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John Quincy Adams Autograph Letter Signed...
Description
Twenty-Five-Year-Old John Quincy Adams Writes to His Mother Abigail While Practicing as a Lawyer in Boston
John Quincy Adams Autograph Letter Signed ("J. Q.
Adams"). One page of a bifolium, 6 1/8 x 7 3/4 inches. Boston;
August 29, 1792. Housed in a handsome custom slipcase.A personal letter from a young John Quincy Adams to his mother, Abigail Adams, written during his early years practicing law in Boston. He reports on routine domestic matters with a brief but telling warning about the spread of smallpox in the city. In full:
"Dear Madam,
The enclosed letters arrived on Saturday but I have not been able to send them before now. If you send the order (which I presume one of them contains) to Town to-morrow, it will go by the post on Friday.
I have engaged 30 bushels of oats for you; they are on board of the sloop two friends, Captain James Cannon, lying at the north side of the Town dock. I told him they would be sent for to-morrow, and paid him one dollar as earnest money. I agreed to give him two shillings a bushel. If you wish, I will pay the remainder also.
Mr. Lear is not expected here till next week. General Lincoln is likewise out of Town, so that your billet still remains in my hands.
Yours affectionately,
J. Q. Adams."
He adds a brief postscript in the left margin: "P. S. The small-pox, I believe will spread. The Supreme Court, have adjourned all their trials of civil actions over to the next Term, so that we shall have a short session." Addressed to "Mrs. A. Adams / Quincy," on pages two and three.
In 1792, Adams was still at the beginning of his career, balancing his legal practice with increasing involvement in public affairs. That year, a smallpox outbreak devastated the city; notably, this would be the last great epidemic of the disease in Boston, as it resulted in overwhelming demand for inoculation. By the end of the crisis, the vast majority of reported cases in Massachusetts resulted from controlled inoculation rather than natural contagion, marking a decisive turning point in how smallpox was able to spread.
A revealing and intimate letter, capturing the future sixth President in his youth, engaged in the everyday responsibilities of family life.
Condition: Good, with minor offset toning to the margins and a touch of deckling to the right and lower edges. Remnants of sealing wax on pages two and four, with minor loss to the blank integral where letter was opened.
References: Blake, John B. "Smallpox Inoculation in Colonial Boston." Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 8, no. 3 (1953): 284-300.
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