Abigail Adams, the second First Lady, is someone every citizen of the United States should know from their history books. Do they? Maybe. I’m guessing many did not learn much, if anything, about this strong woman who influenced and helped shape America.
Early Life
Abigail was born at the North Parish Congregational Church in Weymouth, in the colony of Massachusetts, on November 22, 1744. Her father, William Smith, was a minister and community leader who taught the importance of reason and morality. Her mother, Elizabeth (nee Quincy) Smith, was a descendant of the well-known Quincy family. John Hancock was part of her family through his marriage to her mother’s cousin.
The Smith family owned at least four people, one of whom, Phoebe, fulfilled the role of caretaker of the four Smith children, including their second child, Abigail.
Education
Abigail did not receive formal schooling. During her school-age years, people rarely provided females with formal education. Plus, she was frequently ill as a child, which may have prevented her attending school. However, her mother taught her and her sisters to read, write, and cipher (to calculate). Her grandmother also contributed to her education. And she made use of the extensive libraries of her father, uncle, and her grandfather, where she studied English and French literature.
Marriage
Abigail’s older sister got engaged to Richard Cranch. One day in 1759, Cranch brought his friend, John Adams, on a visit to the Smith household. John was 24. She was 15.
Abigail’s father approved the match, but her mother did not. His Harvard education did not impress her. At first, Abigail’s mother thought Adams was a country lawyer whose manner still reeked of the farm. Eventually, her mother gave in.
On October 25, 1764, one month shy of her twentieth birthday, Abigail’s father officiated her marriage to John Adams. The wedding and reception took place at the Smiths’ home in Weymouth.
When they were ready to leave on their honeymoon, Mr. and Mrs. Adams mounted a single horse and rode to the saltbox house and farm John had inherited.
Family Life
Abigail and John welcomed their first daughter, Abigail (Nabby), nine months later.
John Quincy (1767-1848) was their second child.
Their third child, Susanna, was born in 1768. That year, John Adams moved the family to Boston. They rented a clapboard house known locally as the “White House.” After a year, they moved to Cold Lane, and later they moved to a larger house in the center of the city.
Charles, their fourth child, was born in 1770. That was the year daughter Susanna died.
In 1771, John Adams moved Abigail and the children back to Braintree but kept the office for his growing law practice in Boston. He moved them back to Boston the year their fifth child, Thomas, was born (1772). They lived in a large brick house close to his office. But by 1774 Boston had grown unstable, and John went to Philadelphia as a delegate to the First Continental Congress, so the family moved back to Braintree, which became their permanent Massachusetts home.
Abigail taught her children when the revolution stopped formal schooling. She even took their son, John Quincy, to the top of a hill near their farm where they watched the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775.
Travel & Correspondence
John became a circuit judge and traveled a lot. Abigail took care of the family and managed the farm and the family’s finances. She made wise investments that provided wealth for the family throughout John’s lifetime.
While he was traveling, they wrote letters to one another in which John often asked her for advice. Abigail’s letters were witty and included details of life at home, as well as her opinions and quotes from literature. One of her most famous letters, “Remember the Ladies,” written in 1776 while John served as a delegate to the First Continental Congress, asked her husband and the Founding Fathers, “Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.”
She believed the law should give women the same rights as men had regarding education, property, and protection. While John’s letters to her show his admiration, trust, and respect, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence with no guarantees for blacks or women.
In 1777, they had the last of their children, a stillborn daughter, Elizabeth.
In 1778, the Continental Congress sent John Adams to Paris to negotiate an alliance with France.
Europe
In 1784, Abigail and their daughter Nabby joined John and their eldest son, John Quincy, at John’s diplomatic post in Paris. Overwhelmed at first, she discovered friends, a fondness for theatre and opera, and a fascination with French fashion, though she didn’t wear those fashions.
When John became the first United States Minister to Great Britain in 1785, she moved with him to London. Abigail received the cold-shoulder in London. While in London, she became temporary guardian of Thomas Jefferson’s daughter, Mary (Polly). It was the highlight of her time there and led to a lifelong deep love for Polly.
They returned home in 1788 and settled into a house they had recently bought in Braintree (Quincy). She vigorously enlarged and remodeled Peacefield, also known as the “Old House.”
The Vice Presidency
John Adams assumed the first of two terms as vice president in 1789. Abigail divided her time between the capital (New York City until 1790, then Philadelphia) and the family home in Massachusetts. She became a good friend to the first First Lady, Martha Washington, and helped with official entertaining. In 1791, Abigail suffered from poor health. She spent as much time as possible at their home in Massachusetts.
It was there she received a free black young man who asked to be taught how to read and write. Abigail placed him at a local evening school. When others objected, she said that he was “a Freeman as much as any of the young men, and nearly because his face is black, is he to be denied instruction? How is he to be qualified to procure a livelihood?…I have not thought of it as a disgrace to my self to take him into my parlor and teach him both to read and write.”
Besides helping that young man, she hired Phoebe, the freed slave who cared for her as a child, to help care for Abigail’s own children.
While Abigail opposed slavery, she still had racist views typical of the white population in 18th century America. She wrote about how watching a Black man playing Othello in London touch Desdemona, a white woman, had appalled her.
The Second First Lady
Abigail became the second First Lady when John Adams served as the nation’s second president (1797-1801). She missed John’s inauguration because she was caring for his dying 89-year-old mother. In letters to her sister, she said she “expected to be vilified and abused, with my whole family.” Still, she “soldiered” on.
She brought the children of her brother, William Smith, of her brother-in-law, John Shaw, and their son’s daughter, Susanna, because the fathers struggled with alcoholism. Charles died of “dropsy of the chest (pleurisy) in 1800. He was the first child of a president to die while the president was in office.
She rose each day at 5:00am and stayed busy managing the household and receiving callers for two-hours each day. She engaged in political discussions with many of the politicians who visited. Each week, she held a large dinner, made frequent public appearances, and funded Fourth of July entertainment every year. An active and staunch supporter of her husband’s political career and policies, she decried news she saw as incorrect and even submitted stories favorable to her husband.
Critics said the wife of the president should not insinuate herself into political discussions and referred to her as “Mrs. President.” In reality, she disagreed with some of his policies but stated nothing but support for him publicly.
The Executive Mansion
In 1880, the nation’s capital moved from Philadelphia to Washington, DC. The Adams became the first First Family to move into the President’s House, a building that would become known as the White House. She complained in her letters to family about the building’s rough and unfurnished state. She called the location beautiful and described thick woods and wilderness surrounding them. Yet, she also complained that she couldn’t find anyone willing to chop and haul firewood for the First Family. Still, she cautioned her daughter not to say anything negative about the house. She did not wish for the family to appear ungrateful.
On New Year’s Day 1801, she opened the mansion to visitors, a tradition continued until 1933.
After the Presidency
Abigail and John retired to their home in Massachusetts in 1800. Abigail continued a lively correspondence with family, friends, and even political rivals. She proudly followed the career of their son, John Quincy Adams, who served as a U.S. senator, minister to Russia, and Secretary of State.
She continued to raise their granddaughter, Susanna, and John Quincy’s children while he was minister to Russia. Their 48-year-old daughter, Nabby, died in 1813 after a three-year battle with breast cancer.
For seventeen years, they enjoyed a more private and companionable life. She spent much of her time with her children, grandchildren, and friends.
Death
Abigail contracted typhoid fever at 74. Surrounded by family, she died on October 28, 1818. Three days after her 54th wedding anniversary. Her husband wrote, “I wish I could lay down beside her and die too.”
They buried her in the family crypt at the United First Parish Church of Quincy.
Legacy
Abigail and John Adams left more than 1,000 pieces of correspondence for history to study and cherish. Letters that provide a window into her life and the life of her husband during upheaval, revolution, and a political career that helped form a nation.
Most historians agree that Abigail Adams was one of the most well-read women in eighteenth-century America. She has consistently been ranked in the top three of the most highly regarded first ladies in the US.
Their home, “Old House,” still stands, and as part of the Adams National Historical Park it is open to the public today. The park also maintains the church where she was born, and both of the Adams’ gravesites in Quincy.
A mound of rough stones crowns Penn Hill. It’s called the Abigail Adams Cairn and commemorates the place from which she and her son watched the Battle of Bunker Hill.
In 1969, Virginia Vestoff played Abigail in the original production of 1776 and reprised the role for the film version in 1972. They also featured Abigail in the 1976 PBS mini-series The Adams Chronicles, and in the 2008 HBO mini-series, John Adams. There are portrayals of Abigail in the television series, Sleepy Hollow, (January 19, 2015), in Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, and in Barbara Hambly’shistorical mysteries: The Ninth Daughter (2009), A Marked Man (2010), and Sup with the Devil (2011).
On June 19, 2007, the US Mint released Abigail Adams coins as part of the First Spouse Program, issuing $10 gold coins and bronze medal duplicates.
Abigail was one of three women represented in a bronze sculpture as part of the 2003 Boston’s Women’s Memorial on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall in Boston.
They unveiled a seven-foot bronze statue of Abigail on the Hancock Adams Common in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 2022.
An often overlooked part of Abigail’s legacy, is her son, John Quincy Adams, who served this country as the U.S. Minister to the Netherlands (1794-1797)), U.S. Minister to Prussia (1797-1801), a U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1803-1808), US ambassador to Russia (1809-1814), Secretary of State (1817-1825), a Member of the United States House of Representatives (1831-1848), Dean of the United States House of Representatives (1844-1848), and as the sixth President of the United States (1825-1829).
Conclusion
Abigail paved a path to be followed and improved upon by the First Ladies who followed. Still, she was a complicated person living in a complex time when America was young and being tested. As an advocate for women and as an opponent of slavery, she was remarkable for her time. She never imagined women should vote, or blacks and whites should marry one another. But in opposition to many others, she raised her voice for basic freedoms for women and blacks. We should remember and celebrate her for that and more. Abigail Adams, the second First Lady was a strong woman who influenced and helped shape American history.
If you would like to read more about strong women from American history, check out previous posts.
References
Image Credits
Featured image by Benjamin Blyth, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Second image by John Phelan, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Third image by National Gallery of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Fourth image by Elisa Rolle, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
image by United States Mint, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
image by PsuedoName, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
