusetts Historical Society in providing help in the many fields that are of concern to us and to which this great library has relevance is the Boston Athenaeum. The director, Mr. Walter Muir Whitehill, and the staff have not only responded willingly to our every request but also been mindful of what would be of interest to us whenever they encountered it. For these continuing boons we express our gratitude to Mr. James E. Belliveau and to two former staff members, Miss Margaret Hackett, now retired after many years of service, and Miss Susan Parsons, whose untimely death saddens us. Our thanks also go to Mrs. Jane N. Garrett, Mr. David M. K. McKibbin, Mr. Jack Jackson, and Mr. Donald C. Kelley.

In the far reaches of Harvard University’s libraries and special xliicollections we have had the ready assistance of many in making the materials under their care available to our use and in imparting needed information in their special competences: in the Archives, Mr. Kimball C. Elkins; in the Baker Library, Mr. Robert W. Lovett; in the Law School Library, Miss Edith G. Henderson; in the Theatre Collection, Miss Helen D. Willard and Mr. Arnold Wengrow.

Mrs. Wilhelmina S. Harris, Superintendent of the Adams National Historic Site in Quincy, has been unstinting in her support of the Adams Papers. She and her staff have always given that help and forbearance we have needed to ask for on numerous occasions.

We record with gratitude too the essential aid we have received from Mr. Leo Flaherty at the Massachusetts Archives; Mr. Sinclair H. Hitchings at the Boston Public Library; Mrs. Harriet Ropes Cabot at the Bostonian Society; Mr. John Snelling at the Middlesex County Engineer’s Office, Cambridge; Mr. William C. Edwards at Quincy; Mr. Marcus A. McCorison at the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester; and from the Library of the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts.

The editing of the present volumes has been facilitated by the willingness of specialists to resolve questions or difficulties that have arisen in particular matters: on portraiture, Mr. Andrew Oliver, New York City, and Mr. Charles D. Childs, the Childs Gallery, Boston; on political cartoons, Mr. Roger Butterfield, New York City; on architecture, Mr. Stephen Friedlaender, Cambridge.

The enterprise has been fortunate too in having drawn in these volumes on the professional competences of Mr. E. Harold Hugo and his assistant, Mr. William J. Glick, The Meriden Gravure Company, Meriden, Connecticut, on matters relating to illustrations; of Mr. George M. Cushing Jr., Boston, photographer; of Mr. Burton L. Stratton, Printing and Publishing Associates, Plymouth, in the styling of the appendix; of Mr. James Menzies and the Harvard University Printing Office; and of the production staff of Harvard University Press. The editors offer their special thanks to Mrs. Ann Louise C. McLaughlin, Harvard University Press, through whose hands and under whose eyes all the copy for these volumes passed and is the better for having done so.

The editors have reason to be grateful to Messrs. Stephen T. Riley and Malcolm Freiberg, Massachusetts Historical Society; to Professor Robert E. Moody, Boston University; and to their own former colleague Mr. Wendell D. Garrett, Antiques magazine, New York City, for the care with which they read the galley proofs for xliiithese volumes and for the improvements they have effected thereby.

Each member of the staff of the Adams Papers, past and present, who has participated in the process by which the present volumes have been brought to completion has earned our salute. The transcription of the manuscripts of the diary for these years was accomplished by Mrs. Elizabeth E. Butterfield, Mrs. Rita V. Cherington, and Miss Jean Willcutt. Miss Lynne G. Crane, while she was on the staff, and, after her departure, Miss D. Maureen Clegg have borne the heaviest burden in forwarding this editorial effort in all its aspects. Other members of the staff who have participated in the work are Miss Amber B. Cox, Mrs. Glynn Marini, and Mrs. Elinor Johnston Smith, at earlier stages; and, currently, Mrs. Susan F. Riggs, Mrs. Sarah I. Morrison, and Miss Gene Bishop. Also a participant in the months since he came to the Adams Papers as Fellow in Advanced Historical Editing, under a Ford Foundation grant administered by the National Historical Publications Commission, is Mr. Gaspare J. Saladino.