Episode 2.10 The First Second Lady

[Transcript]

Hello, and welcome to America’s First Ladies. I’m your host, Risa Weaver-Enion.

Episode 2.10 The First Second Lady

We left off last week in fall of 1787. Abigail and John had become grandparents, the U.S. Constitution had been approved by the Constitutional Convention, and the Adamses were wrapping up their time in Europe.

Abigail was ill for a good portion of 1787, and in an effort to feel better, she was encouraged by her doctor and by John to “take the waters” at the spa town of Bath. Nabby and William accompanied her. As usual, Abigail found much to criticize, writing, “[Bath] is not only for the infirm, but for the gay, the indolent, the curious, the gambler, the fortune-hunter and even the girl from the country who came out of wonteness. We have been to 3 balls, one concert, one play, two private parties, to the publik walk…and a Ball tomorrow Evening. Having visited Bath once I am satisfied.”

She also visited the countryside of Devon with John, Nabby, William, and their infant son. In the town of Winchester Abigial was gratified to discover that an ancestor of hers, the First Earl of Winchester, had signed Magna Carta in 1215. 

Abigail wrote that Devonshire was “one of the most agreeable excursions I ever made. The country is like a garden and the cultivation scarcely admits any other improvement. I wish I could say as much for the inhabitants, but whilst one part of the people, the noble and wealthy, fare sumptiously every day, poverty, hunger, and nakedness is the lot and portion of the needy peasantry.”

In Southampton, Abigail tried swimming in the complicated contraptions that women had to use to swim in public. It was some sort of booth where a woman could undress, change into swimming clothes, and then be transported into the water without ever being exposed to gawkers. The swimming outfit consisted of an oil-cloth cap, a flannel gown, and socks. That sounds easy to swim in.

Abigail lost a number of her relatives while she was in Europe. Her aunt Elizabeth Smith and aunt Lucy Tufts both died, as did her uncle Isaac Smith. In September 1787, Abigail’s younger brother William died of jaundice. 

William had been the black sheep of the family, and his sisters rarely talked about him. He was apparently an alcoholic, which was considered a moral failing in those days, not a disease. 

He abandoned his wife and children before the Revolution, and Abigail took in his young daughter Louisa in 1775. She lived with Abigail until Abigail left for France in 1784, and would return to live at the Adams home again after their return from Europe. 

Abigail also missed John Quincy’s graduation from Harvard in the summer of 1787. It might seem like he was only at Harvard for a minute, but he had been admitted as a junior, so he was only there for about 18 months. By the fall he was studying law as a clerk to a Massachusetts attorney. Abigail was tired of missing her children and missing important events in their lives.

On December 6, 1787, John received word that his recall had been approved by Congress, and they could return home. Abigail immediately began making plans to cross the ocean and looking into booking passage. Matters were complicated by just how much stuff they needed to take home with them. In the nearly four years Abigail had been in Europe and the nearly nine years John had been there, they had accumulated a lot of furniture and other household goods. David McCullough summed it up in his book, John Adams:

“There was a great accumulation of clothes, books, china, and furniture to pack, a York rosebush she was determined to take. The furniture included pieces purchased originally for the houses at Amsterdam and The Hague. There was a four-post Dutch bed, a great Dutch chest with heavy brass pulls and claw feet, tables of different sizes, a set of six cushioned Louis XV chairs and a settee, these with delicate floral carvings. Adams’s desk, a beautiful French escritoire of veneered satinwood and ebony, which he had bought in Paris after the war, was his particular pride and joy. All were considerably finer, more elegant pieces than the Adamses had ever owned in years past and would have looked quite out of place in the farmhouse at Braintree.”

As it turns out though, they were not returning to the farmhouse at Braintree. Abigail had continued investing and making purchases of real estate while she was abroad, relying on her uncle Cotton Tufts to manage the transactions. He had purchased not one, but two new homes on their behalf. One was known as the Veasey farm and the other was known alternately as the Borland mansion or the Vassall-Borland mansion. 

The Borland mansion was where they would live, and where John hoped to retire. There was a house, farm buildings, and about 80 acres of land. The house was a little over 50 years old, and Abigail knew it would require some sprucing up. She had her uncle send her the dimensions of the rooms so she could purchase English wallpaper before leaving London. 

On February 20, 1788, John had his final audience with King George III, known as an audience of leave. Before leaving a diplomatic post, there were formalities to follow. And for that same reason, he had to make one last trip across the English Channel so that he could take official leave of the Dutch Republic. He was still technically the ambassador to the Netherlands even though he had been living in London. Jefferson met him in Amsterdam and they were able to negotiate one more loan from the Dutch before John left. Even though the war was over, the Americans were still borrowing money left and right.

On Sunday, March 30, Abigail, John and the two Braintree servants Abigail had brought with her in 1784, left London by coach for Portsmouth where they would board the American ship Lucretia, bound for Boston. Amusingly, the servants Esther and John had been married in February in a bit of a shotgun wedding. 

They had intended to marry after returning to America, but it turns out that Esther discovered she was pregnant in February—very pregnant. They had all thought she had some mystery illness, but it turned out to be pregnancy. She was due in April, and Abigail was afraid she would have to serve as a ship-board midwife to deliver the baby en route. She turned out to be right, helping Esther deliver a baby girl somewhere between England and America.

Abigail’s one regret about leaving Europe is that she would no longer be living near Nabby. They had never been separated before, but now Nabby would live in New York City, which was the political capital of the United States. William’s family still lived on Long Island, and they planned to make their home there. They left London on a different ship, bound for New York.

I’ll quote from Charles Akers here, when he nicely captures Abigail’s reflections on leaving Europe in his book Abigail Adams: A Revolutionary American Woman:

“During the voyage Abigail reflected on her European experience. She had ‘seen enough of the world’ and would hereafter be content to learn what was ‘further to be known from the page of History.’ Her four years abroad had not been the most pleasant part of her life, for she preferred the ‘Domestick happiness and Rural felicity’ of Braintree. Yet she did not regret the European excursion, for it had strengthened her attachment to America.

Fearful for her country’s future, she nevertheless considered it a near paradise as compared with England, that ‘boasted Island of Liberty,’ where freedom meant only the liberty of the upper classes to oppress the poor. When she reflected upon ‘the advantages which the people of America possess, over the most polish’d of other Nations, the ease with which property is obtain’d, the plenty which is so equally distributed, the personal Liberty, and Security of Life and property’ she gave thanks to heaven for having cast her ‘Lot in that happy land.’”

Abigail clearly saw America through rose-tinted glasses. For someone who professed to be so enlightened when it came to the evils of slavery, she certainly did turn a blind eye to all the inequality in America.

The Adamses arrived in Boston Harbor on June 17. Governor John Hancock had arranged a hero’s welcome for John, with a cannon salute, a large crowd of thousands who gave three huzzahs to the returning patriots, and a carriage to convey the couple to his Boston home, where he insisted they spend the night. Either he didn’t know that they intensely disliked him, or he didn’t care.

They slipped away from Boston quietly the next day and stayed with Mary and Richard Cranch until their furniture was delivered. Their three sons all came to visit, and Elizabeth Shaw traveled down from Haverhill with her family. Charles was now 18 and Thomas was 15, and they were both at Harvard. When John had last seen them, they had been boys.

Abigail and John were inundated with visits from neighbors who wanted to congratulate His Excellency the Ambassador and his Lady. No doubt John’s mother was delighted to see them, all her prophesies of never seeing them again happily turning out to have been wrong.

Abigail was a little disappointed with their new mansion. Compared to anything else in Braintree, it was indeed a mansion. But compared to the home at Auteuil and even the townhouse in London, it was small. Writing to Nabby about a month after their return, she said, 

“We have come into a house not half repaired, and I own myself most sadly disappointed. Ever since I came, we have had such a swarm of carpenters, masons, framers, as have almost distracted me. In height and breadth, it feels like a wren’s house. The Garden was a wilderness & the House a mere Barrack. [When you visit] be sure you wear no feathers, and let Col. Smith come without heels to his shoes, or he will not be able to walk upright. We must build in the Spring an other kitchen, a dairy room & a Library. Your Pappa is Employd in Building a Stone wall and Digging ditches.”

I hear echoes of George Washington’s construction projects at Mount Vernon in this letter.

John was delighted to be back home for the first time since November 1779, and he eventually gave the Vassall-Borland property a new name: Peacefield, presumably because he felt at peace there. Just before leaving London, John wrote that it was his greatest desire “to lay fast of the town of Braintree and embrace it with both arms and all my might. There live, there to die, there to lay my bones, and there to plant one of my sons in the profession of law and the practices of agriculture, like his father.”

Nabby knew that her father, who was still only 52 at this point, would not be content to fade from public life and live the anonymous life of a country farmer. In a letter to John Quincy, she wrote, “By his opinions, advice, and recommendations, he has, I believe, in his power to do as much, perhaps the most, towards establishing [America’s] character as a respectable nation of any man in America—and shall he retire from the world and bury himeself amongst his books, and live only for himself? No—I wish it not. … The Americans in Europe say he will be elected Vice President. Besides, my brother, independent of other considerations, he would not, I am well convinced, be happy in private life.”

Abigail also probably knew that her husband would not be content for long with the private life of a country farmer. But she also dreaded a return to public life, writing that it would be “a little like getting out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

A few days after the Adamses arrived in Boston Harbor, New Hampshire had become the ninth state to ratify the new U.S. Consitution, thereby bringing it into effect. By July, both Virginia and New York had ratified and everyone’s attention turned to the coming election and who would be President and Vice President. As we discussed in season 1, the man with the most votes would be President and the runner-up would be Vice President. 

Everyone knew that Washington would be voted in as President, and because he was a southerner, it made sense for a northerner to balance out the executive branch. John had been away from America for a decade, and many of the men with whom he had served in the two Continental Congresses were retired or dead. Fourteen signers of the Declaration of Independence were dead by this point. John was well known, still alive, and conveniently unemployed. 

The election of 1788 was to be the genesis of a long and intense dislike of Alexander Hamilton on the part of both Abigail and John Adams. Hamilton was a devious man, and he was Washington’s man through-and-through, despite a falling out they had during the war over a military commission for Hamilton.

In the event of a tie for the offices of president and vice president, the decision would be made by the new House of Representatives. Hamilton was so worried about the possibility, however remote, of a tie between Washington and Adams that he put his thumb on the scale against John. He convinced several politicians in different states to withhold their votes for John, so that in the end, Washington ended up with a unanimous 69 votes, and Adams only had 34. He was way ahead of the other 10 candidates, but it was embarrassing for him to have so many fewer votes than Washington.

While all this was going on, Abigail decided to travel to New York to be with Nabby as she gave birth to her second child. Despite having now traveled to France, the Netherlands, and England, within America, Abigail had never left Massachusetts. John did not accompany her, because he was afraid that his presence in the capital would look too much like he was seeking the office of vice president.

In November, Abigail set out for New York, but the baby arrived before she did. He was named John Adams Smith in honor of his grandfather. Abigail stayed in New York for six weeks, and by the time she headed back to Braintree in January, the outcome of the election was known. The votes had been counted, and John was going to be the first Vice President, making Abigail the first Second Lady, even if she was never called that. 

As we learned in season 1, Congress wasn’t able to get enough members present to certify the election results until April 6. John wasted no time, departing from Braintree on April 13, 1789. They decided that Abigail would stay behind at first, to give John time to find a suitable house for them in New York, and for Abigail to make the necessary arrangements for their properties to be taken care of in their absence.

Boston made a big show of John’s departure. Much like his return from Europe the previous summer, there were cannon salutes and huge, cheering crowds. More than 40 carriages made up a parade that escorted John out of the city. People lined the roads all through Massachusetts and Connecticut, cheering their New England man. In Hartford, he was given a bolt of locally manufactured brown broadcloth. He had a suit made of this cloth to wear to George’s inauguration, and very attentive listeners will recall that Washington’s inaugural suit was made from the same brown Hartford broadcloth. Just another one of those fun facts I love so much!

John arrived into New York City on April 20, greeted by a large crowd, several members of Congress and John Jay. They met him at the bridge at the northern tip of Manhattan Island and escorted him south to the city. He would stay with John Jay at his mansion on Broadway until finding a house.

The United States of America was a much bigger country than it had been when it had simply been 13 British colonies. Its land area had doubled as a result of concessions by the British in the peace treaty, and America was larger than Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy combined. It had gone from a population of around 2 million people in 1776 to almost 4 million in 1789. Philadelphia was the largest city with a population of 40,000, while New York was second with 28,000. Virginia was still the largest and richest of the 13 states.

But America was sorely lacking in cohesiveness. There was no standard national currency, and some combination of British, French, German, and Spanish coins were used. The value of a dollar changed depending on which state you were in. There were only three banks in the entire country, and no national bank. 

Travel between states was slow thanks to appallingly bad roads. The country had no real army, just a few hundred officers and soldiers leftover from the Continental Army. The nascent navy that had developed during the war was nonexistent in 1789. Two-thirds of America’s total population lived along the eastern seaboard. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was the westernmost town of any size, and it only had about 500 residents.

Massachusetts was the only state that had abolished slavery at this point, and even though there were slaves in all other 12 states, about 500,000 of the total 700,000 American slaves were in just four states: Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

The states still thought of themselves as the most important unit of government, and no one was sure that the union would hold. As we learned in season 1, those who supported the Constitution and the idea of a strong federal government became known as Federalists, and those who were more in favor of states’ rights and a weak federal government were known first as Anti-Federalists, and later as Democratic-Republicans or just Republicans. The stakes for this incoming government were high, and John knew it. In a letter to a former law clerk, he wrote, “The fate of this government depends absolutely upon raising it above the state governments.”

On Tuesday, April 21, John was met at the door of Federal Hall, the building where Congress met, and escorted to the second floor, which is where the Senate was located. The House of Representatives was on the ground floor. The House room had spacious galleries where the public could come and observe government in action. The Senate Chamber had no galleries because it met privately.

John was greeted by the president pro tempore of the Senate, John Langdon of New Hampshire and escorted to his chair at the head of the Senate Chamber. He was not actually sworn into office because they still hadn’t decided on an oath of office for Senators and the Vice President. Instead, he was merely presented to the Senate, and then he made a speech.

Nine days later, on April 30, it was John who greeted George Washington when he arrived at Federal Hall for his inauguration. He escorted Washington to the Senate Chamber, and then the entire Congress looked on as Washington and Adams went out onto the balcony so Washington could be sworn in, with John by his side. And here’s another fun fact for you: the Presidential Oath of Office did not contain the words “so help me God” at the end. Washington added those himself, and then kissed the Bible.

Everyone got to work right away, crafting the rules of government. They had a ridiculous number of things to decide, some of which seem a bit mundane 250 years later: what to call the president and his wife, whether Congress should stand or remain seated when the President entered their chambers, whether the Secretary of the Senate should bow when he brought a message to the House of Representatives. The list went on.

By mid-May, John had found a house that was large enough to accommodate not only him and Abigail, but their extended family as well. He wrote to Abigail to let her know and asked her to come immediately. They had been corresponding ever since his departure in April, and he knew she was having trouble finding a tenant for the farm and was running low on money. He told her to borrow if necessary, to sell some of the livestock, or at the worst, “leave it to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.”

At first he suggested that she bring both Charles and Thomas with her, but then said that it might be best not to disrupt Thomas’s studies. He was still at Harvard, but Charles was just about to graduate from Harvard and was turning into a bit of a black sheep. There had been an incident the previous year involving a food fight that he may or may not have started but was definitely involved in, earning him a suspension. John wanted him in New York where he could better manage him.

John also invited Nabby, William, and their two sons to live with them in New York. The house he had rented was on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River, about a mile north of the city. It was known as Richmond Hill. Interestingly, this area is today Greenwich Village, which will tell you how compact the city of New York was, if you know anything about its geography today.

Despite its size, the house was less expensive than anything in the city. Congress had not yet decided what the president and vice president’s salaries would be, but they did eventually settle on $25,000 for the president and a mere $5000 for the vice president. Washington, of course, declined to take any salary. John took every dollar, and was worried that he wouldn’t be able to afford serving as vice president.

Abigail, Charles, and Abigail’s niece Louisa Smith, who had returned to live with them when they got back from Europe, arrived at Richmond Hill on June 24. Nabby was there to greet them. They had traveled by coach to Rhode Island and then by boat to New York. The entire five-day trip was stormy and Abigail vowed to never again travel by boat.

Abigail was very happy with the house’s location, writing to her sister Mary, “We are delightfully situated. The prospect all around is beautiful to the highest degree. On one side we see a view of the city and of Long Island. … You enter under a piazza into a hall and turning to the right hand ascend a staircase which lands you in another [hall] of equal dimensions of which I make a drawing room. It has a glass door which opens into a gallery the whole front of the house which is exceeding pleasant. … There is upon the back of the house a garden of much greater extent than our Braintree garden, but it is wholly for a walk and flowers. It has hawthorne hedge and rows of trees with a broad gravel walk. … Never did I live in so delightful a spot.”

Immediately after arriving in New York, Abigail paid a visit to Martha Washington. We’ve already heard her description of Mrs. Washington: “She is plain in her dress, but that plainness is the best of every article. Her Hair is white, her Teeth Beautifull, her person rather short than otherways.” That last remark was a bit rich, considering that Abigail was, at most, an inch taller than Martha.

Abigail had already met George Washington, back in Cambridge in 1775 when he arrived to take command of the Continental Army. She was glad to find him as gentleman-like as ever, telling Mary, “He is polite with dignity, affable without formality, distant without haughtiness, grave without austerity, modest, wise, and good. … [I]t is my firm opinion that no other man could rule over this great people and consolidate them into one mighty empire but he who is set over us.”

John rode in his carriage every day from Richmond Hill to Federal Hall to preside over the Senate. He was not supposed to engage in debates, because he was not actually a Senator, and he ruffled more than a few feathers by refusing to sit silently as debate ensued. The government started to find its footing. Washington named John Jay as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Thomas Jefferson was named Secretary of State, but he wouldn’t arrive from France until spring 1790. Henry Knox was Secretary of War, a position he had held under the Articles of Confederation. Edmund Randolph was the Attorney General. And rounding out the Cabinet was Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury.

Abigail was required to host a number of official gatherings and informal visits, just as Martha did as First Lady. She was expected to be “at home both to gentlemen and ladies whenever they come out, which is almost every day.” She was also expected to return every visit that was paid to her, but she found a workaround. She never made any social calls in the mornings, when people were more likely to be home, instead going around in the afternoons and evenings, when most people would be out. This way she did her duty without having to spend her entire day in visits.

She and John hosted an official gathering on Thursday evenings, and she held frequent dinner parties. As usual, she described everything in detail in a letter to her sister, “in the first place all the Senators who had Ladies & families, then the remaining Senators. [Then the members of the House] and tho we have a room in which we dine 24 persons at a Time, I shall not get through them all, together with public Ministers for a month to come.”

As always, Abigail had plenty of complaints about her servants. She told Mary, “I hate to hear people forever complaining of servants, but I never had so much occasion as since I came here. I cannot find a cook in the whole city but what will get drunk. It is next to imposible here to get a servant from the highest to the lowest grade that does not drink, male or Female.” She did eventually find a footman who didn’t drink, but she made sure to point out that he was from Boston.

At the end of September 1789, Congress adjourned for a few months. They had accomplished a lot so far, setting up the executive departments and the judiciary, and approving the Bill of Rights. Many members of government returned home, especially the ones who had not brought their wives and families to New York. John and Abigail decided not to return to Braintree, primarily because they had brought most of their furniture with them to New York, not being able to afford furnishing two houses at the same time. John did go back to Braintree for a few weeks, staying with his mother. He was exhausted from the business of the Senate, and needed a rest. Abigail was ill, and the journey would have been too hard on her. John also was able to personally give Washington a tour of Harvard during Washington’s tour of the northern states that fall.

John returned to New York in time for the new session of Congress that began in January 1790. Thomas Jefferson finally arrived in New York in March, having returned to America the previous September. Jefferson always took his time getting to any of his official government appointments, whether they were across the ocean or just a few states away.

Seemingly everyone was ill the spring of 1790, Abigaill and George Washington included. It was one of those times when everyone was afraid Washington would die, and after the danger had passed, Abigail wrote to Mary, “I feared a thousand things which I pray, I never may be called to experience. Most assuredly I do not wish for the highest Post.”

In August 1790, Congress passed legislation funding the federal debt, which was a financial boon for the Adamses because it meant that the federal government would now have the authority to use its power of taxation to pay interest to its bond holders. You’ll recall that Abigail had invested no small amount of money into government bonds, and she was now going to reap the rewards.

As part of the horse-trading that went into passage of this legislation, Congress had also decided to relocate the national capital to Philadelphia for the next 10 years, and then to a site on the Potomac River beginning in 1800. The relocation was set to take place in the fall, during the Congressional recess. 

Abigail was very sad to leave New York. First, she would once again be separated from Nabby. Second, she loved her house at Richmond Hill. And third, she thought the weather of Philadelphia would not agree with her.

Next week, we’ll move with the Adamses from New York to Philadelphia, and into a second term as Vice President and Second Lady.

Thanks for listening to this episode. It was produced by me, and the music is by Matthew Dull.