Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 3
1829-09-10
Morning to the Office as usual but I was able to do little or nothing as I had hardly seated myself before my old friend Richardson 9dropped in.1 I was very glad to see him and we talked pleasantly for a considerable time. He has not seen me since my marriage and at first he seemed to feel a little awkward, but he soon got over it and we then chatted very pleasantly an hour or two. He is one of the only men with whom I can say I have been exceedingly intimate, and although our present circumstances are such as to separate us considerably from each other, yet I like to see him to remind me of old times. We were interrupted by Thomas B. Adams who brought me a Note from my father with some Commissions to execute.2 I performed some and postponed others—for consideration and conversation with him. Mr. Curtis also called, and asked as to the Deed which I had prepared and which he requested me to send to my father to be executed, which I accordingly did.
I then returned home and having agreed to dine with Mr. Brooks at Medford,3 I drove out there with Abby. Found there Mr. and Mrs. Everett, Mr. and Mrs. Frothingham, Mr. and Mrs. Brooks, Miss Gorham her sister,4 and ourselves. The dinner was pleasant enough and the time passed rapidly. Abby was not so much affected as I had expected, and luckily a visitor happened to come in who was not pleasant and broke up any feeling the parting might have otherwise created. We started early, in order to take tea at Mrs. Everett’s. He is a singular man and puzzles me exceedingly. But sincerity is not his forte.5 I like her although she has many decided faults.
We left early and returned to town with a fine Moon and a cold night. But the ride was pleasant. After stopping to inquire how Miss Carter was, we returned home, and from thence went to spend the Evening at P. C. Brooks’s.6 They are pleasant, agreeable and kind hearted people and I ought to like them very much, but now and then a little vulgarity escapes them which annoys me exceedingly. I am always anxious to do my best, but I cannot copy the same style and this makes me appear a little like a silent censor, and as if I was making myself a little high about it. But this must be for I will not do what I think degrades me, and though they may dislike my notions, yet I trust to the rest of my manner to show that I wish to make no offence. P. Chardon is a clever fellow, exceeding good natured, but very brusque, with whom I have always endeavoured to keep on the best terms, and whose attentions are exceedingly obliging.
John Hancock Richardson, CFA’s Harvard classmate, long-time friend, and correspondent, was an attorney with an office in Newton, Mass. (vol. 1:12 and passim).
9 Sept. (Adams Papers). The commissions included the acquisition of three pair of blankets, the purchase and installation of a Rumford stove for his kitchen and of sundry Franklin fire-10places, the exchange of a $50 bill for smaller ones, requests for several books, and conveying his “paternal love” to ABA with an invitation to visit at Quincy to “come and stay and go” as at “a second father’s house.”
Peter Chardon Brooks (1767–1849) and his wife Ann Gorham (1771–1830), ABA’s parents, had their home in Medford (vol. 2:ix–x, 105;
DAB
; Adams Genealogy), living in a mansion built by Brooks in 1805 on ancestral land (vol. 2:xi, illustration facing 305). The house, situated on splendidly landscaped grounds and with farm lands adjacent, though generally known as “Elms Farm,” within the family was called “Mystic Grove” (letters of Charlotte Everett to Edward Everett, Everett MSS, MHi). Entertainment in the household in 1829 was restricted partly because of the death of Ward C. Brooks the year before, but more especially because of the poor health of Mrs. Brooks during the whole year (vol. 2:359–429
passim; Brooks, Waste Book, 31 Dec. 1829; Charlotte Everett to Edward Everett, 12 April 1829, Everett MSS, MHi).
Brooks took great pride in the estate, reacquiring all the lands held by his grandfather before division between heirs and purchasing additional parcels. On the location and bounds of the lands, see p. xviii and the map of Medford in this volume. In his “Book of Possessions” (Brooks MSS, MHi) are the deeds and papers relating to the property beginning in 1709 and a record of his own improvements. He several times gave a history of the holdings in his Waste Book, and in his Farm Journal he recorded from 1808 to 1848 production figures, daily activities, the weather, &c.
Elizabeth Gorham (1769–1845), Mrs. Peter C. Brooks’ only unmarried sister, continued to live in Charlestown, the Gorham family home, until sometime after 1823, when she moved to Cambridge (T. B. Wyman, The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, Boston, 1879, 1:424; History of the Harvard Church in Charlestown, Boston, 1879, p. 105). She had been visiting her sister since 5 Sept. (Brooks, Farm Journal).
CFA’s reservations on this aspect of the character of Edward Everett, which find some corroboration from the judgment of others and from events (see vol. 2:418; Frothingham, Everett
, p. 272–273, 354, 428–429; CFA2, R. H. Dana
, 2:279), persisted almost to the end of Everett’s career. Only in the last four years of Everett’s life (1861–1865) did CFA find a change in him:
“In his last days he reappeared in another and better character. The progress of events had brought him to a point where his fears no longer checked him, for his interests, such as might at his age be supposed to survive, ran on all fours with his convictions. As a consequence he spoke forth at last with all his power what he really felt. The change was wonderful. From that time I felt myself drawn to him as never before .... To me his four last years appear worth more than all the rest of his life, including the whole series of his rhetorical triumphs.”
R. H. Dana
, 2:280)
Mr. and Mrs. P. C. Brooks Jr. lived at 3 Chesnut Street (
Boston Directory, 1829–1830).
1829-09-11
Morning after a deal of trouble at home, to the Office. One of the troubles of Housekeeping—My Wife not being accustomed to keeping her things locked, most unluckily left her Jewels exposed and the consequence has been that she has lost several things. Suspicion rested upon the Servants, and I thought it necessary in consequence to examine them all. I went through the form of searching all their things without any idea of finding any thing, for it would be absurd to 11suppose that Servants would not make away with things immediately that suspicion rested in the least upon them. This was as disagreeable a thing for a little affair of life as any I ever went through. I can fix suspicion upon nobody, but it is very certain that the things are missing.1
At the Office, I wrote my Journal, and a letter to Mrs. Longhurst.2 We keep up a brisk correspondence by which I am in hopes of receiving her rent in time. But she is slow, though not quite so impudent as formerly. This and a few Commissions took me all the morning and I returned to dine. My spirits were rather depressed, as I was actually suffering from my old trouble.3 I am a singularly fated man. The Afternoon was passed at home with the exception of a walk to the Office of the Daily Advertiser in order to put in an Advertisement for the lost rings. This done I returned and found my Furniture returned home. I am much pleased with it, and hope now soon to enter into a new system of life. The past week has been a kind of delirium which must soon pass off and leave us sober and quiet. I hope shortly to be able to start well in what I have undertaken, although I confess that at this moment of time, I am a little in a maze, which ought not to last very long.
The Evening came and with it, the recollection that we had been invited to a party at Mrs. Quincy’s at Cambridge. As it was made for us, I could not decline the civility although we felt it to be irksome. We accordingly dressed and rode to Cambridge with Blake and Henrietta Gray. It was the first time that I had put my foot into that house for years. My old prejudices were so powerful that while my situation in life was doubtful I could not bring my pride to submit to the disagreeable style of the family.4 But now at least, I feel free from any scruples and do not therefore make such resistance to patronage. We reached there at nine and found quite a collection of Cambridge people. I saw several of them and made my bow in the old way. How changed since I stood in the same room four years since. Incidents have rolled over me wonderful to think of and singular to relate. Let me pour out my soul to God in gratitude for his mercies and in the earnest and humble prayer that he will support me in prosperity as he has in adversity for they are equally hard to bear. Returned to town by eleven.
Since the theft took place on 7 Sept. the likelihood is that it was during or just preceding the time ABA “received her company.” On the 9th three rings, along with other things apparently of less value, were missed. One was a pearl ring, the second had three garnets set with pearl, and the third was the “Cameo ring with two hands joined” which JQA had given his daughter-in-12law on the preceding Friday. See above, entry for 9 Sept.; Boston Daily Advertiser, 12–19 Sept. 1829, p. 2, col. 5.
To Mrs. M. B. Longhurst (LbC, Adams Papers); see also vol. 2:415, 430.
CFA had long been subject to headaches and digestive disorders, minor illnesses usually accompanied by melancholy; these are frequently mentioned in his early diaries.
Josiah Quincy (1772–1864), president of Harvard since Jan. 1829, and Mrs. Quincy, the former Eliza Susan Morton (1773–1850) (vol. 1:150, 2:339; Adams Genealogy), were living in Wadsworth House, which still stands in Harvard Yard. It would appear that CFA by “that house” is referring not to the home of Harvard’s presidents, but rather to the Quincy household. The last time that CFA had noted in his diary that he had been to the Quincy’s was on 4 Sept. 1824 in Boston. He then recorded that the evening had been a pleasant one despite the airs of Mrs. Quincy and her daughter Susan (vol. 1:311–312).