Abigail Adams and Her Times

"So long as we are inhabitants of this earth and possess any of our faculties, we cannot be indifferent to the state of our country, our posterity and our friends. Personally we have arrived so near the close of the drama that we can experience but few of the evils which await the rising generation. We have passed through one revolution and have happily arrived at the goal, but the ambition, injustice and plunder of foreign powers have again involved us in war, the termination of which is not given us to see.

"If we have not 'the gorgeous palaces of the cloud-capp'd towers' of Moscow to be levelled with the dust, nor a million of victims to sacrifice upon the altar of ambition, we have our firesides, our comfortable habitations, our cities, our churches and our country to defend, our rights, privileges and independence to preserve. And for these are we not justly contending? Thus it appears to me; yet I hear from our pulpits and read from our presses that it is an unjust, a wicked, a ruinous and unnecessary war. If I give an opinion with respect to the conduct of our native State, I cannot do it with approbation. She has had much to complain of as it respected a refusal of naval protection, yet that cannot justify her in paralyzing the arm of government when raised for her defence and that of the nation. A house divided against itself – and upon that foundation do our enemies build their hopes of subduing us. May it prove a sandy one to them.

"You once asked what does Mr. Adams think of Napoleon? The reply was, I think, that after having been the scourge of nations, he should himself be destroyed. We have seen him run an astonishing career. Is not his measure full? Like Charles the XII of Sweden, he may find in Alexander another Peter. Much, my friends, might we moralize upon these great events, but we know but in part and we see but in part. The longer I live, the more wrapt in clouds and darkness does the future appear to me."

British cruisers patrolled the New England coast, and could frequently be seen from the upper windows of the Quincy houses. If Mrs. Adams had climbed Penn's Hill on June 1st, 1813, she could have watched the naval duel between the Chesapeake and the Shannon, as in 1776 she had watched the burning of Charlestown.

A few months later, the neighborhood of Boston assumed once more the military aspect of forty years before. "Troops from Berkshire were quartered in Dorchester, at Neponset Bridge, generally considered the last outpost toward the enemy, who, it was thought, would land on Mr. Quincy's farm. One Sunday, a report came that the British had actually landed at Scituate, and were marching up to Boston. The drums beat to arms; and the elders, who remembered the Revolution, increased the trepidation of their juniors by anecdotes of devastation. These apprehensions were much exaggerated."22

In the midst of these alarms, John and Abigail Adams celebrated their golden wedding. "Yesterday," she writes to a granddaughter on the 26th of October, 1814, "yesterday completes half a century since I entered the married state, then just your age. I have great cause of thankfulness, that I have lived so long and enjoyed so large a portion of happiness as has been my lot. The greatest source of unhappiness I have known in that period has arisen from the long and cruel separations which I was called, in a time of war and with a young family around me, to submit to."

In the same house, their son, John Quincy Adams, and their grandson Charles Francis Adams, were in time to celebrate their golden weddings; a notable series of festivals.

A member of the Adams family tells me the Second President "has the reputation in the family of being very high tempered, and it is said that when he wrote letters which his wife thought unwise, she would hold them back and give them to him a week or so later, saying she thought perhaps he would prefer to change them! The singular thing was that he apparently never resented the tampering with his correspondence."

There can be no stronger proof than this of the oneness of this remarkable couple. President John may have been high tempered, but I fancy there are few men of today who would receive with meekness such action on the part of their wives.

The winter of 1814-15 opened gloomily enough. There seemed no immediate prospect of peace. Accordingly, when, on the 14th day of February, 1815, the bells began to ring, people merely said, "Fire!" and looked out of window for the smoke. There was no smoke till the bonfires sprang up at night. More and more joyfully the bells pealed, till all knew that the war was over, that peace had been declared. Boston and Quincy and all the other neighboring towns went mad with joy. "The whole population were abroad, all classes congratulating each other on the happy tidings. Almost every house displayed a flag. Drums beat; cannon fired; the military were in motion. Sailors in large sleds, each drawn by fifteen horses, – the word 'Peace' in capitals on the hat of the foremost man, – greeted everyone with loud huzzas. The joy and exultation were in proportion to the previous fear and despondency. It was a day never to be forgotten."23

There were to be no more alarms for Abigail Adams; no more thunder of cannon or marching of troops: the rest of her life was peace. She had the joy of welcoming her eldest son, after his foreign service of eight long years, and of seeing him appointed Secretary of State. This, her grandson thinks, was the crowning mercy of her life. A few years more, and she might have seen him exalted to the loftier office which his father had held; but this was not to be. In October, 1818, she was stricken with typhus fever; and on the 28th day of that month, she died.

In closing the record of such a life as this, one longs for some perfect tribute which may fitly sum it up. I find this tribute, in the words of Josiah Quincy: "Clear and shedding blessings to the last, her sun sank below the horizon, beaming with the same mild strength and pure radiance which distinguished its meridian."

Another beautiful word was that of President Kirkland of Harvard University, spoken at Mrs. Adams' funeral:

"Ye seek to mourn, bereaved friends, as becomes Christians, in a manner worthy of the person you lament. You do, then, bless the Giver of life, that the course of your endeared and honored friend was so long and so bright; that she entered so fully into the spirit of these injunctions which we have explained, and was a minister of blessings to all within her influence. You are soothed to reflect that she was sensible of the many tokens of divine goodness which marked her lot; that she received the good of her existence with a cheerful and grateful heart; that, when called to weep, she bore adversity with an equal mind; that she used the world as not abusing it to excess, improving well her time, talents, and opportunities, and, though desired longer in this world, was fitted for a better happiness than this world can give."

John Adams survived his dearest friend by eight years, preserving his faculties to the last, clear-minded and vehement as on the day when he signed the Declaration of Independence. At noon on the fiftieth anniversary of the "day of deliverance," amid the "pomp and parade," the "shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations," which he had bespoken for it, his valiant spirit passed from earth. His last words were, "Thomas Jefferson still survives!" This was not the case. His ancient colleague, at one time his bitter opponent, but of late years once more his affectionate friend, had died an hour before.

Husband and wife lie side by side, under the portico of the First Church of Quincy, a building given by Mr. Adams to his beloved town. On the walls of that church are inscribed their epitaphs, which may most fitly close this simple record.

1

"The Sabbath in Puritan New England." Alice Morse Earle.

2

"Customs and Fashions in Old New England." Alice Morse Earle.

3

Ibid.

4

"Customs and Fashions in Old New England." Alice Morse Earle.

5

"Customs and Fashions in Old New England." Alice Morse Earle.

6

"Three Episodes of Massachusetts History." C. F. Adams.

7

"History of Massachusetts." Minot.

8

"Customs and Fashions in Old New England." Alice Morse Earle.

9

"Two Centuries of Costume in America." Alice Morse Earle.

10

"Gordon's History."

11

Author unknown.

12

"History of the United States of America." Bancroft.

13

"The American Revolution." Trevelyan.

14

I.e., their house in Boston.

15

It stood at the corner of Essex and Washington Streets.

16

"Twice-Told Tales." Nathaniel Hawthorne.

17

Be it remembered that Washington did not remain in Boston, but anticipating Howe's attack on New York, was encamped in Brooklyn Heights by April: these movements ended the operations in New England. New York was the centre of the next campaign.

18

"Legends of the Province House." Nathaniel Hawthorne.

19

"Social Life in Old New England." Mary C. Crawford.

20

"Concise Oxford Dictionary."

21

John Quincy Adams was at this time Ambassador at St. Petersburg.

22

"Memoir of S. E. M. Quincy."

23

"Memoir of S. E. M. Quincy."