Stealthily the years go by, and we wist not they are passing, yet the muffled and hoarse voice of a century astounds us with its parting. The centennial birthdays have been celebrated; we have passed the hundredth anniversary of victories won and independence achieved. If the glad, free spirits of the Chief and his companion are permitted to review their earthly pilgrimage, let it be a source of gratification to us to know they smile upon a Republic of peace. Their bodies we guard, while they crumbled away in the bosom of their birth-place, and as long as a son of America remains a freeman, it will be a well-spring of inspiration to feel that Virginia contains the Pater Patriæ and the woman immortalized by his love.
II.
ABIGAIL ADAMS.
Abigail Smith, the daughter of a New England Congregationalist minister, was born at Weymouth, in 1744. Her father was the settled pastor of that place for more than forty years, and her grandfather was also a minister of the same denomination in a neighboring town.
The younger years of her life were passed in the quiet seclusion of her grandfather’s house; and under the instructions of her grandmother, she imbibed most of the lessons which were the most deeply impressed upon her mind. “I have not forgotten,” she says in a letter to her own daughter, in the year 1795, “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. This tribute is due to the memory of those virtues, the sweet remembrance of which will flourish, though she has long slept with her ancestors.”
Separated from the young members of her own family, and never subjected to the ordinary school routine, her imaginative faculties bade fair to develop at the expense of her judgment, but the austere religion of her ancestors, and the daily example of strict compliance to forms, prevented the too great indulgence of fancy. She had many relations both on the father’s and mother’s side, and with these she was upon as intimate terms as circumstances would allow. The distance between the homes of the young people was, however, too great, and the means of their parents too narrow, to admit of very frequent personal intercourse, the substitute for which was a rapid interchange of written communication. “The women of the last century,” observes Mr. Charles Francis Adams in his memoir of his grandmother, “were more remarkable for their letter-writing propensities, than the novel-reading and more pretending daughters of this era: their field was larger, and the stirring events of the times made it an object of more interest. Now, the close connection between all parts of this country, and rapid means of transmitting intelligence through the medium of telegraphs and newspapers, renders the slow process of writing letters unnecessary, save in instances of private importance. The frugal habits of the sparsely settled country afforded little material for the fashionable chit-chat which forms so large a part of the social life of to-day, and the limited education of woman was another drawback to the indulgence of a pleasure in which they really excelled. Upon what, then, do we base the assertion that they were remarkable for their habits of writing? Even though self-taught, the young ladies of Massachusetts were certainly readers, and their taste was not for the feeble and nerveless sentiments, but was derived from the deepest wells of English literature. Almost every house in the colony possessed some old heir-looms in the shape of standard books, even if the number was limited to the Bible and dictionary. Many, especially ministers, could display relics of their English ancestors’ intelligence in the libraries handed down to them, and the study of their contents was evident in many of the grave correspondences of that early time.” To learning, in the ordinary sense of that term, she could make no claim. She did not enjoy an opportunity to acquire even such as there might have been, for the delicate state of her health forbade the idea of sending her away from home to obtain them. In speaking of her deficiencies, the year before her death, she says: “My early education did not partake of the abundant opportunity which the present day offers, and which even our common country schools now afford. I never was sent to any school, I was always sick.” Although Massachusetts ranked then, as it does now, first in point of educational facilities, it is certainly remarkable that its women received such entire neglect. “It is not impossible,” says Mr. Adams, “that the early example of Mrs. Hutchison, and the difficulties in which the public exercise of her gifts involved the colony, had established in the public mind a conviction of the danger that may attend the meddling of women with abstruse points of doctrine; and these, however they might confound the strongest intellects, were nevertheless the favorite topics of thought and discussion in that generation.”
While the sons of a family received every possible advantage compatible with the means of the father, the daughter’s interest, as far as mental culture was concerned, was generally ignored. To aid the mother in manual household labor, and by self-denial and increased industry to forward the welfare of the brothers, was the most exalted height to which any woman aspired. To women there was then no career open, no life-work to perform outside the narrow walls of home. Every idea of self-culture was swallowed up in the wearying routine of practical life, and what of knowledge they obtained, was from the society of the learned, and the eagerness with which they treasured and considered the conversations of others.
On the 26th of October, 1764, Abigail Smith was married to John Adams. She was at the time twenty years old. The match, although a suitable one in many respects, was not considered brilliant, since her ancestors were among the most noted of the best class of their day, and he was the son of a farmer of limited means, and as yet a lawyer without practice. Mrs. Adams was the second of three daughters, whose characters were alike strong and remarkable for their intellectual force. The fortunes of two of them confined its influence to a sphere much more limited than that which fell to the lot of Mrs. Adams. Mary, the eldest, was married in 1762 to Richard Cranch, an English emigrant, who subsequently became a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Massachusetts. Elizabeth, the youngest, was twice married; first to the Reverend John Shaw, minister of Haverhill, and after his death, to the Reverend Mr. Peabody, of New Hampshire. This anecdote is told in connection with the marriage of Mrs. Adams. When her eldest sister was married, her father preached to his people from the text, “And Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” The disapprobation to his second daughter’s choice was due to the prejudice entertained against the profession of the law. Mr. Adams, besides being a lawyer, was the son of a small farmer of the middle class in Braintree, and was thought scarcely good enough to match with the minister’s daughter, descended from a line of ministers in the colony. Mr. Smith’s parishioners were outspoken in their opposition, and he replied to them immediately, after the marriage took place, in a sermon, in which he made pointed allusion to the objection against lawyers. His text on this occasion was, “For John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say, He hath a devil.” Mr. Smith, it may be as well to add, was in the habit of making application of texts to events which in any manner interested himself or his congregation. In a colony founded so exclusively upon motives of religious zeal as Massachusetts was, it necessarily followed that the ordinary distinctions of society were in a great degree subverted, and that the leaders of the church, though without worldly possessions to boast of, were the most in honor everywhere. If a festive entertainment was meditated, the minister was sure to be first on the list of those invited. If any assembly of citizens was held, he must be there to open the business with prayer. If a political measure was in agitation, he was among the first whose opinions were to be consulted. He was not infrequently the family physician. Hence the objection to Mr. Adams by her friends was founded on the fact that she was the daughter and granddaughter of a minister, and his social superior according to the opinions of zealous Christians, whose prejudices were extreme toward a calling they deemed hardly honest.
Ten years of quiet home-life succeeded her marriage, during which time little transpired worthy of record. “She appears to have passed an apparently very happy life, having her residence in Braintree, or in Boston, according as the state of her husband’s health, then rather impaired, or that of his professional practice, made the change advisable. Within this period she became the mother of a daughter and of three sons.”
Mr. Adams was elected one of the delegates on the part of Massachusetts, instructed to meet persons chosen in the same manner from the other colonies, for the purpose of consulting in common upon the course most advisable to be adopted by them. In the month of August, 1774, he left home in company with Samuel Adams, Thomas Cushings, and Robert Treat Paine, to go to Philadelphia, at which place the proposed assembly was to be held. In two months, Mr. Adams was home again. Congress met again in May, 1775, and Mr. Adams returned to Philadelphia to attend it. The long distance was traversed on horseback, and was replete with hardships. At Hartford he heard of the memorable incident at Lexington, only five days after his departure from Braintree. Up to this time, the trouble between the two countries had been a dispute, henceforth it resolved itself into open hostilities.