John Quincy Adams was fortunate in the home of his birth and childhood.
It was a New England farm, descended from ancestors who were never so
poor as to be dependent upon others, nor so rich as to be exempted from
dependence upon themselves. It was situated in the town of Quincy, then
the first parish of the town of Braintree, and the oldest permanent
settlement of Massachusetts proper.[17] The first parish became a town
by its present name, twenty-five years after the birth of Mr. Adams,
viz. in 1792. It was named in honor of John Quincy, Mr. Adams's maternal
great-grandfather, an eminent man. His death, and the transmission of
his name to his great-grandson, are thus commemorated by the latter:
"He was dying when I was baptized, and his daughter, my grandmother,
present at my birth, requested that I should receive his name. The fact,
recorded by my father at the time, has connected with that portion of my
name a charm of mingled sensibility and devotion. It was filial
tenderness that gave the name. It was the name of one passing from earth
to immortality. It has been to me a perpetual admonition to do nothing
unworthy of it."
The farm-house stands at the foot of an eminence called Penn's Hill,
about a mile south of Quincy village. It is an old-fashioned dwelling,
having a two-story front, and sloping far away to a single one in the
rear. This style is peculiar to the early descendants of the Puritan
fathers of America. Specimens are becoming rarer every year; and being
invariably built of wood, must soon pass away, but not without "the
tribute of a sigh" from those, who associate with them memories of the
wide old fireplaces, huge glowing backlogs, and hospitable cheer.
With this modest material environment of the child, was coupled an
intellectual and moral, which was golden. His father, the illustrious
John Adams, was bred, and in his youth labored, on the farm. At the
birth of his son, he was still a young man, being just turned of thirty,
but ripe both in general and professional knowledge, and already
recognized as one of the ablest counsellors and most powerful pleaders
at the bar of the province.
The mother of John Quincy Adams was worthy to be the companion and
counsellor of the statesman just described. By reason of slender health
she never attended a school. As to the general education allowed to
girls at that day, she tells us that it was limited "in the best
families to writing, arithmetic, and, in rare instances, music and
dancing;" and that "it was fashionable to ridicule female learning."
From her father, a clergyman, from her mother, a daughter of John
Quincy, and above all from her grandmother, his wife, she derived
liberal lessons and salutary examples. Thus her education was entirely
domestic and social. Perhaps it was the better for the absence of that
absorbing passion of the schools, which for the most part rests as well
satisfied with negative elevation by the failure of another, as with
positive elevation by the improvement of one's self. The excellent and
pleasant volume of her letters, which has gone through several editions,
indicates much historical, scriptural, and especially poetical and
ethical culture. In propriety, ease, vivacity and grace, they compare
not unfavorably with the best epistolary collections; and in constant
good sense, and occasional depth and eloquence, no letter-writer can be
named as her superior. To her only daughter, mother of the late Mrs. De
Wint, she wrote concerning the influence of her grandmother as follows:
"I have not forgotten the excellent lessons which I received from my
grandmother, at a very early period of life. I frequently think they
made a more durable impression upon my mind than those which I received
from my own parents. Whether it was owing to a happy method of mixing
instruction and amusement together, or from an inflexible adherence to
certain principles, which I could not but see and approve when a child,
I know not; but maturer years have made them oracles of wisdom to me.
Her lively, cheerful disposition animated all around her, whilst she
edified all by her unaffected piety. I cherish her memory with a holy
veneration, whose maxims I have treasured, whose virtues live in my
remembrance--happy if I could say they have been transplanted into my
life."
The concluding aspiration was more than realized, because Mrs. Adams
lived more than the fortunate subject of her eulogy, and more than any
American woman of her time. She was cheerful, pious, compassionate,
discriminating, just and courageous up to the demand of the times. She
was a calm adviser, a zealous assistant, and a never failing consolation
of her partner, in all his labors and anxieties, public and private.
That the laborers might be spared for the army, she was willing to work
in the field. Diligent, frugal, industrious and indefatigable in the
arrangement and details of the household and the farm, the entire
management of which devolved upon her for a series of years, she
preserved for him amidst general depreciation and loss of property, an
independence, upon which he could always count and at last retire. At
the same time she responded to the numerous calls of humanity,
irrespective of opinions and parties. If there was a patriot of the
Revolution who merited the title of _Washington of women_, she was the
one.
It is gratifying to know that this rare combination of virtue and
endowments met with a just appreciation from her great husband. In his
autobiography, written at a late period of life, he records this
touching testimony, that "his connection with her had been the source of
all his felicity," and his unavoidable separations from her, "of all the
griefs of his heart, and all that he esteemed real afflictions in his
life." Throughout the two volumes of letters to her, embracing a period
of twenty-seven years, the lover is more conspicuous than the statesman;
and she on her part regarded him with an affection unchangeable and ever
fresh during more than half a century of married life. On one of the
anniversaries of her wedding she wrote from Braintree to him in Europe:
"Look at this date and tell me what are the thoughts which arise in your
mind. Do you not recollect that eighteen years have run their circuit,
since we pledged our mutual faith, and the hymeneal torch was lighted at
the altar of love? Yet, yet it burns with unabating fervor. Old ocean
cannot quench it; old Time cannot smother it in this bosom. It cheers me
in the lonely hour."
The homely place at Penn's Hill was thrice ennobled, twice as the
birth-place of two noble men--noble before they were Presidents; and
thirdly as the successful rival of the palaces inhabited by its
proprietors at the most splendid courts of Europe, which never for a
moment supplanted it in their affections. Mrs. Adams wrote often from
Paris and London in this strain: "My humble cottage at the foot of the
hill has more charms for me than the drawing-room of St. James;" and
John Adams still oftener thus: "I had rather build wall on Penn's Hill
than be the first prince of Europe, or the first general or first
senator of America."
Such were the hearts that unfolded the childhood of John Quincy Adams.
Of all the things which grace or deform the early home, the principles,
aims and efforts of the parents in conducting the education of the child
are the most important to both. The mutual letters of the parents, in
the present case, contain such wise and patriotic precepts, such
sagacious methods, such earnest and tender persuasions to the
acquisition of all virtue, knowledge, arts and accomplishments, that can
purify and exalt the human character, that they would form a valuable
manual for the training of true men and purer patriots.
Although the spot which has been mentioned was John Quincy Adams's
principal home until he was nearly eleven, yet he resided at two
different intervals, within that time, four or five years in Boston; his
father's professional business at one time, and his failing health at
another, rendering the alternation necessary. The first Boston residence
was the White House, so called, in Brattle-street. In front of this a
British regiment was exercised every morning by Major Small, during the
fall and winter of 1768, to the no little annoyance of the tenant. But
says he, "in the evening, I was soothed by the sweet songs, violins and
flutes of the serenading Sons of Liberty." The family returned to
Braintree in the spring of 1771. In November, 1772, they again removed
to Boston, and occupied a house which John Adams had purchased in Queen
(now Court) street, in which he also kept his office. From this issued
state papers and appeals, which did not a little to fix the destiny of
the country. The ground of that house has descended to Charles Francis
Adams, his grandson. In 1774 Penn's Hill became the permanent home of
the family, although John Adams continued his office in Boston, attended
by students at law, until it was broken up by the event of April 19th,
1775.
Soon after the final return to Quincy, we begin to have a personal
acquaintance with the boy, now seven years old. Mrs. Adams writes to her
husband, then attending the Congress in Philadelphia:
"I have taken a very great fondness for reading Rollin's Ancient History
since you left me. I am determined to go through with it, if possible,
in these my days of solitude. I find great pleasure and entertainment
from it, and I have persuaded Johnny to read me a page or two every day,
and hope he will, from a desire to oblige me, entertain a fondness for
it."
In the same year the first mention is made of his regular attendance
upon a teacher. The person selected in that capacity was a young man
named Thaxter, a student at law, transferred from the office in Boston,
to the family in Quincy. The boy seems to have been very much attached
to him. Mrs. Adams assigned the following reasons for preferring this
arrangement to the public town school.
"I am certain that if he does not get so much good, he gets less harm;
and I have always thought it of very great importance that children
should be unaccustomed to such examples as would tend to corrupt the
purity of their words and actions, that they may chill with horror at
the sound of an oath, and blush with indignation at an obscene
expression."
This furnishes a pleasing coincidence with a precept of ancient
prudence:--
Let nothing foul in speech or act intrude,
Where reverend childhood is.
There is no disapprobation of public schools to be inferred from this.
These are indispensable for the general good; but if from this narrative
a hint should be taken for making them more and more pure, and worthy of
their saving mission, such an incident will be welcome.
Of the next memorable year we have a reminiscence from himself. It was
related in a speech at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1843.
"In 1775 the minute men, from a hundred towns in the Provinces, were
marching to the scenes of the opening war. Many of them called at our
house, and received the hospitality of John Adams. All were lodged in
the house whom the house would contain, others in the barns, and
wherever they could find a place. There were then in my father's house
some dozen or two of pewter spoons; and I well recollect seeing some of
the men engaged in running those spoons into bullets. Do you wonder that
a boy of seven years of age, who witnessed these scenes, should be a
patriot?"
He saw from Penn's Hill the flames of Charlestown, and heard the guns of
Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights.
In one of her letters from France, Mrs. Adams remarks that he was
generally taken to be older than his sister (about two years older than
he), because he usually conversed with persons older than himself--a
remarkable proof of a constant aim at improvement, of a wise discernment
of the means, and of the maturity of acquisitions already made. Edward
Everett remarks in his eulogy, that such a stage as boyhood seems not to
have been in the life of John Quincy Adams. While he was under ten, he
wrote to his father the earliest production of his pen which has been
given to the public. It is found in Governor Seward's Memoir of his life,
and was addressed to his father.
BRAINTREE, June 2d, 1777.
Dear Sir:--I love to receive letters very well, much better than I love
to write them. I make but a poor figure at composition. My head is much
too fickle. My mind is running after bird's eggs, play and trifles, till
I get vexed with myself. Mamma has a troublesome task to keep me a
studying. I own I am ashamed of myself. I have but just entered the
third volume of Rollin's History, but I designed to have got half thro'
it by this time. I am determined this week to be more diligent. Mr.
Thaxter is absent at Court. I have set myself a stent this week to read
the third volume half out. If I can keep my resolution, I may again, at
the end of a week, give a better account of myself. I wish, sir, you
would give me in writing some instructions in regard to the use of my
time, and advise me how to proportion my studies and play, and I will
keep them by me, and endeavor to follow them.
With the present determination of growing better, I am, dear sir, your
son, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
P.S. Sir, if you will be so good as to favor me with a blank-book, I
will transcribe the most remarkable passages I meet with in my reading,
which will serve to fix them on my mind.
Soon after the evacuation of Boston by Lord Howe, Mrs. Adams announces
that "Johnny has become post-rider from Boston to Braintree." The
distance was nine miles, and he was nine years old. In this hardy
enterprise, and in the foregoing letter, we may mark the strong hold
which the favourite maxims of the parents had taken of their child's
mind. Among those maxims were these:
To begin composition very early by writing descriptions of natural
objects, as a storm, a country residence; or narrative of events, as a
walk, ride, or the transactions of a day.
To transcribe the best passages from the best writers in the course of
reading, as a means of forming the style as well as storing the memory.
To cultivate spirit and hardihood, activity and power of endurance.
Soon after this, the lad ceased to have a home except in the bosom of
affection, and that was a divided one. On the 13th of February, 1778, he
embarked for France with his father, who had been appointed a
commissioner, jointly with Dr. Franklin and Arthur Lee, to negotiate
treaties of alliance and commerce with that country. From the place of
embarcation his father wrote: "Johnny sends his duty to his mamma, and
love to his sister and brothers. _He behaves like a man._"
When they arrived in France, after escaping extraordinary perils at sea,
they found the treaty of alliance already concluded. The son was put to
school in Paris, and gave his father "great satisfaction, both by his
assiduity to his books and his discreet behavior," all which the father
lovingly attributes to the lessons of the mother. He calls the boy "the
joy of his heart."
He was permitted to tarry but three months, when he was commissioned to
negotiate treaties of independence, peace, and commerce with Great
Britain. He embarked for France in the month of November, accompanied by
Francis Dana as secretary of legation, and by his two oldest sons, John
and Charles.[18] The vessel sprung a leak and was compelled to put into
the nearest port, which proved to be Ferrol, where they landed safe
December seventh. One of the first things was to buy a dictionary and
grammar for the boys, who "went to learning Spanish as fast as
possible." Over high mountains, by rough and miry roads, a-muleback, and
in the depth of winter, they wound their toilsome way, much of the time
on foot, from Ferrol to Paris, a journey of a thousand miles, arriving
about the middle of February, 1780. On this occasion, it is to be
presumed, Master Johnny must have derived no small benefit from the
service he had seen as "post-rider."
At Paris he immediately entered an academy, but in the autumn
accompanied his father to Holland, who had received superadded
commissions to negotiate private loans, and public treaties there. For a
few months the son was sent to a common school in Amsterdam, but in
December he was removed to Leyden, to learn Latin and Greek under the
distinguished teachers there, and to attend the lectures of celebrated
professors in the University. The reasons of this transfer are worth
repeating, as they mark the strong and habitual aversion which John
Adams felt and inculcated, to every species of littleness and meanness.
"I should not wish to have children educated in the common schools of
this country, where a littleness of soul is notorious. The masters are
mean-spirited wretches, pinching, kicking and boxing the children upon
every turn. There is a general littleness, arising from the incessant
contemplation of stivers and doits. Frugality and industry, are virtues
every where, but avarice and stinginess are not frugality."
In July, 1781, the son accompanied to St. Petersburgh Mr. Francis Dana,
who had been appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the court of Russia.
The original purpose was study, observation, and general improvement,
under the guidance of a trusty and accomplished friend. The youth was
not, as has been stated, appointed secretary of the Minister at the time
they started; but by his readiness and capability he came to be employed
by Mr. Dana as interpreter and secretary, difficult and delicate trusts,
probably never before confided to a boy of thirteen.
In October, 1782, the youth left St. Petersburgh, and paying passing
visits to Sweden, Denmark, Hamburg, and Bremen, reached the Hague in
April, 1783, and there resumed his studies. Meantime his father, having
received assurances that Great Britain was prepared to treat for peace
on the basis of independence, had repaired to Paris to open the
negotiation. He found that Dr. Franklin and Mr. Jay, two of his
colleagues on the same commission, had commenced the business first with
informal agents, and afterwards with a commissioner of his majesty,
George the Third. The Definitive Treaty was signed September the third,
1783, at which act John Quincy Adams was summoned by his father to be
present, and to assume the duties of secretary. In that capacity he made
one of the copies of the treaty. The father on this occasion wrote:
"Congress are at such grievous expense that I shall have no other
secretary but my son. He, however, is a very good one. He writes a good
hand very fast, and is steady at his pen and books."
In this autumn the two made a trip to London, partly for the health of
the elder, which had been seriously impaired by incessant labor, and
partly for the benefit of the younger, as it was expected then that both
would bid adieu to Europe and embark for America in the ensuing spring.
John Adams had the satisfaction of hearing the King announce to the
Parliament and people from the throne, that he had concluded a Treaty of
Peace with the United States of America.
In January, 1784, the father and son proceeded to Holland to negotiate a
new loan for the purpose of meeting the interest on the former one.
There they remained until the latter part of July, when a letter came
communicating the arrival of Mrs. Adams and her daughter in London. John
Adams despatched his son to meet them, and wrote to his wife:
"Your letter of the twenty-third has made me the happiest man upon
earth. I am twenty years younger than I was yesterday. It is a cruel
mortification to me that I cannot go to meet you in London; but there
are a variety of reasons decisively against it, which I will communicate
to you here. Meantime I send you a son, who is one of the greatest
travellers of his age, and without partiality, I think as promising and
manly a youth, as is in the whole world. He will purchase a coach, in
which we four must travel to Paris; let it be large and strong. After
spending a week or two here you will have to set out with me for France,
but there are no seas between; a good road, a fine season, and we will
make moderate journeys, and see the curiosities of several cities in our
way,--Utrecht, Breda, Antwerp, Brussels, &c. &c. It is the first time in
Europe that I looked forward to a journey with pleasure. Now I expect a
great deal. I think myself made for this world."
John Quincy Adams reached London the thirtieth of July. "When he
entered," says Mrs. Adams, "we had so many strangers that I drew back,
not really believing my eyes, till he cried out, 'O my mamma, and my
dear sister!' Nothing but the eyes appeared what he once was. His
appearance is that of a man, and in his countenance the most perfect
good-humor. His conversation by no means denies his station. I think
you do not approve the word _feelings_. I know not what to substitute in
lieu, nor how to describe mine." The son was then seventeen, and the
separation had continued nearly five years.
Notwithstanding that the husband's letter had forbidden hope of his
participating in this re-union, he did so after all, practising a
surprise charmingly delicate and gallant. It was a blissful meeting not
only of happy friends, but of merit and reward, a beautiful and
honorable consummation of mutual sacrifices and toils. Seldom does the
cup of joy so effervesce.
Independence predicted in youth, moved and sustained with unrivalled
eloquence in manhood, at home--confirmed and consolidated by loans,
alliances, ships, and troops--obtained, in part or all, by him,
abroad--Washington nominated Chief of the army--the American Navy
created--peace negotiated--this, this (if civic virtues and achievments
were honored only equally with martial) would have been the circle of
Golden Medals, which John Adams might have laid at the feet of his
admirable wife!
Five months after this, as if too full for earlier utterance, she wrote
to her sister: "You will chide me, perhaps, for not relating to you an
event which took place in London, that of unexpectedly meeting my long
absent friend; for from his letters by my son, I had no idea that he
would come. But you know, my dear sister, that poets and painters wisely
draw a veil over scenes which surpass the pen of the one and the pencil
of the other."
The family reached Paris in the latter part of August, and established
their residence at Auteuil, four miles from the city. The son pursued
his studies, his mother, by his particular desire, writing her charming
letters to American friends by his fireside. Sometimes he copied them in
his plain and beautiful hand, always equal to print, and made her think,
as she gayly remarks, that they were really worth something. The circle
of familiar visitors included Franklin, Jefferson and his daughter, La
Fayette and his wife; of formal, all the ministers domestic and foreign,
and as many of the elite of fashion and of fame as they chose. But Mrs.
Adams was always a modest and retiring woman. Of Franklin she wrote:
"His character, from my infancy, I had been taught to venerate. I found
him social, not talkative; and when he spoke, something useful dropped
from, his tongue."
Of Jefferson, "I shall really regret to leave Mr. Jefferson. He is one
of the choice ones of the earth. On Thursday I dine with him at his
house. On Sunday he is to dine with us. On Monday we all dine with the
Marquis."
In the spring of 1785 John Adams received the appointment of Minister
Plenipotentiary to Great Britain, the first from the United States of
America. A new separation ensued. He, his wife and daughter departed for
London, but not the son, as has been stated. He departed for Harvard
University, where, in the following March, he entered the Junior Class,
and graduated with distinguished honor in 1787. He studied law at
Newburyport in the office of Theophilus Parsons, afterwards the eminent
Chief Justice. He entered upon the practice of the law in Boston in
1790, and boarded in the family of Dr. Thomas Welsh. He continued thus
four years, gradually enlarging the circle of his business and the
amount of his income. Meantime, great and exciting public questions
arose, and in discussing them he obtained a sudden and wide distinction.
A tract from his pen in answer to a portion of Paine's Rights of Man,
and expressing doubts of the ultimate success of the French Revolution,
appeared in 1791, was republished in England and attributed to John
Adams. This was at a time when the enthusiasm for the great French
movement was at its height in this country. Events too soon showed that
the writer had inherited his father's sagacity.
Another publication of his, which appeared in 1793, maintained the
right, duty and policy of our assuming a neutral attitude towards the
respective combatants in the wars arising from the French Revolution.
This publication preceded Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality. In
the same year Mr. Adams reviewed the course of Genet, applying to it and
the condition of the country the principles of public law.
These writings attracted the attention of Washington, and he is supposed
to have derived essential aid from them in some of the most difficult
conjunctures of his administration. Upon the recommendation of
Jefferson, made as he was about to retire from the office of Secretary
of State, Washington determined to appoint John Quincy Adams Minister
Resident in Holland. An intimation from Washington to the
Vice-President, in order that he might give his wife timely notice to
prepare for the departure of her son, was the first knowledge that any
member of the family had, that such an appointment was thought of. Mr.
Adams repaired to his post, and remained there till near the close of
Washington's administration, with the exception of an additional mission
to London in 1795, to exchange ratifications of Jay's treaty, and agree
upon certain arrangements for its execution.
On this occasion he met, at the house of her father, the American consul
in London, Miss LOUISA CATHERINE JOHNSON, who afterwards became his
wife. In consequence of a rumor of his intending to resign, Washington
wrote to the Vice-President:
"Your son must not think of retiring from the path he is in. His
prospects, if he pursues it, are fair; and I shall be much surprised,
if, in as short a time as can well be expected, he is not at the head of
the Diplomatic Corps, be the government administered by whomsoever it
may."
Subsequently Washington expressed himself still more strongly, aiming to
overcome the scruples of President Adams about continuing his son in
office under his own administration. Just before his retirement,
Washington appointed him Minister Plenipotentiary to Portugal. This
destination was changed by his father to Berlin. Before assuming the
station, he was married in London to Miss Johnson.
While in Prussia he negotiated an important commercial treaty, and wrote
letters from Silesia, which were published in the portfolio, and passed
through some editions and translations in Europe. In 1801 he was
recalled by his father, to save, as it is said, Mr. Jefferson from the
awkwardness of turning out the son of his old friend, whose appointment
he had recommended. If such was the motive of the recall, it was a
miscalculation, for Jefferson did not hesitate to remove him from the
small office of commissioner of bankruptcy, to which he had been
appointed by the district judge of Massachusetts upon his return from
abroad. Mr. Jefferson defended himself from censure for this little act,
by alleging that he did not know when he made the removal, nor who the
incumbent of the office was; an excuse more inexcusable than the act
itself.
Mr. Adams re-established himself with his family in Boston. He occupied
a house in Hanover-street, not now standing, and another which he
purchased at the corner of Tremont and Boylston streets, now used for
stores, and owned by his only surviving son.
In 1802 he was elected to the Senate of Massachusetts from Suffolk
county.
In 1803, to the Senate of the United States.
In 1806, Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory in Harvard University, but in
subordination to his duties in Congress.
In 1808 he resigned his seat in the Senate, the Legislature of his State
having instructed him to oppose the restrictive measures of Jefferson,
and he having given a zealous support to the embargo.
In 1809 he was appointed by Madison Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia;
and resigned his professorship in the University.
In 1811 he was nominated by Madison and unanimously confirmed by the
Senate, as judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Adams
having declined this office, Judge Story was appointed.
In 1814 he was appointed first commissioner at Ghent to treat with Great
Britain for peace.
In 1815, Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain.
In 1817, Secretary of State.
In 1825, elected President of the United States.
Mr. Adams, released from the toils of thirty-five years of unintermitted
public service, now sought a home which remains to be described.
John Adams, while yet minister in England, purchased a seat in Quincy of
Mr. Borland, an old friend and neighbor, descended from the Vassals, a
considerable family in the town and province: this was in 1786. On his
return from Europe in 1788, the purchaser took possession with his
family; and with the exception of two terms as Vice-President, and one
as President of the United States, he never left it until his death on
the fourth of July, 1826. This estate descended to his son, as did also
that at Penn's Hill.
It is situated about half a mile north of Quincy village, on the old
Boston road, where massive mile-stones, erected before the birth of John
Adams, may still be seen. The farm consists of one hundred acres, now
productive, though in a rude state when acquired. Mrs. John Adams
described her husband in 1801 as "busy among his haymakers, and getting
thirty tons on the spot, which eight years before yielded only six."
The house is supposed to be a hundred and fifty years old. It is built
of wood, quite unpretending, yet from association or other cause, it has
a distinguished and venerable aspect. Approached from the north or city
side, it presents a sharp gable in the old English style of
architecture. The opposite end is very different, and has a hipped or
gambrel gable. The length may be some seventy feet, the height thirty,
consisting of two stories, and a suit of attic chambers, with large
luthern windows. A piazza runs along the centre of the basement in
front. The south or gambrel-roofed section of the edifice, was built by
John Adams. The principal entrance is at the junction of this section
with the main building. It opens into a spacious entry with a staircase
on the right, and busts of Washington and John Quincy Adams on the left.
At the foot of the stairs is the door of the principal apartment, called
the Long Room. It is plainly finished, and about seven feet in height.
It contains portraits of John Adams and his wife by Stewart, John Quincy
Adams and his wife by the same; Thomas Jefferson in French costume,
taken in France by Browne. He appears much handsomer than in most of his
portraits. Over the fireplace is a very old and curious picture of a
child, supposed by John Quincy Adams to be his great-grandfather, John
Quincy. There are several other portraits of less note. The chairs are
of plain mahogany, with stuffed seats and backs, and hair-cloth
coverings. They belonged to Mrs. Adams. Opposite to the door of this
room, on the left side of the entry, is the door of the dining-room,
called the Middle Room. This is within the original building. It
contains a number of portraits; the most conspicuous is that of
Washington in his uniform. It was painted by Savage, and was purchased by
the elder Adams. It has a more solemn and concentrated look than
Stewart's Washington--more expressive, but not so symmetrical. It
resembles Peale's Pater Patriae. John Quincy Adams considered it a better
likeness than the popular portraits. It is said to have been taken when
Washington had lost his teeth, and had not substituted artificial ones.
The lips appear much compressed, the visage elongated and thinner than
in Stewart's picture. By its side is Mrs. Washington, painted by the
same artist. There is a fine engraving of Copley's picture of the Death
of Chatham. It is a proof copy, presented by the painter to John Adams.
Passing from the Middle Room through another but small front entry, we
reach the north basement room, called the Keeping Room. This is finished
with considerable luxury for a provincial parlor of its time. It is
panelled from floor to ceiling with mahogany. The effect is somewhat
heavy, to obviate which the elder Mrs. Adams, a votary of all
cheerfulness, had it painted white. It has now been restored, and
presents an antique and rich appearance. Nearly all the furniture of
this as well as the Middle Room, including the Turkey carpet of the
latter, still bright and substantial, was John Adams's. All these
apartments are connected by a longitudinal passage in the rear, which
communicates with the kitchen.
The Library is in the second story over the Long Room. This chamber was
constantly occupied by the Elder President, both for a sitting and
sleeping room during his latter years. Here the writer saw him at the
age of nearly ninety, delighted with hearing Scott's novels, or Dupuis'
Origine de tous les Cultes, or the simplest story-book, which he could
get his grandchildren to read to him. He seemed very cheerful, and ready
to depart, remarking that "he had eat his cake." When his son came home
from Washington, he converted this room into a library. Of course his
books are very miscellaneous both as to subjects and languages; but they
are not all here. Some are arranged on the sides of passage-ways and in
other parts. A portion of them compose in part a library at his son's
town residence. John Adams in his lifetime gave his library--a very
valuable one--to the town of Quincy, together with several tracts of
land for the erection of an academy or classical school, to which his
library is ultimately to attach. The entire library of John Quincy Adams
comprises twelve thousand volumes. To this must be added a chest full of
manuscripts, original and translated, in prose and poetry. They show
unbounded industry. From his boyhood to the age of fifty, when he took
the Department of State, he was an intense student. In this chest are
many of the earlier fruits, such as complete versions of a large number
of the classics, of German and other foreign works.
The garden lies on the north, contiguous to the house, and connects with
a lawn, narrow in front of the house, but widening considerably south of
it. The whole is inclosed on the roadside by a solid wall of Quincy
granite, some six feet high, except the section immediately before the
house, which is a low stone wall, surmounted by a light wooden fence of
an obsolete fashion, with two gates in the same style, leading to the
two front doors. The whole extent does not much exceed an acre. It
embraces an ornamental and kitchen garden, the former occupying the side
near the road, and the latter extending by the side and beyond the
kitchen and offices to an open meadow and orchard. The principal walk is
through the ornamental portion of the garden, parallel with the road,
and terminates at a border of thrifty forest trees, disposed, as they
should be, without any regard to order. From the walk above-mentioned
another strikes out at a right angle, and skirts the border of trees,
till it disappears in the expanse of meadow. Most of the trees were
raised by John Quincy Adams from the seeds, which he was in the habit of
picking up in his wanderings. The most particular interest attaches to a
shagbark, which he planted more than fifty years ago. It stands near the
angle of the two alleys. In this tree he took a particular satisfaction,
but he was an enthusiast in regard to all the trees of the forest,
differing in this respect from his father, who, as an agriculturist of
the Cato stamp, was more inclined to lay the axe to them than to
propagate them. From this plantation Charles Francis Adams was supplied
with a great number and variety of trees to embellish a residence, which
he built in his father's lifetime on the summit of a high hill, west of
the old mansion. This is called President's Hill. It affords one of the
finest sea landscapes which can be found. John Adams used to say that he
had never seen, in any part of the world, so fine a view. It comprises a
wide range of bays, islands and channels seaward, with seats and
villages on the intervening land. This prospect lies eastward, and
includes Mount Wollaston, situated near the seashore, and remarkable as
the first spot settled in the town and State, and as giving its name for
many of the first years to the entire settlement. This belonged to the
great-grandfather, John Quincy, and is now a part of the Adams estate.
The meeting-house is half a mile south of the old mansion. The material
is granite, a donation of John Adams. It has a handsome portico,
supported by beautiful and massive Doric pillars, not an unfit emblem of
the donor. Beneath the porch, his son constructed, in the most durable
manner, a crypt, in which he piously deposited the remains of his
parents; and in the body of the church, on the right of the pulpit, he
erected to their sacred memories a marble monument surmounted by a bust
of John Adams, and inscribed with an affecting and noble epitaph.
After leading "a wandering life about the world," as he himself calls
it--a life of many changes and many labors, John Quincy Adams, at
sixty-two, sought the quiet and seclusion of his father's house. He was
yet, for his years, a model of physical vigor and activity; for, though
by nature convivial as his father was, and capable, on an occasion, of
some extra glasses, he was by habit moderate in meat and drink, never
eating more than was first served on his plate, and consequently never
mixing a variety of dishes. He used himself to attribute much of the
high health he enjoyed to his walks and his baths. Early every morning,
when the season admitted, he sought a place where he could take a plunge
and swim at large. A creek, with a wharf or pier projecting into it,
called Black's Wharf, about a quarter of a mile from his house, served
these purposes in Quincy. At Washington he resorted to the broad
Potomac. There, leaving his apparel in charge of an attendant, (for it
is said that it was once purloined!) he used to buffet the waves before
sunrise. He was an easy and expert swimmer, and delighted so much in the
element, that he would swim and float from one to two or three hours at
a time. An absurd story obtained currency, that he used this exercise in
winter, breaking the ice, if necessary, to get the indispensable plunge!
This was fiction. He did not bathe at all in winter, nor at other times
from theory, but for pleasure.
He bore abstinence and irregularity in his meals with singular
indifference. Whether he breakfasted at seven or ten, whether he dined
at two, or not at all, appeared to be questions with which he did not
concern himself. It is related that having sat in the House of
Representatives from eight o'clock in the morning till after midnight, a
friend accosted him, and expressed the hope that he had taken
refreshment in all that time; he replied that he had not left his seat,
and held up a _bit of hard bread_. His entertainments of his friends
were distinguished for abundance, order, elegance, and the utmost
perfection in every particular, but not for extravagance and luxury of
table furniture. His accomplished lady, of course, had much to do with
this. He rose very early, lighting the fire and his lamp in his library,
while the surrounding world was yet buried in slumber. This was his time
for writing. Washington and Hamilton had the same habit.
He was unostentatious and almost always walked, whether for visiting,
business or exercise. At Quincy he used to go up President's Hill to
meet the sun from the sea, and sometimes walked to the residence of his
son in Boston before breakfast. Regularly, before the hour of the daily
sessions of Congress, he was seen wending his quiet way towards the
Capitol, seldom or never using, in the worst of weather, a carriage. He
stayed one night to a late hour, listening to a debate in the Senate on
the expunging resolution. As he was starting for home in the face of a
fierce snow-storm, and in snow a foot deep, a gentleman proposed to
conduct him to his house. "I thank you, sir, for your kindness," said
he, "but I do not need the service of any one. I am somewhat advanced in
life, but not yet, by the blessing of God, infirm, or what Dr. Johnson
would call 'superfluous;' and you may recollect what old Adam says in
'As you Like it'--
"'For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood.'"
While he was President, the writer was once sitting in the drawing-room
of a highbred lady in Boston. A hat not very new glanced under the
window sill. The owner rung at the door; and not finding the gentleman
at home, continued his walk. A servant entered and presented the card of
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. "I do wonder," exclaimed the lady, "that the
President of the United States will go about in such a manner!"
His apparel was always plain, scrupulously neat, and reasonably well
worn. It was made for the comfort of the wearer, who asked not of the
fashions.
When he retired from the Presidency, he resolved to pass the remainder
of his days under the paternal roof and the beloved shades. He
anticipated and desired nothing but quiet, animated by the excitements
of intellectual and rural occupations. He had before him the congenial
task, to which he had long aspired, of dispensing the treasures of
wisdom contained in the unwritten life and unpublished writings of his
father. He was ready to impart of his own inexhaustible wealth of
experience, observation and erudition, to any one capable of receiving.
It takes much to reconcile a thoughtful mind to the loss of what would
have been gained by the proposed employment of his leisure. And we had
much.
Had the record of his public life, ample and honorable as it was, been
now closed, those pages on which patriots, philanthropists and poets
will for ever dwell with gratitude and delight, would have been wanting.
Hitherto he had done remarkably well what many others, with a knowledge
of precedents and of routine and with habits of industry, might have
done, if not as well, yet acceptably. He was now called to do what no
other man in the Republic had strength and heart to attempt.
He was endowed with a memory uncommonly retentive. He could remember and
quote with precision, works which he had not looked at for forty years.
Add to this his untiring diligence and perseverance, and the advantages
of his position and employment at various capitals in the old world, and
the story of his vast acquisitions is told. His love lay in history,
literature, moral philosophy and public law. With the Greek, Latin,
French, German, and Italian languages and principal writers he was
familiar. His favorite English poet was Shakspeare, whom he commented
upon and recited with discrimination and force, surpassing, it is said,
in justness of conception, the great personators of his principal
characters. Among the classics, he especially loved Ovid, unquestionably
the Shakspeare of the Romans. Cicero was greatly beloved, and most
diligently studied, translated, and commented upon. For many of his
latter years he never read continuously. He would fall asleep over his
book. But to elucidate any subject he had in hand, he wielded his
library with wakefulness and execution lively enough.
He was fond of art in all its departments, but most in the pictorial. In
his "Residence at the Court of London," Mr. Rush has drawn an attractive
sketch of him at home.
"His tastes were all refined. Literature and art were familiar and dear
to him. At his hospitable board I have listened to disquisitions from
his lips, on poetry, especially the dramas of Shakspeare, music,
painting and sculpture, of rare excellence and untiring interest. A
critical scholar in the dead languages, in French, German and Italian,
he could draw at will from the wealth of these tongues to illustrate any
particular topic. There was no fine painting or statue, of which he did
not know the details and the history. There was not even an opera, or a
celebrated composer, of which or of whom he could not point out the
distinguishing merits and the chief compositions. Yet he was a
hard-working and assiduous man of business; and a more regular,
punctual, and comprehensive diplomatic correspondence than his, no
country can probably boast."
Mr. Adams was generally regarded as cold and austere. The testimony of
persons who enjoyed an intimacy with him is the reverse of this. Mr.
Rush says that "under an exterior of at times repulsive coldness, dwelt
a heart as warm, sympathies as quick, and affections as overflowing as
ever animated any bosom." And Mr. Everett, that "in real kindness and
tenderness of feeling, no man surpassed him." There is an abundance of
like evidence on this head.
He was taciturn rather than talkative, preferring to think and to muse.
At times his nature craved converse, and delighted in the play of
familiar chat. Occasionally he threw out a lure to debate. If great
principles were seriously called in question, he would pour out a rapid
and uninterrupted torrent.
The poets had been the delight of his youth. He read them in the
intervals of retirement at Quincy with a youthful enthusiasm, and tears
and laughter came by turns, as their sad and bright visions passed
before him. Pope was a favorite, "and the intonations of his voice in
repeating the 'Messiah,'" says an inmate of the family, "will never
cease to vibrate on the ear of memory." He was a deeply religious man,
and though not taking the most unprejudiced views of divinity, what he
received as spiritual truths were to him most evident and momentous
realities, and he derived from them a purifying and invigorating power.
"The dying Christian's Address to his Soul" was replete with pathos and
beauty for him. He is remembered to have repeated it one evening with an
intense expression of religious faith and joy; adding the Latin lines of
Adrian, which Pope imitated. He was thought by some to have a tendency
to Calvinistic theology, and to regard Unitarianism as too abstract and
frigid. Thus he used sometimes to talk, but it was supposed to be for
the purpose of putting Unitarians upon a defence of their faith, rather
than with a serious design to impair it.
On one occasion he conversed on the subject of popular applause and
admiration. Its caprice, said he, is equalled only by its worthlessness,
and the misery of that being who lives on its breath. There is one
stanza of Thomson's Castle of Indolence, that is worth whole volumes of
modern poetry; though it is the fashion to speak contemptuously of
Thomson. He then repeated with startling force of manner and energy of
enunciation, the third stanza, second canto, of that poem.
"I care not, fortune, what you me deny;
You cannot rob me of free nature's grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns by living streams at eve:
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave;
Of Fancy, Reason, Virtue, nought can me bereave."
He did not much admire the poetry of Byron. One objection which he is
recollected to have made to the poet was the use of the word "rot."
There is some peculiarity in Byron in this respect; thus in Childe
Harold:--
"The Bucentaur lies _rotting_ unrestored,
Where meaner relics must not dare to _rot_."
This, if a sound objection, which it is not, was narrow for so great a
man. The cause of this distaste lay deeper. Mr. Adams, though a dear
lover of Shakspeare, was of the Johnsonian school of writers. His
diction is elaborate, stately, and in his earlier writings verbose, but
always polished, harmonious, and sustained. He liked unconsciously Latin
English better than Anglo-Saxon. Byron, in common with a large and
increasing class of moderns, loved to borrow the force of familiar and
every-day language, and to lend to it the dignity and beauty of deep
thought and high poetic fancy. Not improbably, the moral obliquities of
the poet had their influence in qualifying the opinion formed of his
writings, by a man of such strict rectitude as Mr. Adams.
He was fond of Watts's Psalms and Hymns, and repeated them often,
sometimes rising from his seat in the exaltation of his feelings. Among
favorite stanzas was this one:
Sweet fields, beyond the swelling flood,
Stand dressed in living green;
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.
Until his private letters shall be published, no adequate conception can
be formed of the devotion he paid to his mother. This may give an
inkling of it. A young friend inquired of him, when he was once at
Hingham on their annual fishing party in his honor, in which of his
poems a certain line was to be found, viz.--
"Hull--but that name's redeemed upon the wave,"
referring to the surrender of General Hull, so soon followed (only three
days after, August 16-19, 1812) by the capture of the Guerriere by
Captain Hull. "I do not," he replied, "but I have been often struck by
the coincidence. I think, however, the line occurs in a poem _addressed
to my mother_."
The best saying of Mr. Adams was in reply to the inquiry, What are the
recognized principles of politics?
MR. ADAMS. There are none. There are recognized precepts, but they are
bad, and so not PRINCIPLES.