Abigail Smith Adams

This paper I wrote for Commonwealth School.

Abigail Smith Adams

Abigail Adams is my Hero. Some of my favorite things about her are just like her husband she was "voluble and outspoken, never afraid to assert her opinion’s whether in the company of friends, family, or heads of state,"sort of like myself. She raised four children, managed a farm, and conquered her intense feelings of loneliness and depression, all by herself when John was either at Congress or in Europe. Intelligent and broad-minded , Abigail was often ahead of her time with many of her ideas. She opposed slavery, believed in equal education and representation for boys and girls. Abigail practiced what she learned as a child, "the duty of the fortunate is to help those who are less fortunate." Abigail and I have some things in common: we have the same birthdays; November 22, we enjoy being away from our homes for only short periods of time, we both love to educate ourselves, and read. One of my favorite quotes from her is, "Learning is not attained by chance. It must be-sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence." Another quote that I really like, that came from a letter she wrote to John is, "I would desire you would remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power in to the hands of husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention not be paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by laws in which we have no voice, or Representation." William Smith, Abigail’s father. Was a Clergyman in Weymouth Massachusetts. He married Elizabeth Quincy. The Quincy family was a well to do family with lots of land and money. Elizabeth’s family did not approve of the marriage after all he was a poor clergyman and she was daughter of the richest family in Massachusetts. However, they excepted him into the family. A year after they were married, she had their first child, a baby girl named Mary, three years later she had another baby girl named Abigail on November 22, 1774, in 1746 William arrived, and in 1750 Elizabeth also known as Betsy followed.
A cold blizzard night on November 22, 1744 a baby girl was born to two most anxious parents. The baby Abigail was early and very sick. Everybody thought she would not last the night. Much to their surprise, she grew up to be a very active and intelligent woman.
Abigail, or Nabby was a frail creature all through her years. She did not go to Dame School with her other sisters because her mother thought for sure she would catch something and die. So her mother, father and grandmother Quincy all took a part in her education. Her mother taught her how to be a good mother, wife, and homemaker. She also taught her daughter to sew, cook, clean, etc. Her grandma Quincy had a great impact and influence on Abigail’s life. Her grandmother encouraged her to read and educate herself. Her father and all of his girls spent many hours together in his library studying literature, history theology and much more. He also taught them how to read seriously–not just the meanings of words and sentence, but the thoughts and ideas that lay behind them. If you were ever looking for Abigail you would probably find her in her fathers library pouring herself over her father’s books. Some of Abigail’s favorites were Shakespeare, Pope, and Locke. Later in her life she would be known as the best read woman of her time.
Abigail grew up quiet and restrained with a strongly felt faith, and it remained unshaken throughout her life. "Religion, as far as she was concerned, was most in providing a set of moral standards for behavior and a source of hope in troubled times." A neighbor told her one time "Abigail you will either make a good woman or a very bad one." Abigail always obeyed her mother and did her household chores, but she had a stubborn streak that was disturbing. She did not have "the gentle docile disposition" that turned girls into lady like young women, that her mother wished she would become. Her grandmother did not think like that though she said, "the wildest colts make the best horses," her grandma always thought of her as refreshing.
Abigail spent most of her teen years in Boston with her aunt and uncle on her father’s side. She became good friends with a group of girls named Hannah Storer, Mary Palmer, Mary Nicholson, Eunice Paine and then of course her sister Mary. All of these girls wrote a lot to each other, So they made up pen names for each other Abigail’s was Diana - Roman goddess of the moon, patron of virgins and hunting: These girls’ friendship lasted through everything: marriages, children, moves to other towns, and political uproar.
Abigail met John Adams when she was 15. During that time, John was courting Abigail’s cousin, Hannah Quincy. John watched the Smith girls and was not impressed, he compared them to Hannah and of course they were nothing compared to her in his eyes. Abigail disliked John too. He was outspoken and rude, usually speaking before thinking. When Abigail was 18, she started seeing more of John. Because her sister Mary’s beau, Richard Cranch came to court Mary, he brought John with him. Richard loved to talk to Abigail about books. When ever he came to visit he brought more books for Abigail to read. Soon John started following Richard’s example, bringing books and talking with her on different subjects. He was amazed how intelligent and quick she was. In time, Abigail came to enjoy John’s visits as much as Richard’s. Abigail was shy around John, but then she got to know him and found that his bold and forthright behavior was very attractive. A little while later Mary and Richard got married. Now John did not need an excuse to visit the Smith home. He of thought Abigail as prudent, delicate, soft, sensible, obliging and active.
After a couple months of courting John and Abigail were discussing marriage. John wrote her one time about marriage saying, "I never did refuse marriage and never will, but on the contrary am ready to take you at any time." John and Abigail’s courtship was very long. John being a lawyer was gone to Boston a lot. Abigail’s parents disapproved of the match. Her mother thought his background being a lawyer was not prestigious enough for her daughter to marry. John and Abigail cared so much about each other that it was hard to hold back their affection for each other sometimes. They finally had a wedding date but they had to postpone it due to a small pox epidemic breaking out in Boston. It usually did not hit the small towns like Weymouth and Braintree. Nevertheless, John’s work took him to Boston a lot. Finally it was over and they were married in Weymouth on October 25, 1764. They moved to Braintree where he had inherited land after his father’s death.
Their farm consisted of two cottages, one of them theirs, and the other one was where John’s mother lived, and 10 acres. Even though it was small, after a while they accumulated more land. When Abigail finally was settled in to married life, they were expecting their first child. On July 14, 1764 they were blessed with a baby girl named Abigail (they called her Nabby. ) Nabby was a great baby cheerful and docile. Soon after Nabby’s arrival the British Government passed the Stamp Act. The colonies were furious. John started into politics shortly after the Stamp Act. In 1766 he was elected one of Braintree’s selectmen.
Little did anybody know that on July 14, 1767 Abigail would give birth to the sixth president of the United States. They named him John Quincy, after Abigail’s grandfather who had died a couple days before the arrival. Abigail believed very seriously that "mothers were primarily responsible for training their children to become moral, God-fearing, useful adults."
In March of 1768 the Adams family moved to Boston. Lessen John’s consistent travel between their home and Boston. There in Boston Abigail gave birth to a poor sickly little Susanna on December 28, 1768. Susanna died a couple months before her first birthday. John hated living in Boston but Abigail loved it. The only thing that bothered her was the constant noise.
Shortly after they moved to Boston, trouble started brewing. All of King George’s solders moved into their neighborhood, and then the "Boston Massacre." John helped the King’s men through court and won. To John and Abigail’s surprise the colonists did not hold it against them.
Many visitors came to their Boston home. John Hancock, James Otis, Josiah Quincy Jr., Joseph Warren, and John’s cousin Samuel Adams and his wife Betsy (in which Abigail became great friends)often came to their home. Politics might have been men’s business, but Abigail could not help being drawn in to the discussions in her parlor.
A little while after Susanna’s death Abigail gave birth to a boy on May 29, 1770 they named him Charles. When Charles was a week old John was elected a representative to the Massachusetts legislature.
Three years after their move to Boston they decided to move back to Braintree, because of their familys’ poor health and stress. John wrote in his diary that he would now devote himself to his business and family, "Farewell politics!" On September 15,1771 Abigail had another boy Thomas.
In 1772 the family moved back to Boston. She met Mercy Otis Warren, a woman double Abigail’s 29 years, but a thinker. They had a lot of the same ideas and were both interested in politics. Mercy became a role-model to Abigail, the two friends loved to discuss and think politics just like their husbands.
The family moved back to the farm in 1774. John went back into politics and helped with the first Continental Congress. He helped write the "Declaration of Independence." That declared our Independence and war with the Mother Country.
When war broke out John was gone all of the time doing all different things for the colonies. The worst part about the war for Abigail was that most of the schools were interrupted by soldiers and other people with news about the war. So when John Quincy was seven and old enough to start actually going and taking school seriously, she had to teach him and the rest of his siblings at home.
During John’s long absences Abigail wrote to her Beloved John when ever she could find the time. John had always asked for Abigail’s advice but he asked it even more during the war.
During the war, John and John Quincy went to France. Abigail hated that John was leaving only a short time after he got home from Congress, but she let him go. Abigail wrote many letters to John, but received little from him. His letters were usually short and unfeeling. Abigail took over everything now that John was in France, she raised and educated her children, kept a house and farm running mostly by herself, and kept them out of debt. John wrote her a letter when they first arrived in France. The French women fascinated him; he found them handsome, charming, and better educated then American or English women. He told Abigail, "Don’t be jealous." She replied, "I can hear of the brilliant accomplishments of any of my same sex with pleasure and rejoice in that Liberality of Sentiment which acknowledges them. At the same time I regret the trifling narrow contracted Education of the Females of my own country."
It became harder for Abigail and the children to keep their farm going while John and Johnny were gone, so they moved to Boston and rented the farm out. John started sending goods to Abigail, and she sold most of the goods to pay bills and keep them out of debt. She also knew that other people would need them more than her little family.
After awhile, Abigail saw that her almost grown children were needing less of her attention. Nabby went to school in Boston and spent many weeks with Mercy Warren, while Charles and Tommy were sent of to her sister Elizabeth’s house to be tutored under her husband John Shaw. William, her brother usually sent his little daughter Louisa to go and stay with her aunt Abigail since he had little money and a big brood of children.
When John was gone, Abigail was writing to a man, Mr. Lovell from Congress so that she could know what was going on. It turned out that Mr. Lovell had different ideas about writing to Abigail. He always flirted with her and called her "lovely Portia." Abigail did not agree with this kind of behavior but it only encouraged him to keep flirting, even though she secretly enjoyed the attention because of the unfeeling letters she got from John which seldom came. During this time, her son Johnny was on his way to Russia with the new ambassador to Russia, a Mr. Taylor. It was a full year before she ever saw John or Johnny again. In August 1779 John and Johnny finally landed on the shore of Braintree. Giving Abigail a big surprise.
In October 1779, John received a letter form Congress telling him that he was the new Ambassador to Europe. He ended up going to France and, he took John Quincy and Charles with him. This time he would be in Europe for four years. After the fourth year of separation, Abigail and Nabby sailed to England to be with husband and father. Abigail and Nabby arrived in London on July 21, 1784. When John and John Quincy heard of Abigail and Nabby’s arrival John sent John Quincy to London to bring his mother and sister to Auteuil, France where John had purchased a Mansion. It took Abigail a while to get use to the idea of a big house with thirty-eight bedrooms in it and managing eight "lazy french servants" as written in her journal. Abigail disliked France for many reasons. A couple of them were that the French people did not take marriage seriously, and they were not a moral people. Because they did not taking matrimony seriously, there were a lot of children born and stuck into orphanages. The Opera drove her insane, the people thought that life was more like a game so they never really took life seriously. The French people did not like the Adams family because of what they stood for, and because they were outspoken. When John Quincy turned eighteen, John and Abigail decided that he had enough perspective of the world, he finally needed to go to college. (Usually boys went to college when they were fourteen to fifteen years old.)
During that time John received a letter from Congress telling him that he was the newly appointed ambassador to England. Abigail was not happy. She had been in France for almost two years, and it was time to go home. She went with him to England anyway. They spent seven year in England. Abigail liked England a lot better than France because England, the mother country was like America. They left England on May 30, 1788.They arrived in Boston in July of that same year. They were welcomed by the Governor of Massachusetts who was John Hancock, family, and friends.
All of their children had married by now and had families of their own. Abigail (Nabby) married Colonel William Smith of New York in 1786. They had three boys and one girl. Nabby died of breast cancer on August 15, 1813. John Quincy when he was Minister to Prussia married Louisa Catherine Johnson on July 26, 1797. Louisa was the only First Lady not born in America. They had a happy marriage. Louisa and Abigail did not get along that well though. Johnny and Louisa had four children. Charles was a crazy and rebellious son, he married Sarah Smith sister to his brother in-law Colonel William Smith. They had two daughters. Charles died November 30 1800 during his fathers presidency of alcohol. His wife Sally stayed and lived with the Adams after her husbands death. Thomas married Ann Harrod in 180. They had seven children. Thomas died March 12, 1832.
Now they expected to live quiet farm lives at Peacefield with their children and grandchildren. Little did they know that their life’s mission still was not completed. After about a month of living quiet lives, one of their good friends, John Jay, called on John and Abigail. Mr. Jay was going to nominate John to be President or Vice-President. John was elected Vice-President. John was the Vice-President for two terms. The first part of John’s vice-presidency, John, Abigail, Thomas, and Louisa (Abigail’s niece) lived in New York. One of the things Abigail did not like about being Mrs. Vice-President was having to entertain guests al of the time. One of my favorite little tricks that she did, is when people called on her (you were expected to call back), so she would call on people after six o’clock when people where usually out. During their second term, Congress moved to Philadelphia. So the Adams family packed up and moved into a little town house in Philadelphia.
When General Washington’s two terms were up. John Adams became President. During this time Abigail disliked being First Lady, because of all of the parties she had to give. John and Abigail took along time on finding a house that was affordable, because Congress did not pay for a house. John and Abigail after their presidency was almost over the White House was finished and John and Abigail moved in. Abigail was so tired when she moved in the house, because she had to give a party at the White House two weeks after they moved in. First of all the grounds were just mud, the house still wasn’t quiet finished, and etc. Abigail’s energy got the house finished in time. After John’s first term he was seceded by Thomas Jefferson. John and was not very happy about it and did not go to Jefferson’s inauguration.
Now John and Abigail got their wish. They moved back to Peacefield after twenty-one years of public service. When they retired to Peacefield their son Thomas brought his wife Ann and moved in with John and Abigail. Abigail loved Thomas’s wife Ann. There wasn’t contention between the two like there was between Abigail and Louisa. During that time John Quincy , Louisa, and their son George Washington Adams came to visit them at Peacefield. Abigail watched over and played with her grandchildren until she died on October 28, 1818 at the age seventy-four from typhoid fever. Her death gave everybody a big shock. Abigail usually overcame most of her sicknesses very fast.






Bibliography:
Dearest Friend by: Lynne Withey
The Life of Abigail Adams by: Charles W. Akers
Patriotic Hearts by: Barbra Hambly
www. abigailadams.org
www.wikipedia.org
www.answers.org
www.mountalverniahs.org
www.whitehouse.gov
www.rootsweb.org
John Adams (the movie)

Springtime

The dandelions have bloomed!!!

I've been itching for spring, now it's come! I've found it harder to be studying a doing other necessary things of the sort. I've been outside, playing enjoying myself. Does this count as studies? Do I need to focus on studies this time of year? Or can I learn in the nature? Do you take extra time off in the Spring/Summer months? Or do you go all year round?