Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 7

Friday 16th. CFA

1836-09-16

Friday 16th. CFA
Friday 16th.

Morning clear with a cold north easterly wind. I arose early and accompanied Mr. Brooks to town. He conversed with me upon my building project with the interest and kindness which he always takes in my plans. I explained to him as much as he wished to know and took his advice upon several points of detail.

95

At the Office where I was engaged in Accounts. Thence to the Athenaeum where I looked up a volume for my father’s use, and to call upon Mr. Hallett whom I could not find. The fourth of my numbers appeared today.1 The famous Convention at Worcester has got through, having done exactly what I expected, nominated a ticket professing to support Mr. Webster and in fact intended to give the vote to Harrison. Such is the result of the famous Webster nomination—vox et praeterea nihil.2 I expected nothing better would come from it. Mr. Everett came in just before I left and I had a few words conversation with him. He works for his place harder than any millhorse ever did and I suspect will hardly get it after all.

Returned to Medford to dine. A family party to Gorham Brooks and his wife who are returning to Baltimore next week. Governor Everett and his Wife, Dr. and Mrs. Frothingham, Gorham Brooks and his wife, Edward, and ourselves. A very merry affair. They all went before tea and left us alone again with the usual inmates. But in the evening, Mrs. Gray, Lydia Phillips and Francis Gray paid a visit.3

1.

“No. 3” of “To the Unpledged Voters” had been printed in the Advocate on 12 Sept. (p. 2, cols. 3–4); “No. 4” appeared on p. 2, col. 2.

2.

The voice and nothing besides.

3.

Mrs. Samuel Gray (Mary Brooks) was Peter C. Brooks’ sister; Francis A. Gray was her son (vol. 3:107, 237). Lydia Phillips of Andover, a frequent visitor to her cousins in Medford and Boston, was a niece of the late Mrs. Brooks vol. (2:364).

Saturday 17th. CFA

1836-09-17

Saturday 17th. CFA
Saturday 17th.
Quincy

Morning cloudy. I went to town accompanied by P. C. Brooks while my wife went with her father in the carriage. My stay at Medford might have been longer if I had not made arrangements to commence work on my new house on Monday. The silence of a house occupied only by grown people is a thing so novel to me that I hardly know what to make of it. Otherwise we have had a very pleasant visit.

In town occupied with my accounts and with drawing up a Lease for Mr. Carr which has been a matter of some difficulty from the number of the conditions. I have accomplished it at last, and I think I now have no more Boston work to do until the first of next month.

At one o’clock I proposed to go out to Quincy and called for my Wife to go with me, but it had set in a Southerly rain and we had made little progress before I became satisfied that we should get wet 96through in persevering. I therefore turned back and left her again at Mrs. Frothingham’s where we dined. This was not unpleasant, and as it cleared away afterwards, so far as not to wet us, we reached Quincy safe and sound by six o’clock. Quiet evening. Conversation with my father, after which to bed rather early.