Diary of John Adams, volume 3

246 September 2. 1796. Fryday. JA

1796-09-02

September 2. 1796. Fryday. Adams, John
September 2. 1796. Fryday.

To work again on the high Ways. They have taxed me this Year between forty nine and fifty days Works on the Roads besides the other Farm in Quincy and the farm in Braintree. This is unjust, more than my Proportion, more than Mr. Black or Mr. Beale.1

Stumbled over a Wheelbarrow in the dark and hurt my Shin.

1.

Moses Black, an Irishman who had acquired the house and farm formerly owned by Col. Edmund Quincy (the “Dorothy Q.” house), and Squire Benjamin Beale were both at this time prominent in town affairs and among the largest property owners in Quincy. See the tax list for 1792, when Quincy was taken off from Braintree, in Pattee, Old Braintree and Quincy , p. 623 ff., and numerous references to both men in the same work.

September 3. 1796. Saturday. JA

1796-09-03

September 3. 1796. Saturday. Adams, John
September 3. 1796. Saturday.

Pursuing the Wall. Tirrell is here and We expect French with his Team. Some soft warm Showers in the night and this morning. French came not, because it rained.

Anniversary of Peace, which has lasted 13 Years.

September 4. 1796. Sunday. JA

1796-09-04

September 4. 1796. Sunday. Adams, John
September 4. 1796. Sunday.

Fair. No Clergyman to day.

September 5. 1796. Monday. JA

1796-09-05

September 5. 1796. Monday. Adams, John
September 5. 1796. Monday.

The Anniversary of The Congress in 1774.

Sullivan brought a good Load of green Seaweed, with six Cattle, which We spread and limed upon the heap of Compost in the Meadow. Carted Earth from the Wall to the same heap. Tirrell here. Stetson opening the Brook three feet wider, Two feet on one Side and three feet on the other, at 9d. Pr. rod. Billings has never laid up more than a Rod and a half a day, of the Wall, till Yesterday when he thinks he laid up 28 feet.

Sept. 6. 1796. Tuesday. JA

1796-09-06

Sept. 6. 1796. Tuesday. Adams, John
Sept. 6. 1796. Tuesday.

Walked up to Trask mowing Bushes.

Sept. 7. 1796. Wednesday. JA

1796-09-07

Sept. 7. 1796. Wednesday. Adams, John
Sept. 7. 1796. Wednesday.

Belcher, Bass and Sullivan gone to mow the Marsh and get out the Thatch at Penny ferry.1

Billings laying Wall. Thomas, carting Earth. Stetson, widening the Brook to seven feet at 9d. Pr. Rod and a dinner. Brisler and James 247preparing, Yesterday and to day, the Cyder Mill, Press, and Casks.

Yesterday Jackson Field came to offer me Mount Arrarat at Three hundred Dollars. I could not agree. He fell to 275. I could not agree. He fell to 250 reserving the Right to work in Stone with one hand, for Life. I agreed at length to this extravagant Price and have drawn the Deed this Morning.

This Afternoon He came and took the Deed to execute and acknowledge.2

1.

“In 1823, ex-President John Adams was asked whether Judge Edmund Quincy of Braintree, went to Boston over Milton Hill? He replied, 'No, Judge Quincy would have thought it unsafe to venture as far inland as Milton Hill, for fear of the Indians; he was accustomed to go to Boston by the way of Penny's Ferry;'—a ferry so called because passengers paid a penny a piece to be rowed over the Neponset” (Quincy Patriot, 25 Dec. 1875, as quoted in Pattee, Old Braintree and Quincy , p. 69, note).

2.

Mount Ararat was part of the old Braintree North Commons (now in West Quincy), divided and sold as lots in 1765 under the management of a town committee of which JA was a member ( Braintree Town Records , p.406–407). On 9 June of the present year JA had acquired from Neddie Curtis 20 acres of this land, which was to prove valuable for its granite quarries, and he now acquired 20 more (information from Mr. Ezekiel S. Sargent, Quincy, Mass., in a letter to the editors from Mr. H. Hobart Holly, president of the Quincy Historical Society, 13 March 1960). In 1822 JA held still more granite-producing land in this neighborhood, and one of his gifts to the town toward building a new church and an academy comprised “fifty four acres more or less, commonly known by the name of the Lane's Pasture, or the Mount Ararat Pasture, near the seat of the Hon. Thomas Greenleaf” ([Quincy, Mass.,] Deeds and Other Documents ..., Cambridge, 1823, p. 3–5).