On 23 Dec. 1798 Abigail Adams informed John Adams that the appraisal of their properties had been completed as required by the national direct tax, or “House tax,” signed into law by John five months earlier. Abigail enclosed the “valluation” printed below, complaining that when Congress passed the tax it was “not aware of the trouble attendant upon the execution of it. to measure every House Barn out House count every square of Glass, collect every peice of Land, and its bounds—and then apprize the whole, is a Labour indeed” (above).

The editors have decided that the wealth of information in this property appraisal warrants its inclusion in the volume. The valuation offers a detailed account of the Adamses’ holdings in both lands and buildings. Along with acreage, it provides the location and square footage of each structure, the number of stories and windows in each, and the number of glass panes within those windows. It records the occupants of each dwelling, including the small wooden house with eight windows occupied by Phoebe Abdee, the elderly Adams family servant and former slave of Abigail’s father, Rev. William Smith. The appraisal also includes among the properties legally belonging to John the “1/2 a House & half of 80 acres of Land in Medford” that Abigail inherited from her father in 1783 (vol. 5:247). In all, the Adamses’ properties at the end of 1798 consisted of 15 structures on more than 650 acres with a total valuation of $15,930. The valuation of the Adamses’ home at Peacefield at $2,000, however, prompted discussion, as Abigail informed John, because one of the assessors had been “loth that it should appear that the President had not the best House in Town.”

Further information on the Adams family’s property holdings may be found in documents and annotation in the Adams Papers volumes and is accessible through the edition’s indexes. Notable examples are 570 John Adams’ description of the family’s Braintree properties in his Autobiography, for which see JA, D&A , 3:254–257, and documentation of the 1787 purchase of the Vassall-Borland estate—later Peacefield—in volume 7 of the present series.

Any study of Adams family real estate should make use of deeds recorded in Suffolk and Norfolk Counties, as well as the many deeds held within the Adams Papers, which may be located through the Online Adams Catalog. Most are contained in the Wills and Deeds topical supplement and imaged on Adams Papers Microfilms, Reel 607. Others are contained in the related Massachusetts Historical Society collection, Adams Papers, Adams Office Manuscripts, which is not microfilmed but is included in the Online Adams Catalog. Finally, several National Park Service studies shed light on the land use and furnishings of the properties that now comprise Adams National Historical Park in Quincy: Wilhelmina S. Harris, Furnishings Report of the Old House, The Adams National Historic Site, Quincy, Massachusetts, 10 vols., Quincy, 1966–1974; Katharine Lacy, Cultural Landscape Report: Adams National Historic Site, Quincy, Massachusetts, Boston, 1997; Laurel A. Racine, Historic Furnishings Report: The Birthplaces of Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, Charlestown, 2001; and Kirsten Holder, Cultural Landscape Report for Adams Birthplaces, Adams National Historical Park, Quincy, Massachusetts, Boston, 2014.