A Revolutionary President

by Sara Georgini, Series Editor, The Papers of John Adams

John Adams was nervous. Readying for his 4 March 1797 presidential inauguration, Adams flashed back to his days as a suburban schoolteacher, revolutionary lawyer, and self-taught statesman.  The United States, born in the “Minds and Hearts of the People,” did not exist when Adams started out over forty years earlier. Neither did the shiny new role of president. Was he up to the job? “I never in my life felt Such an awful Weight of obligation to devote all my time, and all the forces that remain, to the Public,” he reassured Elbridge Gerry on 20 February 1797.

A portrait of John Adams in olive green suit with ceremonial sword, standing at desk and pointing to open book. On exhibit at Adams National Historical Park.
John Adams, by William Winstanley, 1798. Adams National Historical Park.

Brimming with international intrigue, domestic drama, and sly cabinet maneuvers, Volume 22 of The Papers of John Adams provides an insider’s tour of Adams’s tumultuous first year in office. This 59th volume published by the Adams Papers editorial project includes 304 documents that chronicle John Adams’s work from February 1797 to February 1798, revealing a new profile. Of the presidency, Adams vowed in his inaugural address: “It shall be my Strenuous Endeavour.” The popular narrative of Adams’s presidency is that he sidelined an inherited cabinet and chose to set major policy solo. This volume offers a richer and more complex history of a veteran statesman struggling within the bounds of the federal structure that he co-created.

Adams enjoyed just a few celebratory weeks on the job, before a wave of crises hit. Operating within the global upheaval of European war, the second president faced a set of hard trials. French privateers preyed on neutral American commerce. Yellow fever afflicted the federal seat in Philadelphia. Adams labored with Congress to shift money and resources for military preparedness. He drove the point home in his 28 Nov. 1797 note to the Senate: “A mercantile Marine and a military Marine must grow up together: one cannot long exist, without the other.”  The Quasi-War loomed. Yet John Adams’s letters reveal an administration stubbornly bent on pursuing a policy of strategic peace—even at great personal and political cost.

Running the nation’s highest office presented fresh challenges for the lifelong public servant. From a glance at his overflowing desk, it seemed like everyone wanted something right now from the new chief: a job, a pardon, some patronage to float a book idea or to fund an invention. “The friends of my youth are generally gone,” Adams lamented to Joseph Ward on 6 April 1797. “The friends of my Early political Life are chiefly departed—of the few that remain, Some have been found on a late occasion Weak, Envious, jealous, and Spiteful, humiliated and mortified and duped Enough by French Finesse, and Jacobinical rascality to Shew it to me and to the world, Others have been found faithful and true, generous and Manly.” Beyond his wife Abigail, whom did he trust? Volume 22 sketches Adams’s widening networks, as he brokered relationships with a cabinet comprised of Charles Lee, James McHenry, Timothy Pickering, and Oliver Wolcott Jr.

Painting of vessel in turbulent ocean cove, cornering another ship near rocky cliffs.
Thomas Buttersworth, “An Armed Revenue Cutter on Patrol with a Potential Quarry Sheltering below the Cliffs,” ca. 1802.

Overall, the urgent question of France dominated Adams’s mind. Shipping losses mounted. The country’s small fleet of revenue cutters worked mightily to defend American interests, but Adams knew that it was hard to safeguard the economy without the protection of a professional navy. He strained to salvage a tattered alliance and hold off war. “Commerce has made this Country what it is; and it cannot be destroyed or neglected, without involving the People in Poverty and distress,” Adams told Congress on [22 Nov.] 1797, adding: “I should hold myself guilty of a neglect of Duty, if I forebore to recommend that We Should make every exertion to protect our Commerce, and to place our Country in a Suitable posture of defence, as the only Sure means of preserving both.” The French threat sharpened Adams’s focus on the need for a real navy, with a six-frigate fleet under construction. When the winter froze French cruisers’ chances, Adams mobilized money and congressional support for a major military buildup. Volume 22 supplies a 360-degree experience of how cabinet members debated the future of Franco-American policy.

John Adams sensed his first steps into the presidency marked a final turn in his extraordinary life of service to the American people. “Their Confidence, which has been the Chief Consolation of my Life, is too prescious and Sacred a deposit ever to be considered lightly,” he told the Senate on [15 Feb. 1797]. He was no George Washington, but Washington’s America was changing too. John Adams’s Federalist ideology of tripartite government shaped his policymaking and his popularity; understanding how to preserve liberty while defending the people was his challenge. That history unfolds next in Volumes 23 and 24 of The Papers of John Adams, now underway.

The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our sponsors. Major funding for the Papers of John Adams is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the Packard Humanities Institute. All letterpress Adams Papers volumes are printed by Harvard University Press.

Posted in From Our Collections, MHS News Tagged

Adams Book Club: Abigail’s Pick

by Gwen Fries, Production Editor, Adams Papers

I don’t imagine you’ll be too bowled over when I tell you that I believe the Adamses’ writings have great value. There’s a reason that a team of us dedicate our lives to making their words and ideas accessible to all. (Have I mentioned our free digital edition?) While we give them hours of every day, our closest attention—and possibly our eyesight years before it would’ve failed otherwise—I don’t think we can ever repay all the wisdom, adventure, and laughter they give us. Frankly, they’re the best company for which you could ever wish.

So, when a member of the Adams family writes about something they read that gave them the same kind of rush, my ears prick up. Thus was born my idea of Adams Book Club, where we find free and accessible works and read them to gain a deeper understanding of the Adamses and what make them tick. First up? Anne MacVicar Grant’s Letters from the Mountains.

Color photograph of black ink printed onto paper discolored with age, with some handwriting on several parts and a visible round watermark.
Title page of Letters from the Mountains, Boston 1809.

“Pray have you met with these Letters from the Mountains?” Abigail Adams wrote to her daughter Abigail Adams Smith (Nabby) on 13 May 1809. “If you have not, I will certainly send them to you.” The “Mountains” in question are the Scottish Highlands. If you’ve been following along at home, you know Abigail had a particular affinity for all things Scottish. (Am I saying Abigail would’ve been an Outlander fan?…I’m not not saying that.)

“I have never met with any letters half so interesting,” Abigail gushed to her daughter. “Her style is easy and natural, it flows from the heart and reaches the heart. In the early part of her life, and before she met with severe trials and afflictions, her letters are full of vivacity, blended with sentiment and erudition. Though secluded from the gay world, she appears well acquainted with life and manners. Her principles, her morals, her religion, are of the purest kind.”

A 69-year-old white woman with dark hair is sketched in white and black chalk on paper. She wears a white bonnet, a white ruffled collar, and a black shawl with an oval fastener.
Anne MacVicar Grant by William Bewick, 1824. Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

Abigail recommended the Letters to many in her orbit of influence, including her son John Quincy Adams, who took a copy on the boat to St. Petersburg. On 11 August 1809, he recorded in his (free and fully accessible online) diary, “The Night was almost entirely calm— I employed much of it in reading Mrs: Grant’s letters, which I find more interesting than Plutarch— I return to them of choice.”

We’ve all had a book find us when we needed it most. In the spring and summer of 1809, Abigail had her daughter move to the backwoods of New York, her son leave for the other side of the world, and with her 65th birthday rapidly approaching was feeling the weight of her years. “The more I read, the more I was delighted,” she confided to Nabby, “until that enthusiasm which she so well describes, took full possession of my soul, and made me for a time forget that the roses had fled from my cheeks, and the lustre departed from my eyes.”

“I long to communicate to you this rich mental feast,” Abigail wrote. And so I communicate it to you, dear reader. Meet you next month to discuss the Letters and to delve into John Adams’s retirement reads!

The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our sponsors. Major funding of the edition is currently provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the Packard Humanities Institute. Major funding for the John Quincy Adams Digital Diary was provided by the Amelia Peabody Charitable Fund, with additional contributions by Harvard University Press and a number of private donors. The Mellon Foundation in partnership with the National Historical Publications and Records Commission also supports the project through funding for the Society’s digital publishing collaborative, the Primary Source Cooperative.

Posted in From Our Collections Tagged

Aerostatic, Air Balloon, Freedom: The Adams Family’s Interest in Balloon-powered Flight

by Heather Rockwood, Communications Manager

John Adams (JA) and John Quincy Adams (JQA) were fascinated by the hottest flight invention of the 1780s: hot air balloons. Their fascination rivals present-day Parisian’s enjoyment of the Olympic and Paralympic cauldron. Paris citizens are currently collecting signatures to keep the Olympic and Paralympic cauldron as a permanent display representing the French national motto, “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.” Since this Olympic flame uses no fossil fuels, only water and light, it could possibly be on display long term.

Color photograph aimed upwards from the ground on a dark night. What is visible is a large inflated balloon tethered by many strings to a basket holding light and giving off steam which lights the balloon from below with a lovely glow. A row of old-style streetlamps are in a line from the top left to the bottom right lit up to match the balloon.
The Olympic Flame rises on a balloon after being lit in Paris, France during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, 26 July 2024. Credit: Francisco Seco

JA and JQA were in Paris in 1783 when Joseph Michel and Jacques Etienne Montgolfier developed their “aerostatique” hot air balloons. These flight experiments caught the fancy of Parisians and the Adamses. On 27 August 1783, JQA wrote in his diary:

“after dinner I went to see the experiment, of the flying globe. A Mr: Montgolfier of late has discovered that, if one fills a ball with inflammable air, much lighter than common air, the ball of itself will go up to an immense height of itself. This was the first publick experiment of it. at Paris. a Subscription was opened some time agone and filled at once for making a globe; it was of taffeta glued together with gum, and lined with parchment: filled with inflammable air: it was of a spherical form; and was 14 foot size in Diameter. it was placed in the Champ de Mars. at 5. o’clock 2. great guns fired from the Ecole Militaire, were the signal given for its going, it rose at once, for some time perpendicular, and then slanted. the weather, was unluckily very Cloudy, so that in less than 2. minutes it was out of sight: it went up very regularly and with a great swiftness. as soon as it was out of sight. 2. more cannon were fired from the Ecole Militaire to announce it. this discovery is a very important one, and if it succeeds it may become very useful to mankind.”

Although this wasn’t the first experiment of flight with the balloon, which occurred 4 June 1783, this was the first public exhibition of it. JA wrote to Abigail Adams on 7 September 1783, “The Moment I hear of it [AA’s arrival in Europe], I will fly with Post Horses to receive you at least, and if the Ballon, Should be carried to such Perfection in the mean time as to give Mankind the safe navigation of the Air, I will fly in one of them at the Rate of thirty Knots an hour.”

A black ink printed engraving of a large round balloon netted and tethered by many ropes to a small boat style basket with many carved decorations and two figures holding flags in the ship. At the bottom are words in French.
“Aerostatic Experiments” in Paris 1783, French colored engraving of a balloon flight in 1783

This fascination continued and spread! On 10 November 1784, JQA wrote to his friend Peter Jay Munro:

“Messieurs Roberts made their third experiment, the 19th of September, and with more success than any aerostatic travellers have had before. They went up from the Thuileries, amidst a concourse of I suppose 10,000 persons. At noon, and at forty minutes past six in the Evening they descended at Beuory in Artois fifty leagues from Paris. This is expeditious travelling, and I heartily wish they would bring balloons to such a perfection, as that I might go to N. York, Philadelphia, or Boston in five days time. M.M. Roberts have publish’d a whole Volume of Observations upon their Voyage, or Journey or whatever it may be called, but I judge from the abstracts I have seen of it that they have taken a few traveller’s Licenses, and have given some little play to their Imaginations. . . . They have established somewhere in Paris, a machine which they call une tour aërostatique where for a small price, any curious person may mount as high as he pleases, and so ‘look down upon the pendent world.’ ”

On 21 January 1785, JQA dined at Thomas Jefferson’s house in Paris and he wrote in his diary the story of the flight Dr. John Jeffries had taken earlier that month: “Mr. Blanchard cross’d from Dover to Calais in an air balloon, the 7th. of the month. accompanied by Dr: Jefferies. they were obliged to throw over their cloathes to lighten their balloon. Mr: Blanchard met with a very flattering reception at Calais, and at Paris…. All that has as yet been done relative to this discovery, is the work of the French. Montgolfier. Pilâtre de Rozier, & Blanchard, will go down, hand in hand to Posterity.”

The French enthusiasm for ballooning waned after a major accident in June 1785 when aeronauts Pilâtre de Rozier and Dr. Pierre Ange Romain crashed their balloon on the French shore while attempting to cross the English Channel. Their aéro-Montgolfier, a gas double balloon, exploded over a thousand feet in the air and the two fell to their gruesome deaths. On the 23 June 1785, Abigail Adams 2nd wrote to her cousin Lucy Cranch, “You talk of comeing to see us in a Balloon. Why my Dear as Americans sometimes are capable of as imprudent and unadvised things as any other People perhaps, I think it but Prudent to advise you against it. There has lately a most terible accident taken place by a Balloons taking fire in the Air in which were two Men. Both of them were killed by their fall, and there limbs exceedingly Broken. Indeed the account is dreadfull. I confess I have no partiallity for them in any way.”

Like the Eiffel Tower, created to be a temporary exhibition piece for the 1889 World Expo in Paris, I do hope the Olympic and Paralympic cauldron becomes a permanent display.

Posted in From Our Collections Tagged ,

A Day in the Life of an Adams Papers Editor

by Miriam Liebman, Adams Papers

When I go to family events, I often get a confused a look when I tell them I am an editor at the Adams Papers. Once I explain that I work on the papers of Abigail and John Adams and their family, their puzzled looks often go away. But they usually have several questions about what my work includes. I realized that many people may have similar questions about what we do at the Adams Papers project. At the heart of our work is making the papers of John and Abigail Adams and their family accessible to researchers, students, and the public.

I primarily work on the Papers of John Adams, the public papers of John Adams, and Adams Family Correspondence, the family papers. For more about the different series we publish, see here. The work on both series requires the same editorial process, which comprises several tasks including selection, collation, annotation, and production. These tasks vary depending on what stage we are up to in the production of a volume. Now, I am working on collation of Papers of John Adams, volume 24, and annotation for Papers of John Adams, volume 23, so I will provide more details about what those tasks include.

Here’s what a typical day looks like:

7:45–8:30: Prepare for Collation (which includes reviewing handwriting and making sure I requested all the necessary documents)

8:30–8:45: Access the documents needed for the day

8:45–12:00: Collation

Collation is one of my favorite parts of the editorial process. Collation is the tandem reading of documents selected for a volume, and right now we are working on the Papers of John Adams, volume 24. We collate in the morning for three hours, usually three or four days a week. One editor reads the letter aloud, while a second editor checks the existing transcription. We have a first and then second round of collation with two different pairs of editors. You may ask, why do you spend this much time reading documents aloud? Well, this is how we get the transcription of the documents to reflect what the authors of the letters wrote. For example, we read the letters, but also point out when words are capitalized, punctuation marks, and when text is written in the margins of a letter.

Most of the letters I collate were written by Timothy Pickering, John Adams’s secretary of state. (That is about to change however, since we just got up to the part of the volume when John Adams fired Pickering). Pickering’s handwriting is pretty neat (yes cool, but more importantly easier to read), but he does like to superscript (i.e. Mr) a lot. Letters can be just a few lines or in the case of the Elbridge Gerry letter I recently read, 27 pages! It is one of my favorite tasks because it allows you to better understand the people who wrote these letters and their daily interactions.

"Sir, Department of State Philadelphia, Monday morning May 12. 1800 I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated last Saturday, stating that “as you perceive a necessity of introducing a change in the administration of the Office of State, you think it proper to make this communication of it to the present Secretary of State, that he may have an opportunity of resigning, if he chooses:” and that “you would wish the day on which his resignation is to take place to be named by himself.”
An excerpt from Timothy Pickering’s letter to John Adams, 12 May 1800. The Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

12–1: Lunch

1–3:30: Annotation Revisions

After lunch, I returned to revising my annotation for the Papers of John Adams, vol. 23. We work on more than one volume at a time. Annotation are all the footnotes in our volume. Our volumes, including the annotation, are available in our digital editions, which you can check out (for free and without a login!) here. I am currently revising the annotation for documents which cover John Adams’s correspondence from July 1798. The main stories are Franco-American relations in the aftermath of the XYZ Affair and the passage of a direct tax law. Some of my revisions included providing more details on a specific topic. For example, I wrote about the Senate rejecting John Adams’s son in law William Stephens Smith for an officer role in the army. I included that Timothy Pickering lobbied some senators to vote against his nomination, but needed to find out which senators voted against him and why Pickering wanted them to vote against William Stephens Smith.

3:30–3:45: Return the documents used during the day

While all my days do not look exactly like this, the next few weeks will include annotation and collation before moving ahead on writing the index for Adams Family Correspondence, volume 16, and production tasks for the volume.

The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our sponsors. Major funding of the edition is currently provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the Packard Humanities Institute.

Posted in From Our Collections Tagged

Archivist as Detective: He’s Been Working on the Railroad

By Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist

The MHS, like all archives, holds a number of manuscripts that are unidentified for one reason or another. Of course, we try to identify the authors of these materials whenever possible, but if we can’t, they can still be cataloged by subject, location, time period, etc.

Recently I was tasked with identifying the author of an anonymous diary in our collections. I always enjoy these “investigations,” and I’ve written about a few of them here at the Beehive. So let’s dive in!

Color photograph of a hardback volume lying open showing two pages of diary entries in black-ink handwriting dated 8 March 1896 to 16 March 1896.
Anonymous diary, 1895–1899

The diary is a thin hardbound volume measuring 5 ½ x 7 inches. The leather binding is suffering from red rot and separating from the text block, but the paper itself is in good shape. Only about a third of the pages contain any writing, and the handwriting is, well, challenging. So my first hurdle was just figuring out what the diary says.

The entries date from 24 April 1895 to 19 July 1899 and describe a number of separate trips from Boston to the Midwest and Northwest U.S., as well as Mexico, Jamaica, and Europe. The author was apparently a man traveling on business of some kind, visiting places like factories, stockyards, and other properties. He wrote a lot about railroads, and the front of the volume contains detailed itineraries of each trip. At the back is a pencil sketch signed “M.A.A.” Could these be the initials of our author?

Color photograph of a pencil sketch drawn horizontally across one page of the volume. The sketch depicts two palm trees and a few unidentified buildings. At the top right of the page is handwritten text that reads “Falmouth Jamaica March 10 /98 by M.A.A.” Along the bottom, pieces of string are coming loose from the binding.
Pencil sketch at the end of the volume

Between the scrawly handwriting, cryptic abbreviations, and lack of context, I had a tough time finding clues at first. I noticed two names: Harry, who was ill and in whom the writer was interested, and Molly, with whom he corresponded. But this wasn’t much to go on.

Then I stumbled across a recurring name that would prove crucial. The writer’s frequent traveling companion was a Mr. Adams, sometimes C.F. Adams or just plain C.F.A. These initials are of course very familiar to MHS staff and historians. Were these references to one of the several Charles Francis Adamses, relatives of presidents John and John Quincy Adams?

The diary was written in the 1890s, so assuming I was on the right track, I had two candidates. One was Charles Francis Adams (1866-1964), but I ruled him out because, as mayor of Quincy, Mass. at the time, he was probably not traipsing around the country looking at properties. But his uncle, Charles Francis Adams (1835-1915), served as chair of the Massachusetts Railroad Commission and president of the Union Pacific Railroad. This set off alarm bells. I literally wrote in my notes beside his name: “Railroad guy!”

Next I consulted Adams family genealogies. In fact, “railroad guy” had a daughter Mary Ogden Adams, who went by Molly. She married Grafton St. Loe Abbott in 1890. Maybe Grafton was our man? He and Molly had a son Henry Livermore Abbott, who might have been the Harry who was ill.

Now that I was more familiar with the handwriting, I returned to the diary for confirmation. Sure enough, on 13 May 1895, the writer was recognized by a friend and used his own name in relaying the story: “As I was walking up [the] street a man stopped me & asked if I [was] Mr Abbott, it turned out to be Prescott.” And an entry at the end of 1897 refers to the death of Molly’s aunt Anne Ogden. Molly’s mother was Mary Hone Ogden.

Black and white photograph of a white man with short dark hair and a mustache sitting inside a boat with the water behind him. His left leg is crossed over his right leg, and his hands are cupping his left shin. He wears a cloth cap, a long-sleeved white shirt, a white bowtie, and striped pants with cuffs. He looks off to his left.
Photograph of Grafton St. Loe Abbott, 1894, from the Adams-Homans family photographs (Photo. #41.285)

Grafton St. Loe Abbott graduated from Harvard with a degree in law, but spent most of his life working in the mining and railroad businesses. This diary describes trips taken with his father-in-law Charles Francis Adams in the latter capacity. A detailed biographical notice of Grafton was printed in the 1917 report of the Harvard Class of 1877.

The sketch at the end of the volume, from a trip Grafton and Molly took to Falmouth, Jamaica, was drawn by Molly in 1898.

The catalog record for the diary is here. The MHS also holds the papers of Charles Francis Adams, Molly and Grafton’s daughter Mary Ogden Abbott, and other members of the Abbott family. Special thanks to MHS library assistant Hannah Goeselt, who helped gather details from the diary.

Posted in From Our Collections Tagged

Take a Walk for Exercise Like John Quincy Adams

By Heather Rockwood, Communications Manager

As the weather warms it’s time to be out of doors, and the best way to enjoy the weather is to take a walk—just like John Quincy Adams. His parents encouraged him in both diary writing and walking, he notes in many of his diary entries, and he kept a diary from the age of 11 in 1778 until his death in 1848, at age 81. He was a believer in walking for exercise even in inclement weather. On 22 November 1792 he wrote, “Very cold. exercise by way of punishment, walked a great deal.” He lamented how his commitments prevented him from his favorite exercise on 14 July 1811, “My occupation, my Company, and the weather prevented me the whole day from my usual exercise of walking.” And towards the end of his life, on 14 May 1847, he found it hard to walk, “I took a short walk in the afternoon, but finding it from day to day, more difficult to walk, fear that I must henceforth, confine all my bodily exercise, to riding in a carriage.”

Black and white image of black ink handwriting on paper. It is in cursive and a little hard to read.
Diary of John Quincy Adams, 14 May 1847.

Explore the John Quincy Adams Diaries, but first, go take a walk!

Posted in From Our Collections Tagged

John Quincy Adams Diary Now Fully Online!

by Neal Millikan, Series Editor for Digital Editions, The Adams Papers

The 15,000+ page diary kept by John Quincy Adams from 1779 to 1848 is now fully accessible online as the John Quincy Adams Digital Diary. A publication of the Adams Papers Editorial Project at the MHS, the Digital Diary is also one of four founding member projects of the Primary Source Cooperative, a collaborative digital editions publishing platform hosted by the Society.

The Digital Diary is presented as verified transcriptions paired with manuscript images of related entries. Biographical and historical context is supplied through essays on the major personal and professional divisions of Adams’s life, and people and historical topics are also identified for each date entry. Through the project’s participation in the Primary Source Cooperative, advanced federated search features allow users to track individuals or subjects both within and across the Cooperative editions.

John Quincy Adams often kept multiple versions of his diary, and the Digital Diary provides transcriptions of the entries in each of his 51 diary volumes. These include his “Rubbish,” almanac, and line-a-day diaries. The edition also integrates Adams’s earliest diaries, which were previously published in two letterpress volumes by the Adams Papers.

Color photograph of black ink drawings of two ships with lines, masts, sales, flags, and windows. The top ship is called The Frightful of 10 6 Pounders, the bottom is called The Horis of 8 6 Pounders.
John Quincy Adams’s sketches of ships named the Frightful and the Horrid on the inside back cover of his diary, 1780

With revised transcriptions, the more than 1,500 pages in this section of the diary chronicle John Quincy Adams’s travels in Europe, as he accompanied his father, John Adams, on a diplomatic mission in 1779 and subsequently attended schools in the Netherlands and France. It also records his travels to St. Petersburg as secretary and interpreter during Francis Dana’s mission to Russia. With John Quincy’s return to the United States in 1785, the diary provides insights into Adams’s preparation for and studies at Harvard College and his legal training in Newburyport.

A color photograph of a black ink printed engraving of three buildings in the middle ground, people walking, on horseback or driving carriages on an empty field in the foreground, and a cloudy sky in the background.
“A Westerly View of the Colledges in Cambridge in New England”; facsimile engraving by Sidney L. Smith of a drawing by Joseph Chadwick after Paul Revere’s 1767 engraving of Harvard College

Thanks to the efforts of many staff members, interns, and volunteers who contributed to the project since its inception in 2016, the full corpus of John Quincy Adams’s diary is now freely accessible and searchable online. Supplemental content will continue to be added via the Digital Diary and the Adams resources portion of the MHS website. This includes a timeline of Adams’s life and visualizations of the diary data via the Cooperative’s partnership with the Digital Scholarship Group at Northeastern University.

Come check it out and let us know what you think! Truly, we’d love to hear from you at adamspapers@uupt.net.

The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the support of our sponsors. The Amelia Peabody Charitable Fund provided major funding for the John Quincy Adams Digital Diary, along with generous contributions by Harvard University Press and a number of private donors. The Mellon Foundation in partnership with the National Historical Publications and Records Commission also supports the project through funding for the Society’s digital publishing collaborative, the Primary Source Cooperative.

Posted in From Our Collections, MHS News Tagged ,

“Preserve an honest Neutrality”

Sara Georgini, Series Editor, The Papers of John Adams

Huzzah for a new volume of The Papers of John Adams! Volume 20, which features Adams’ first term as vice president, is NOW available to read for free in the Adams Papers Digital Edition of the Massachusetts Historical Society website. In 301 documents, it offers a backstage pass to the drama of the first federal Congress, as George Washington and his cabinet shielded a fragile new nation pledging peace in a war-torn world. Maintaining “neutrality, as long as it may be practicable,” was the chief goal. For, as Adams advised Washington: “The People of these States would not willingly Support a War, and the present Government has not Strength to command, nor enough of the general Confidence of the nation to draw the men or money necessary, untill the Grounds, causes and Necessity of it Should become generally known, and universally approved.” Far from the national capital of Philadelphia, a sudden storm of events clouded the United States’ future. Volume 20’s spotlight on the understudied Nootka Sound crisis reveals how the violent interplay of imperial powers guided American prospects well after revolutionary soldiers laid down their arms.

A black and white drawing of a coastal trading post with a ship and a cloudy sky.
Friendly Cove, Nootka Sound [Wikimedia]

America attracted adventures and entrepreneurs flying various flags in order to pocket big profits. John Meares, a former British naval officer, set up shop in Canada’s Nootka Sound in 1788 by using a blend of British and Portuguese colors. Meares leveraged a key hinge in global economic power. Nootka Sound functioned as a fur trade hotspot and as a gateway to the fabled Northwest Passage. Meares’ establishment of a trading post simultaneously agitated long-held notions of Spanish dominion, British opportunity, and American neutrality. Spanish Navy commodore Don Esteban José Martinez retaliated the following spring. He seized four of Meares’ ships and arrested the crews, bolstering the Spanish claim to the region. Meares sent petition after petition to the British foreign ministry seeking aid, and Anglo-Spanish relations dipped to a new low. What began as a local brawl over trading rights escalated into a clash of European powers by June 1790. Like many Americans, Adams watched tensely. British and Spanish ministries ramped up fleets and threats.

The press hurled reports and misinformation at a dizzying pace, and the vice president’s worry grew. Maybe British militias were training in Detroit, Michigan. And Spanish Army officers planned to invade St. Augustine, Florida. Or William Pitt the Younger launched secret talks with Latin American revolutionaries, plotting full British control of the region’s gold and silver mines in the wake of a Spanish defeat. Americans, who had largely evaded the global conflicts that raged in the 1780s, eyed the Nootka Sound crisis with real fear. Would the British strike through French Louisiana? What if they sought safe passage across neutral American lands to quell the Spanish? Whatever the United States decided, how would the big choice play in Europe—treaties sunk, ministers recalled, trade lost for another generation or two? Washington needed to know. Adams was first and loudest to weigh in. He urged Washington not to permit the trespass of foreign troops, citing law of nations theory and using his diplomatic experience to sketch a few scenarios of the Anglo-Spanish dispute.

Then John Adams took one more step forward. While he prickled at the secondary nature of his government role, Adams relished the chance to let his statesmanship shine. So Adams pushed for the expansion of the American diplomatic sector, reasoning that greater crises loomed ahead. The United States needed to recruit and assign more ministers to foreign courts. “It is a Misfortune that in these critical moments and Circumstances, the United States have not a Minister of large Veiws, mature Age Information and Judgment, and Strict Integrity at the Courts of France Spain London and the Hague,” Adams observed. “Early and authentick Intelligence from those Courts may be of more importance than the Expence: but as the Representatives of the People, as well as of the Legislatures, are of a different opinion they have made a very Scanty Provision for but a part of Such a system. As it is, God knows where the Men are to be found who are qualified for Such Missions and would undertake them.” To learn about the final resolution of the troubles at Nootka Sound—and how Vice President John Adams perceived opportunities for national progress despite periods of deep diplomatic crisis—you can start reading Volume 20 of The Papers of John Adams here.

The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our sponsors. Major funding for The Papers of John Adams is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the Packard Humanities Institute.

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John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams: The Original Tortured Poets

By Gwen Fries, Adams Papers

With her 11th studio album, Taylor Swift introduced the world to her “Tortured Poets Department,” inducting like-minded artists to her fictional committee. After a week of assiduously studying the criteria, I have two new members to nominate. I hereby call this meeting to order.

I stand before my fellow members of the Tortured Poets Department with an application for two new members—John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams. I enter into evidence the following summary of my findings.

Louisa Catherine Adams. Oil by Charles Robert Leslie, 1816. Courtesy of Diplomatic Reception Rooms (Taylorized by the author)

Exhibit A: Tortured — I love you. It’s ruining my life

That like the esteemed founder and chairwoman of the Department, Ms. Swift, Mrs. Adams found it difficult to balance her private life with her public demands.

In her Diary she wrote that it was “a very painful thing to me to be dragged into public notice, and made an object of debate in every company—but these are the penalties I must pay for being the Wife of a man . . . who by his real and extraordinary merits throws those who are more ambitious than himself into the shade.” (LCA, Diary, 21 Dec. 1819)

Her husband’s vocal political views on the gag rule and slavery alienated many of her loved ones in the South. “Every friend is turned into an enemy; and now the prospect terminates with the fear of losing the love, the friendship and the society of my own nearest and dearest connections.” (LCA, Diary, 21 Dec. 1835)

In private, she was tortured by the belief that her husband would have been better off married to someone else. “Few have laboured harder to correct the defects of their character than I have, or have studied their faults so keenly,” Mrs. Adams confided to her diary, “but there is a constitutional irritability about me of late years, trying to my friends and painful to myself, which is I know so disagreeable to all who live with me; it induces me to live much alone, that I may not burthen those, whose happiness I most desire in this life, and for whom I would willingly make any sacrifices to promote their welfare.”

Exhibit B: Poets
Straight from the Tortured Poets Department

That both Mrs. and Mr. Adams were lifelong poets. A catalog of their extant poetry is entered into evidence. “Could I have chosen my own Genius and Condition I should have made myself a great Poet,” John Quincy wrote on 16 Oct. 1816. “I have wasted much of my life in writing verses.”

John Quincy Adams. Oil by Pieter Van Huffel, 1815. Courtesy of the NPG. (Taylorized by the author)

Exhibit C: Independent Thinkers

I’ll tell you something about my good name
It’s mine alone to disgrace
I don’t cater to all these vipers

That like our esteemed chairwoman, Ms. Swift, Mr. Adams refused to be steered by the opinions of others or dominated by his reputation or the reputation of his illustrious father. As a young senator serving in the years immediately following his father’s loss to the new President Jefferson, John Quincy chose to follow his instinct rather than the party line of the Federalists who had supported his father.

On 20 Dec. 1803, Adams wrote to Joseph Hall, “When I accepted the station I hold, it was not with the expectation of giving satisfaction at all times to all my constituents.— I expected to be often censured & from various & opposite quarters.”

To his Diary, Adams declared, “I find myself of course in opposition to the federalists in general. . . . In this state of things my situation calls in a peculiar manner for prudence; my political prospects are declining, and as my term of Service draws near its close, I am constantly approaching to the certainty of being restored to the situation of a private citizen— For this Event however, I hope to have my mind sufficiently prepared— In the mean time I implore that Spirit from whom every good and perfect gift descends to enable me to render essential Service to my Country, and that I may never be governed in my public conduct by any consideration other than that of my duty.”

Exhibit D: Florida!!!
No one asks any questions here

That as Secretary of State, Adams negotiated the Adams-Onis (Transcontinental) Treaty, convincing Spain to relinquish Florida to the United States. Without this intervention, the chairwoman, Ms. Swift, would have nowhere to go when she “need[s] to forget” and to “bury” her “regrets.”

The above evidence is respectfully submitted to the Department.

Sincerely,

Gwen Fries

The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our sponsors. Major funding for the John Quincy Adams Digital Diary was provided by the Amelia Peabody Charitable Fund, with additional contributions by Harvard University Press and a number of private donors. The Mellon Foundation in partnership with the National Historical Publications and Records Commission also supports the project through funding for the Society’s digital publishing collaborative, the Primary Source Cooperative.

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The Double Life of James Wilkinson

By Sarah Hume, Editorial Assistant 

In 1797, a Kentucky merchant named Elijah Waters came forward with an important, yet extreme, claim: Gen. James Wilkinson, second in command in the Northwest Territory, was a spy. He was trading secrets to Spain.

Waters wasn’t the only one to make such allegations. For years, rumors had circulated about Wilkinson’s connection to Spain. Even Gen. Anthony Wayne, his commanding officer, accused Wilkinson of spying and led an investigation against him. Allegations were so widespread that John Adams wrote, “scarcely any Man arrives from that neighbourhood, who does not bring the report along with him.” (John Adams to James Wilkinson, 4 February 1798).

When General Wayne died on 15 December 1796, it seemed time for Wilkinson to escape suspicion. And yet rumors of treason continued and Wilkinson refused to lay low. Instead, he asked John Adams to continue the investigation.

“Prosecution is in the grave with General Wayne,” Wilkinson wrote in his 26 December 1797 letter, “but the Door is still open to investigation, & I most earnestly wish an enquiry into my Conduct Military & political, indeed the vindication of my own aspersed reputation.”

An excerpt from James Wilkinson’s letter to John Adams, 26 December 1797. The Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Adams replied to Wilkinson on 4 February 1798, saying he did not believe either Waters’s claim or other allegations.

“We may be nearer than we suspect to another tryal of our Spirits; I doubt not yours will be found faithful,” Adams wrote. “I shall give no Countenance to any Imputations unless accusations should come, and then you will have Room to justify yourself; But I assure you I do not Expect that any Charge will be seriously made.”

Wilkinson never received an indictment from Adams. He went on to be trusted by the next two presidential administrations and died in 1825 having never been confirmed a spy. Only later would historians uncover his treasonous activities.

Like much of Adams’s correspondence in the Papers of John Adams, this brief exchange captures a moment of dangerous precipice. Had Wilkinson been more successful, he may have forever changed the American narrative. Exchanges between Wilkinson and Adams highlight the advantage we have as scholars: we know the end of the story. Reading correspondence allows us to see from an eighteenth-century vantage point instead. And though Elijah Waters may be only a passing reference in correspondence, history ultimately proves him right in the case of General James Wilkinson.

The correspondence between James Wilkinson and President John Adams will be included in the forthcoming volume 22 of the Papers of John Adams to be published Fall 2024.

The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our sponsors. Major funding for the Papers of John Adams is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the Packard Humanities Institute.

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