Adams Family Correspondence, volume 14
We arrived here last night, or rather yesterday at one O
Clock and here We dined and Slept. The Building is in a State to be
habitable.1
433 And now We wish for your Company. The
Account you give of the melancholly state of our dear Brother Mr Cranch and his family is really distressing
and must Severely afflict you. I most cordially Sympathize with you and
them.
I have Seen only Mr Marshall
and Mr Stoddert General Wilkinson and the two
Commissioners Mr Scott and Mr Thornton.
I Shall Say nothing of public affairs. I am very glad you consented to come on, for you would have been more anxious at Quincy than here, and I, to all my other Solicitudines Mordaces as Horace calls them i.e. “biting Cares” Should have added a great deal on your Account.2 Besides it is fit and proper that you and I should retire together and not one before the other
Before I end my Letter I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof.
I Shall not attempt a description of it. You will form the best Idea of it from Inspection.
Mr Brisler is very anxious
for the arrival of the Man and Women and I am much more so for that of the
Ladies. I am with unabated Confi / dence and affection your
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs Adams”; endorsed: “President Novbr / 3 1800 Washington.”
The cornerstone of the President’s House in
Washington, D.C., was laid on 13 Oct. 1792, but when JA
took up residence on 1 Nov, 1800, walls were unplastered, few
furnishings were in place, and only one of three staircases was built.
Despite offers of private lodgings, JA resolved to remain
in the President’s House as work continued. When Thomas Jefferson moved
in on 19 March 1801, he ordered numerous architectural changes, and the
building was not completed until 1802 (William Seale, The President’s House: A History, 2 vols.,
Washington, D.C., 1986, p. 35, 79–81, 83–84, 90–91, 93; Papers of William Thornton, ed. C. M.
Harris and Daniel Preston, Charlottesville, Va., 1995, p. 587, 588).
Horace, Odes, Book I,
Ode xviii, line 4.
welcome thou best of women thou best of Sisters thou kindest of Friends the Soother of ever human woe to the city of Washington.1 welome to the best of men welcome to a Nephew & neice who Love honor, & respects you take their Sweet ofspring to your benevolent Bosom & say to thus would your Grandmama do if she could hold you in her arms.— I tremble I can scarcly hold my pen other must tell you how I am afflected with Boils 40 upon my backe many of them 434 Break more would if I had strength to fill them out but if wine Wey [& caling pleantifully] will do I shall soon get it Love to every one
I can no More
yours affectionatly
RC (Adams Papers).
Cranch wrote “Wash” and Richard Cranch finished the word by interlining “ington.”
At the bottom of the page Richard Cranch appended a note to AA of the same date: “The above effort of your gratefull Sister is all that she can write at present” (Adams Papers).