Adams Family Correspondence, volume 13

Mary Smith Cranch to Abigail Adams, 22 June 1798 Cranch, Mary Smith Adams, Abigail

Mary Smith Cranch to Abigail Adams

My dear Sister Quincy June 22d 1798

I have had the House full of company for a week & have not been able to Steal a moments to write to you or to my dear children at Washington.—

I have receiv’d yours of the 8th & 13th of June together with one from my Son to you & one for Doctor Tufts which I deliver’d immediately into his hands as he was present when I receiv’d it. He is at your House two or three times a week & always finds enough business to be attended to. the Building is in a manner compleated. the rooms & Floors are all painted of the chambers & as soon as they are dry enough to move the Books that will be done & the old Library painted also— the old Barn looks worse than ever Standing front of every thing— Tis the general custome to place the worst building in the back ground of the Picture—however as the edifices were not erected by the President tis right to take care of Himself & domesticks first. I should not wish to have it Said that my Horses & Cattle were better lodg’d than myself— your Garden never look’d So well—but the winter kill’d & much injur’d your Strawberrys & all your balm roots & mine, & indeed every bodys. a little of Yours went to seed last year & Scatter’d So that you have a few Young Roots but we have not one Sprigg & you know what a fine Bed I used to have— we have had a little dry weather lately which made it necessary to mow down all your fine clover—but to day we have had a very fine rain— We have had Pease from our Garden. the Rose Bugs are not half So thick as they were last Season but there are enough to hurt the fruit not a little.

I think I told you that Nabby Hunt was with Mrs Porter I Shall see that your linnin is put out I gave three dollars for Mrs Porters Bonnet She is very much pleas’d with it—& is very careful of your 152 things will not wrong you of any thing, nor will let any one else if she can prevent it—

Mrs Blacks Baby has been very unwell with its Teeth has had a very bad Sore Mouth & gums but tis better— Turner the Stocking weaver is dead—& no one mourns— he had been Sick five months & confin’d to his bed by a dessorder he took in a very dissorderly manner—1

You must have been prepair’d to hear the death of Mr Nath. Appleton: he yesterday made for—himself I trust a happy change—but my Sister his Spirit, Soar’d not alone: He who was about to publish the lives of others, has had his own days number’d—& the future publisher of the work will fill the blank page design’d for another, with the Birth, Life & death of Doctor Belnap: who was Seizz’d the night before last with an apoplexey & expir’d yesterday morning Surely we may cry out help Lord! for the faithful fail from among the children of Men

Like Doctor Clark he was an able Supporter of the christian Religion & a Firm & Steady Friend to his Country & its Goverment: Doctor clarks death broke his Heart, & affected his spirits more than was generally known— he expected to follow him Soon & in the Same manner he did: the bad behavior of his sons & the crazy indisposition of his wife & Daughter broke his constitution2 Mr Appleton was not a man of So publick a character but he was a worthy good character & much respected I mourn with the Families their departed Friends the loss is very heavey indeed to them. Mrs Appletons State of health made every attention of her Husband necessary to her, & his Sons the Doctors children wanted his paternal care. he was very kind & truly a Father to mrs Appleton & her children—3 that woman Shines brightest in afflictions hour.—

The quotations from your Sons & Daughters Letters gave me great pleasure She appears to be just Such a woman as you would have wish’d for your Son Such characters will meet respect & attention wherever they go— I do not know what absence from his Family may do for Tom. welsh but I think him just the reverse of your Son whose place he is to supply.4 I may be mistaken but I think he wants manners feeling & information—but yet he has not half the oddities of willm Shaw. willm has the best heart in the world but will never be broke of his peculiarities & they will injure him in the Beaumond, at least & I am Sure they would as a publick speakers there is need of very Shining talents to conterballance or they will subject him to ridecule—

153

mr Cranch is better, but he has had a very ill turn it was so violent tho short that it reduc’d him surprizingly I believe it was a billious complant. it was frightful to see him faint So often. he is still very pale & his Bowels are not right yet tho his appetite is good I think he did but just escape a Billious Fever a dessorder very prevalent in this neighbourhood— I am affraid you will stay too long for your healths in that city. your matters here will be ready come as soon as you will Now Docr. Tufts has just told me he is going to the House—

willm Shaw has been with me a week he goes to atkinson tomorrow I have told him to return as soon as he can I Shall want his help to get the Library in order I mean to have it handsomely adorn’d if you will let me know certainly the day you mean to arive I shall wish you to come into town earley enough in the afternoon to take a View of the Rooms before night. If we should all be in health & Spirits I mean to assemble Some of your Friends & Neighbours to welcome & take Coffee with you, but in this revolutionary State I promise myself nothing beyond the present moment

I am really Sorry tis not in my power to prove to mr & mrs Johnson by our attention to their Son the grateful Sense we have of their Friendship & kindness to our children— will you tell her so—& that I hope they will always conduct in a manner which will be honorary to themselves & pleasing to those who as she kindly express it have taken them by the Hand—

I cannot believe mr G can be so blinded to his own as well as his Countrys interest as to Stay an hour longer among the wolves of France than he can help after he receives his recall or that he will Stay to receive propositions which must disgrace his country to have offer’d it against the advise of his coleagues— I am distrest for the President however but he ought not to have infalibility demanded of him. he is remarkable for develluping characters I hope he will not find himself deceav’d now. I think I dont like stuborn characters. tis but seldom that man is always wise—& many who are convincd have not greatness of mind enough to acknowledge an error

adieu—my dear sister affecy. yr.

M C

I know you will give me leave to take a Bottle of Medara from your cellar for mr Cranch the Doctor Says he wants it & I cannot get Such. I shall therefore thankfully accept it5

RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Mrs Cranch 22 / June 1798.”

154 1.

That is, John Turner, for whom see vol. 8:58–59.

Rev. Jeremy Belknap died on 20 June after a stroke paralyzed him earlier in the day. His wife, Ruth Eliot Belknap, for whom see vol. 12:407, had suffered nervous disorders periodically throughout their marriage. They had five living children at his death: Sarah (1768–1819), Joseph (1769–1800), Elizabeth (1774–1865), John (1776–1856), and Andrew Eliot. Joseph struggled as a printer in Boston, and because he owed his father money, Jeremy Belknap withheld from him a share of his estate (Kirsch, Jeremy Belknap , p. 11, 12, 204–205, 207, 215; Boston Evening Transcript, 8 Feb. 1856; Boston Daily Evening Traveller, 4 Aug. 1865).

Rachael Henderson (d. 1804) married Nathaniel Appleton in 1756 (W. S. Appleton, A Genealogy of the Appleton Family, Boston, 1874, p. 14). For Sarah Greenleaf Appleton, the widow of his deceased son Dr. Nathaniel Walker Appleton, and their children, see vol. 12:134.

LCA similarly found Thomas Welsh Jr. a complete contrast to TBA: “His manners abrupt; his conversation brusque; his voice vulgar; and exquisitely self-sufficient, th’ough very good tempered: the change was too much for my philosophy; and I could not help regretting, and perhaps making him sensible, how much less I thought of or admired him than his ‘illustrious predescessor’” (LCA, D&A , 1:93).

The postscript was written vertically in the margins between the second and third pages.

Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 23 June 1798 Adams, Abigail Cranch, Mary Smith

Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch

my dear sister Philadelphia June 23d 1798

The weather has been so oppressively Hot for this week—and the streets of the City so nausious that I expect the concequences which must follow. they already begin—complaints of the Bowels are frequent & an inflamitory soar throat. Frederick has got below after 5 bleedings Blistering &c Becky is now sick with it.1 hers is less upon her throat, more in her Bowels, not much fever— I hope hers will not prove very Bad. Several of the rest of us have had a touch. it comes with a stifness & pain in the neck & back part of the Head. in some parts of the city the old fever is making its appearence. Congress are anxious to rise, but will not sooner than they did last year I fear— O how much precious time did they waste this winter, in that dirty affair of Lyons, and disputing whether mr smith & JQA should be ministers Resident, or Plenipos: With which they had no buisness—any more than who should be of the directory in France.

I have put under cover to mr Cranch a Letter for William Shaw, supposing he might be at Quincy & the papers and handkerchiefs are for him.2 you will send them if he is gone home. you will find in them what mr Marshal brings and the state in which things are in France.

I received your Letters of the 10 & 15th. the President is delighted with your account of the Clover and Barley Fields— he most sincerely pines after them—but he is tied to his table 9 Hours of the day— some of the addressers complain that his answers are too 155 short. they do not consider nor know how numerous they are, or what other buisness there is to attend to. some fore noons, he is calld from his Room 20 times in the course of it, to different persons, besides the hours devoted to the Ministers of the different departments, the investigations necessary to be made of those persons who apply for offices or are recommended, the weighing the merrits, and pretentions of different Canditates for the same office &C &C &C His Eyes which you know used to be very troublesome to him, are quite well, and he is enabled to read and write with ease to himself which is a great favour.—

I am glad you have got the Box. Betsy did not say to me that she was going to be married directly, but she wrote what I took to be her determination soon. Poor dear Betsy Shaw, must she too follow our dear Mary, Charles and Suky Warner? my heart aches for our sister. I know not how she will Sustain the shock— I think our Physicians are too fearfull of Bleeding in early complaints of the Lungs—

I shall be Satisfied with the kitchen floor as it is. I hope all will be done by the beginning of July—for I shall want all the Room I can find and, more than all. I do expect mrs smith will come with me to make her Children a visit. as I have sent the papers I need say nothing about politicks. our Legislature have done nobly in Massa—3 What Life & vigor does a good Patriot give to a whole state when placed at the Head of it— I wish our Legislature would set the example & make a sedition act, to hold in order the base Newspaper calumniators. in this state, you could not get a verdict, if a prossecution was to be commenced

My pen is bad I know not whether you can read it, and the damp air spoils the paper.—

I am in haste. the post will leave me before I assure you of what my sister knows and believes, that I am allways her affectionate / Sister

A Adams

RC (MWA:Abigail Adams Letters); addressed: “Mrs Mary Cranch / Quincy.”; endorsed by Richard Cranch: “Letter from Mrs. / A: Adams (Pha:) / June 22. 1798.”

Frederick likely served the Adams family as a groom (TBA to William Smith Shaw, 3 July 1800, MWA:Adams Family Letters).

AA wrote a brief letter to William Smith Shaw on 23 June 1798 commenting on Elizabeth Quincy Shaw’s ill health and enclosing some neckerchiefs and Philadelphia newspapers with the most recent dispatch from the commissioners (DLC:Shaw Family Papers).

AA was likely referring to the 7 June address to JA by the Mass. General Court (Adams Papers), in which its members promised that in addition to giving their full support to his administration’s measures, “We will never forget, that our charter to this liberty, is sealed by the blood of Americans! and we pledge to you the patriotism, and all the energies of our constituents, that it shall never be violated by the sacrilegious hand of foreign power” ( Patriotic Addresses , p. 28–30).