Thomas Jefferson in Boston (episode 277)

Transcript

Jake:
[0:01] Hey, Hub History listeners. Before we get started today, I just want to offer a bit of an apology.
When I sat down to start editing this episode, I realized that there was some sort of weird reverb in the recording.
I’m not sure if it’s because I had just put the air conditioner into the window that’s next to my recording booth and that changed the way the curtains fall or maybe I wasn’t talking directly into the mic or I don’t know what exactly happened.
Unfortunately, I didn’t allow enough time this week to go back and record the full episode again. So we’re kind of stuck with it.
I cleaned up the sound the best I could, but in the end, I’m sorry that the audio this week isn’t up to my usual standards.
Ok. With that disclaimer. Here we go.

Music

Jake:
[0:50] Welcome to Hub History where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 2 77 Thomas Jefferson in Boston.
Hi, I’m Jake.
This week. I’m talking about the time in 17 84 when Thomas Jefferson visited Boston this episode will be released on June 18th.
And that’s also the date in 17 84 when Jefferson arrived in our Fair City.
It also just so happened to be the same day when Abigail Adams left her home in Quincy to start making her way to France to join John in his diplomatic posting.
Though our ship didn’t actually leave Boston until the next day.
In this episode. We’ll explore how the friendship that was kindled during their single shared day in Boston carried on throughout their shared months in France, their decades of correspondence.
And even through the years when Jefferson and John Adams were feuding.

[1:48] We’ll also examine Thomas Jefferson as an early New England tourist who explored not only Boston but also New Haven, Portsmouth and other key regional population centers as well as taking a fun look at his epic Boston shopping spree just days before he too boarded a ship to Europe.
But before we talk about Thomas Jefferson in Boston, I just want to pause and say, thank you to everyone who supports hub history on Patreon.
You’re the reason I can afford to keep making hub history.
I’d like to say that that’s because ad sales are falling off across the podcast business.
I mean, that is true, but it’s not really my problem.
My problem is that I barely have time to make the podcast itself much less time to invest in chasing advertisers.
The handful of ads we’ve had in the past have come from companies who approached me, which I’m incredibly grateful for.
And speaking of which if you’ll be in Philly anytime soon, there’s a cool new store opening this month in the old city, directly across from the Betsy Ross House, our old advertiser Liberty and co is finally gonna have their own brick and mortar retail shop to be clear.
They didn’t pay me for this plug, but Tyson has invested in me in the past and now he has a lot invested in this store.
So when the store opens shop there, if you can.

[3:12] Now, my point actually is that I haven’t been able to invest time in chasing advertising.
So I’m incredibly grateful to the sponsors who invest in the show.
And in me their willingness to support us for anything from $2 a month to $20 a month, gives me the ability to cover the costs of making this show, even as podcast advertising falls off a cliff.

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And now it’s time for this week’s main topic.

[3:56] Long time listeners will remember that I’ve always been a big fan of the John Adams mini series on HBO HBO.
Max or I guess just Max now didn’t actually exist back when the series was released in 2008.
So I had to wait until it came out on DVD and then I could order it from the old Netflix DVD by mail service.
I was really blown away by how deeply researched it was.
I mean, sure they had to take some liberties to fit such a sweeping story arc into a seven hour series.
But the dialogue is nearly all taken directly from the letters and diaries of the Adams family or from other historical sources.
Even Lin Manuel Miranda said that he didn’t think he had to write John Adams into the Hamilton musical because Adams already had such a well done popular biography.
Tweeting back in 2013 while he was still writing the show, John Adams fans, sorry, in advance, my dude does not love your dude.
But y’all got a whole miniseries. Let us have this.
The whole series is outstanding. But when I started writing this episode, it made me think of a moment in episode four of the series when John introduces Abigail to Thomas Jefferson while they’re all on a diplomatic mission to France in 17 84.

HBO clip 1:
[5:16] My experience here has shown that American affairs are of very little consequence to anyone in your.
And as long as they are dealing with 13 separate states, they can afford to procrastinate.
Ah uh Thomas allow me to present my wife, Mrs Adams is already well known to me, your wisdom and your passion for your country is said to inform your husband every decision, you do me more credit than I deserve. So.

Jake:
[5:54] The words Jefferson speaks imply that he’s been long acquainted with Abigail Adams.
But the rest of the scene implies that he only knew her by reputation.
The truth is somewhere in between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had become very closely acquainted back in Philadelphia when they were both serving in the Continental Congress.
And they got even closer in the summer of 17 76 when they were the key members of the committee of five that drafted the Declaration of Independence.
Jefferson was not as well acquainted with Abigail Adams as he was with her husband, but he also knew her by more than just reputation in real life.
Abigail Adams and Thomas Jefferson had met before but only for a single day, in the spring of 17 74 Thomas Jefferson was still in mourning just over a year before his wife, Martha had passed away shortly after giving birth to their last child.
The child, Lucy Elizabeth died before her second birthday, becoming the third of their six Children to die before age two.
Now, at the age of 40 he’d just learned that the Confederation Congress had chosen him to replace John Jay in France, working alongside Adams and Benjamin Franklin as one of America’s first diplomats.
In a letter dated May 18th, 17 84 Elbridge Gary told Abigail Adams that the new ambassador would be departing from Boston.

[7:22] Unfortunately, he also told her that her husband would not be returning home any time soon.
Our commercial affairs are arranged. Mr Adams. Mr Franklin and Mr Jefferson are to carry on the negotiations.
Three years would probably be requisite to complete the business and you may embark for Europe without delay as there is not a possibility of any departure from the measures adopted by Congress.
Mr Jefferson proposed when he left Annapolis to spend about a fortnight in Philadelphia and afterwards to proceed to Boston.
And it’s probable that Colonel Humphries, formerly an aide to General Washington will go with him and that both will take passage from Boston.
In which case, you will have very agreeable companions while she might have been interested to meet an old acquaintance of her husband.
Abigail couldn’t have been too thrilled to hear that John wasn’t coming home.
They’ve been separated time and time again from the weeks they spent apart while John was being inoculated with smallpox during their engagement to the long months that John spent in Philadelphia when Congress was in session, when Abigail’s letters counted the snow banks that separated them to the year that he and John Quincy had spent in France during John’s first stint as a diplomat.
Now they’d been separated again for almost five years with John serving his country in the Netherlands and France and Abigail at home in Quincy.

[8:48] After years of telling her to stay home and mind the farm and Children, John had enough of loneliness.
And in the fall of 17 83 he finally told her to come to Europe that September, he even claimed that he would take the risk of air travel to be with her sooner.

[9:06] You may embark for London Amsterdam or any port of France on your arrival, you will find friends enough.
The moment I hear of it, I will fly with post horses to receive you at least.
And if the balloon should be carried to such perfection in the meantime, is to give mankind the safe navigation of the air.
I will fly on one of them at the rate of 30 knots an hour.
This is my sincere wish. Although the expense will be considerable, the trouble to you. Great.
And you will probably have to return with me in the spring.
I am so unhappy without you that I wish you would come at all events.

[9:45] With that, all that was left was to make the arrangements.
And on May 25th, 17 84 Abigail wrote to John to let him know that she had secured passage on a ship piloted by Captain Lyde though she was not without misgivings.
And now my dear friend, let me request you go to London sometime in July that if it please God to conduct me, that they’re in safety, I may have the happiness to meet you there.
I am embarking on board a vessel without any male friend, connection or acquaintance.
My servant accepted a stranger to the captain and every person on board, a situation which I once thought nothing would tempt me to undertake, but let no person say what they would or would not do since we are not judges for ourselves until circumstances call us to act.
I am assured that I shall have a state room to myself and every accommodation and attention that I can wish for.

[10:41] It is said to be a good vessel, copper bottom and an able captain should I arrive?
I know not where to apply for accommodations.
I shall carry with me a number of letters and rely upon the captain’s care of me.
I pray heaven conduct me in safety and give me a joyful and happy meeting with my long, long separated best friend, an ever dear companion and my long absent son, to whom my affectionate regards.
I hope to be benefited by the voyage as my health has been very infirm and I have just recovered from a slow fever.

[11:18] Knowing that they were both bound to the same destination in France, Thomas Jefferson rushed to Boston in hopes of accompanying Abigail on the harrowing journey across the Atlantic.
He almost made it too but not quite in a letter to John Adams on June 19th, Jefferson explained that he had missed his window.
He had arrived in Boston with only one day to go before Abigail’s departure, giving him just enough time to introduce himself.

[11:48] Paris being my destination. I have thought it best to inquire for a passage to France directly.
I have hastened myself on my journey hither in hopes of having the pleasure of attending Mrs Adams to Paris and of lessening some of the difficulties to which she may be exposed.
But after some unexpected delays at Philadelphia and New York, I arrived here yesterday and find her engaged for a passage to London and sail tomorrow.
It was therefore too late for her to alter her measures. Though I think she might probably meet with you this sooner.
Could she have taken her passage as I shall on board the French packet from New York where I had ensured her choice of accommodations and was promised that the departure of the vessel should be made agreeable to our movements.
She goes. However, in a good ship well accommodated as merchant ships generally are and I hope we’ll have soon the pleasure of meeting with you.
Unfortunately, there’s no record of their brief time together in Boston.
But in a letter to Elbridge Gary Jefferson noted his disappointment at missing his opportunity to accompany Abigail on her voyage, when I arrived here, I found Mrs Adams within 36 hours of sailing, I determined to take my passage to France in the first instance.
Yet the wish to accompany Mrs Adams would certainly have induced me to relinquish this. Could I within so short a time have prepared for an embarkation?
I was unable on this account to attend her.

[13:13] John Adams was one of the most reliable diarists of the revolutionary era, but abigail only kept a journal for three brief periods of her life.
Luckily, for us, one of those periods was her journey across the Atlantic.
And she started it by describing the grief with which she took her leave from family and friends. Just before departing.
The obvious dangers and uncertainty of an Atlantic voyage made her friends worry, which in turn couldn’t have done anything to reassure the novice traveler Abigail who’d also be taking her 18 year old daughter, Nabby on the dangerous journey.
On June 20th, she wrote, I left my own house the 18th of June, truly a house of mourning, full of my neighbors, not of unmeaning compliment, but of the honest yeomanry, their wives and daughters like a funeral procession.
All come to wish me well and to pray for a speedy return.

[14:07] Good heaven. What were my sensations hitherto?
I had fortified my mind knowing I had to act my little part alone.
I had possessed myself with calmness, but this was too much for me.
So I shook them by the hand mingling my tears with theirs and left them.
I had after this to bid my nieces a do. And then another scene still more afflict, an aged parent from whom I had kept the day of my departure.
A secret, knowing the agony she would be in.
Abigail is here referring to John’s mother. I called at her door as soon as the good old lady beheld me, the tears rolled down her aged cheek and she cried out.
Oh, why did you not tell me he was going so soon?
Fatal day I take my last leave. I shall never see you again.
Carry my last blessing to my son.
I was obliged to leave her in an agony of distress myself and no less.

[15:10] A transatlantic crossing was dangerous in its own right.
But part of the reason that the idea of making the journey on her own left her in an agony of distress was because it would be her first time.

[15:23] One article I read indicated that Abigail Adams had never traveled more than 30 miles from the Weymouth House.
She was born in, she made the trip between Quincy and Boston often enough.
But like most civilians of the era, she had never had reason to take on the difficulty and danger of a longer journey.
Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, was on his way to becoming the 18th century equivalent of a frequent flyer in a book titled Thomas Jefferson.
American tourist who seems to have been published to take advantage of America’s Bicentennial Enthusiasm.
Edward Dumbd wrote about Jefferson’s life of travel, mostly his experiences in Europe during and after this Atlantic crossing.

[16:05] To be sure many a modern globe trotter would find nothing extraordinary in the voyages of Jefferson.
It’s been computed that the time he spent en route and amounted to a year of his life.
He visited no remote regions of the Earth. Though one of the first to preach Panam Americanism in the Monroe Doctrine.
He was never in South America nor did he ever set foot in Spain.
Although by the purchase of Louisiana formerly belonging to that country he acquired for the United States, a vast empire for liberty.
While in Italy, he did not visit Rome Florence, Venice or Naples Berlin, Vienna and Budapest.
He never saw scarcely half a dozen European countries and twice as many states along the Atlantic seaboard comprise the territory, Thomas Jefferson surveyed as a tourist.

[16:56] However, Dumbd also makes it quite clear that Jefferson started out just as naive about travel as abigail Adams quoting William E Curtis is the true Thomas Jefferson.
He notes when Jefferson started for William and Mary College in 17 60 on horseback, a five days ride, he had never been farther than 20 miles from his home, had never seen a town of more than 20 houses.
And his acquaintance was limited to his school fellows and the families of farmers around Shadwell while I was Googling around to see what I could turn up for sources.
For this week. I stumbled across a kind of funny contemporary review of Dumb Bod’s book by Frederick Kirkland.
The author seems to think it’s strange that Jefferson spent only a year in traveling, but this seems to me a long time for a man who is as busy as Jefferson, especially when it’s considered that Washington and Hamilton were never out of the country after they reached maturity.

[17:56] Except for a few southerners who’d been educated in England or Edinburgh.
It was most unusual unless diplomacy or business took them away for colonists to want to undergo the hazards of an ocean voyage.
While his European travels wouldn’t commence until after this first Atlantic crossing.
Jefferson was quickly becoming a veteran road tripper.
That year. Congress was meeting in Annapolis Maryland, which was coincidentally where I lived for the couple of brief years when I made the mistake of moving out of Boston, on May 7th, they appointed Jefferson Minister plenipotentiary and charged him with joining Ben Franklin and John Adams in Paris to negotiate treaties of Amity and commerce with the European powers.
Thomas Jefferson wasn’t much for diaries, but luckily we have his account book for this trip.
This was a ledger where he kept track of the money he spent kind of like balancing a checkbook back in the old days.
These account books are handy because you can tell a lot about his travels from reading them from whether he was buying oats for his horses or paying the fare for a ferry ride to how much food he purchased for himself and his traveling companions to exactly where he was paying for accommodations for the night.

[19:17] According to these account books, Jefferson left Annapolis on May 11th and arrived in Philly by the 15th, leaving Philadelphia.
He reached Trenton on May 29th and took a ferry from Palace Hook in today’s Jersey City to Manhattan on the 31st, from there, he took his sweet ass time on the road to Boston with Dumbd pointing out that he took two weeks to cover a distance that usually took travelers one week over the best highways in the young nation like the Boston Post Road, which I hope to write an episode about in the future.
He wanted to see the sites and to explore a region that he’d never visited.
But there are also practical reasons for taking the long road if he was supposed to be negotiating commercial treaties in Europe.
Well, he needed to know what products the northern States had to offer.
So he tried to see as much of them as he could in a short time.
Dumbd writes before going abroad, Jefferson made a tour of the New England States familiarizing himself at first with their economic conditions.
In order to prepare himself for his task of negotiating treaties of commerce with foreign countries.
He announced to a Virginia correspondent, I mean to go through the Eastern States in hopes of deriving some knowledge of them from actual inspection and inquiry, which may enable me to discharge my duty to them somewhat the better.

[20:44] Upon leaving Annapolis.
He reached Philadelphia on May 14th, 17 84 two weeks later, he departed from Philadelphia, arriving at New York on the 30th.
He left New York on June 5th and visited Fort Washington, Stanford, Fairfield, Stratford, New Haven, Middletown, Hartford, Bolton, Lebanon, Norwich, New London, South Kingston, Newport and Providence, upon setting out from that place for Boston.
According to newspaper accounts, Jefferson was attended a few miles from town by a number of the principal inhabitants.
According to his account book, Jefferson and his party finally made it to our area on June 18th.
Noting breakfast ames is in Dedham, arrived in Boston.

[21:36] The account book also has a brief entry stating that Jefferson paid lodging et cetera of Colonel Ingersoll.
Thankfully, the editors of founders online added a helpful footnote to one of Jefferson’s letters from Boston explaining exactly where he stayed while visiting our city in Boston.
He stopped with Colonel Ingersoll, probably Joseph Ingersoll, who lived at the corner of Trema and Court Streets, Ingersoll Tavern on the corner where the government center tea Station now stands is also where George Washington stayed during his visit to Boston in 17 89.
When a letter from Boston attorney Christopher Gore in October noted in the house are three parlors on the lower floor, three bed chambers on the second and sufficient on the third to accommodate servants in the neighborhood is a very good livery stable.

[22:33] It was important that Ingersoll tavern headquarters for servants because Jefferson didn’t go on this trip alone with him.
He brought his oldest daughter, Martha who went by the name Patsy.
She was about 12 years old. He also brought along James Hemmings.
Hemmings was the half brother of Jefferson’s recently deceased wife, also named Martha.
He was also the brother of Sally Hemmings whom Jefferson would force to be his mistress. A few years down the road.
James Hemmings was like his sister enslaved by Jefferson at Monticello.
Our own homegrown gradual emancipation process was just getting started around this time.
And Boston’s reputation as a safe haven from fugitive slave laws was over 50 years from being earned.
So there was no reason for the enslave to worry about his human property during this visit.
France was another story though you can read more about how James Hemmings negotiated with Jefferson before returning home to slavery after tasting freedom in France.
In the book, the Hemmings is of Monticello by Annette Gordon Reed.

[23:46] You can also listen to a 2019 episode of the Spork Full podcast to learn how he became one of the first Americans to study French cuisine and how he helped shape the American palate.
There will be links to both of those resources in the show notes this week.

[24:04] Nabby Adams was a few years older than patsy, but they became very close in France binding the two families even closer together before that could happen though Jefferson had to find his way to France.
And before that, he had to complete his tour of New England without having to worry about accompanying Abigail.
Jefferson was free to turn around and leave town just three days after arriving in Boston, as noted in Thomas Jefferson American tourist.
On the 21st, he left the Massachusetts capital on a joint to Charlestown Winne summit, Salem Ipswich, Hampton, Portsmouth, exeter Newbury, Salem and Marblehead returning to Boston on the 26th, on the northern leg of his New England tour.
Jefferson was greeted with respect beyond that of a traveling politician.
An article from the Continental Journal and weekly advertiser from July 1st 17 84 alludes to this new public perception of the now former Congressman Friday.
Last, the honorable Thomas Jefferson, esquire, late governor of Virginia arrived here by land from that state.
He is shortly to embark for Europe as a minister plenipotentiary for the United States in the room of the honorable John J esquire, who is about to return to America.

[25:29] Governor Jefferson who has so imminently distinguished himself in the late glorious revolution, is a gentleman, a very amiable character to which he has joined the most extensive knowledge.
He is a mathematician and philosopher, as well as a civilian and politician.
And the memorable declaration of American independence is said to have been pinned by him.
Another footnote by the editors of founders online points out this unusual tribute is one of the earliest if not the first public statement concerning TJ S authorship of the Declaration of Independence.
Of course, this is also a bit of legend making in action, Boston’s own, John Adams and Boston expat Ben Franklin had taken a stronger hand in shaping the ideas laid out in the declaration.
But Jefferson wrote flowery prose and the others knew they needed a Virginian to be the public face of the document.

[26:29] Now, not even a decade later, Jefferson’s reputation as the sole author of the declaration was already growing.

[26:37] The footnote from the editors goes on to point out that he also had a growing reputation as a public intellectual, no doubt in part due to the credit he got for the ideas of Adams, the note continues, he not only met with such leading figures as Doctor Ezra Stiles, Governor Jabez Bowen of Rhode Island.
Governor Jonathan Trumble of Connecticut and the principal men of Boston and Portsmouth.
Some of whom, for example, Governor John Hancock of Massachusetts, he had known previously, but he was also accorded recognition to an unusual degree.
Some of this attention resulted of course from his official character and the mission on which he was going.
But there is no doubt of the fact that his reputation as a man of unusual intellectual attainments had preceded him.
Long time listeners will know that I don’t have the highest opinion of Thomas Jefferson.
But for the purposes of this episode, I’m willing to roll with this description of him.
So this man of unusual intellectual attainments managed to build time into his itinerary to visit the North Shore and New Hampshire for diplomatic reasons.
Writing to Elbridge Gary on July 2nd, the intermediate time I’ve employed in a trip to Portsmouth in order to gather in that state as I had endeavored to do in the others to which I had passed such information as to their commerce and other circumstances as might in some degree enable me to answer the purposes of my mission.

[28:07] He left Boston on June 21st and arrived back on the evening of the 25th when he dated another letter from Boston.
This left him with a few days in which to complete an epic shopping spree.
One of the nice things about having his account book is that it records his many purchases after arriving in Boston, gloves, a book, powder punch, a couple of haircuts, shoes, pamphlets, paper pomade postage, more pamphlets, a gross of bottles.
A pair of breeches apples, medicine, a mail poon which may be a reference to a pillion or cushion that’s attached behind a saddle to carry a passenger, oranges, a basin chamber pots, a table and chairs and a set of pillowcases.

[28:58] Besides retail therapy. The other business at hand, when Jefferson returned to Boston was actually getting on board a ship that could take him somewhere near France.
In a letter to his secretary on June 27th, he addressed his changing travel plans.
I mentioned in my letter to you that there was one circumstance which might induce me to take my passage from Hens in a ship of Mr Tracy’s.
This was obtaining a tolerable probability of being set ashore on the coast of France since my return from Portsmouth, which was the night before last I have seen Mr Tracy.
And I think the probability of being landed at breast though a ship goes for London sufficiently strong to induce me to take passage with him rather than wait till the 15th of July for the French packet.
It is only in this moment that this point is decided between us.
And as the ship sails on Saturday, the third of July, I have only time to notify you of it by express, while Abigail Adams adopted for a voyage to London where she would hopefully be met by John and eventually accompanied by him to Paris Jefferson had instead opted for a voyage to um well, also London.

[30:15] The difference was that he was planning to bail out the first time they made landfall on the shore of France or the Channel Islands.
And from there get immediate passage to Paris on another vessel.
As he said in a July 1st letter to his protege little Jimmy Madison, after visiting the principal towns through Connecticut, Rhode Island, this state and New Hampshire in order to acquire what knowledge I could of their commerce and other circumstances, I am returned to this place and shall sail the day after tomorrow in the series bound for London.
But my purpose is to get on shore in some boat on the coast of France and proceed directly to Paris.
According to an entry in his account book from July 5th Jefferson sailed from Boston at four o’clock AM in the series, Captain Saint Barb.

[31:07] The account book also contains a pretty detailed record of the weather he encountered in his crossing as well as his frequent sightings of sharks, whales porpoises and various seabirds.
On the other hand, most of Abigail Adams diary of her Atlantic crossing is filled with her distress at the constant seasickness.
The ship’s inexpert cook and her cramped and filthy quarters.
One moment of levity breaks the mood when she discovered that the ship’s second maid had been taken prisoner during the war, escaped from an English jail and was given money in letters of recommendation by John Adams after finding his way to France, having left Boston on June 20th, she spotted the white cliffs of Dover on July 19th.
And the next morning, she was finally able to go ashore at the town of Deal not far from Dover.
However, die didn’t have a proper wharf for landing passengers instead forcing her to brave the surf in a small pilot boat.
As she described in a letter, the boat was about as large as a Charlestown ferry boat.
And the distance from the ship about twice as far as from Boston to Charlestown, ashore as Bald as Nant Tat Beach.
No wharf. But you must be run right on shore by a wave where a number of men stand to catch hold of the boat and draw it up.
The surf ran six ft high.

[32:34] Finally, Abigail could write to John at length. Heaven be praised.
I am with our daughter safely landed upon the British shore after a passage of 30 days from Boston.
Despite her misgivings about sailing with him on chaperone, Abigail Adams later praised Captain Lyde in a September 5th letter.
It was not until yesterday that I had the honor of your letter inquiring into the character of Captain Lyde and I embraced the earliest moment madam to inform you that Captain Lyde has the character of a man of honor and integrity.
Though a perfect stranger to me until a few weeks before I embarked on board his ship, he treated me with great kindness and attention.
And although a rough son of Neptune, in his outward appearance, he really possesses a native benevolence and goodness of heart and is one of the most attentive and careful seamen that perhaps have ever traversed the ocean.
Having made 43 voyages without ever having met with any dangerous accident.

[33:34] After their dramatic small boat landing, Abigail and her party dried off in a pub, then took a carriage from deal to Canterbury, then to Rochester to Chatham where they stopped for dinner.
Then they pressed on to London finding lodgings at the Lowe’s Hotel in Covent Gardens.
There. Abigail was reunited with John Quincy, the now 17 year old son whom she had not seen since he left home five years earlier to accompany his father to Europe.
A second time in a letter to John from London on July 30th, she wrote, I was this day made very happy by the arrival of a son in whom I can trace the strongest likeness of a parent everywhere dear to me.
I had thought before I saw him that I could not be mistaken in him, but I might have sat with him for some time without knowing him.
I am at a loss to know what you would wish me to do. As Mr Jefferson arrived last week at Portsmouth immediately from Boston.
Although he sailed a fortnight after me and went on to Paris.

[34:39] So despite leaving Boston, two weeks after Abigail Adams Jefferson arrived on British Shores days before she did and he beat her to Paris by weeks, he wrote to John in France from an island on July 24th saying, when I did myself the honor of writing to you on the 19th ultimo, it was my expectation that I should take my passage in the French packet, which was to sail the 15th of this month.
And of course that I should not be in Paris till the middle or last of August, it had not been been suggested to me and being no seaman, it did not occur to myself that even from a London bound vessel, I might get ashore off or elsewhere on the coast of France.
On receiving this information, I took my passage with Mr Tracy in this vessel leaving Boston on the fifth instant and having had a most favorable run and now, as you will see above, meaning the isles of silly, a small group of islands off the southern tip of Britain where his letter was postmarked from.

[35:42] In a situation which hardly admits of writing at all.
And in hopes of seeing you in Paris as soon as your convenience and that of Mrs Adams will admit who I hope is now safe with you.
A footnote to that letter in the founder’s online database notes that he was unable to proceed directly to France as he had hoped.
Instead, the editors note he was forced to land at cows on the isle of white.
And from there, go to Portsmouth from whence, he sailed for France on July 31st.
He arrived at Paris on August 6th.
Abigail joined him there in less than a month or rather, she joined John at his French estate.
That’s just about where we came in with the clip I started this out with from the HBO Special.
But here’s one more just for good measure.

HBO clip 2:
[36:33] Let me take this opportunity Mr Jefferson to give you my deepest condolences.
You must know that you are welcome here at any time. I hope you will use this as your second home.
You’re most gracious. Thank you.
If ever there was a city designed to distract us from our troubles, it would be Paris.

Jake:
[37:02] The Children became an anchor for Jefferson that helped keep him from being set adrift after losing his wife and daughter in the same year, as well as being the glue that bound his family to Abigail’s.
Over the course of the next nine months, the Adamses and Jeffersons became something of a blended family with Edith Gelles writing in a 2018 post on the Amaro Institute’s Uncommon Sense blog.

[37:27] Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had first met in Philadelphia as delegates to the Continental Congress.
Although it had been a long decade since they had seen each other.
The two Americans resumed a close friendship in Paris that was based as much on personal sentiments as their combined missions as diplomats.
Abigail’s relationship with Jefferson was personal. He had come to Paris with a young daughter, Martha and his personal bonded servant, James Hemings.
He now found a home away from home among the Adamses that included John Quincy who became to him almost a son and Nabby, their 20 year old daughter together.
They explored the sights of Paris and attended theatrical and musical events.
Abigail and Tom discovered a compatibility of taste and temperament and both love to shop, Jefferson, the tall red haired 40 year old Southerner and Mrs Adams petite, somewhat naive and proper New Englander became good friends.
Those nine months together were the longest and only period where they s sojourned together as companions.
This time provided the foundation for their sincere and devoted friendship that lasted with one glaring interruption for the remainder of their lives.
It became the legendary idol for the Adams Jefferson friendship.

[38:54] Even during the legendary feud between Jefferson and John Adams that lasted over a decade.
Abigail was willing to break the silence and reach out to her old friend in 18 oh four.
Another of Jefferson’s daughters died.
Polly had been his youngest surviving child when she crossed the Atlantic at nine years old in 17 87, arriving in London on her own young Polly lived with the Adamses for a short time while Abigail became a mother figure to her.

[39:28] Upon learning that her former charge had died from complications in her third childbirth.
Abigail reached out to Thomas Jefferson at the height of his estrangement from her husband writing on May 20th, 18 oh four.
Had you been no other than the private inhabitant of Monticello?
I should air this time have addressed you with that sympathy which a recent event has awakened in my bosom.
But reasons of various kinds withheld my pen until the powerful feelings of my heart have burst through the restraint and called upon me to shed the tear of sorrow over the departed remains of your beloved and deserving daughter.
An event which I most sincerely mourn the attachment which I formed for her when you committed her to my care, upon her arrival, in a foreign land has remained with me to this hour.
And the recent account of her death, which I read in a late paper brought fresh to my remembrance, the strong sensibility she discovered though.
But a child of nine years of age having been separated from her friends and country and brought as she expressed it to a strange land among strangers.
The tender scene of her separation from me rose to my recollection when she clung around my neck and wet my bosom with her tears saying, oh, now that I have learned to love you, why will they tear me from you?

[40:52] Having herself buried two Children. Abigail continued, I have tasted the bitter cup and bow with reverence and humility before the great dispenser of it.
Without whose permission and overruling providence, not a sparrow falls to the ground that you may derive comfort and consolation in this day of your sorrow and affliction from that only source calculated to heal the wounded heart.
A firm belief in the being perfections and attributes of God is the sincere and ardent wish of her who once took pleasure in subscribing herself, your friend Abigail Adams.

[41:31] To learn more about Thomas Jefferson, his visit to Boston and his friendship with Abigail.
Adams check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 277.
I’ll have links to Thomas Jefferson’s 17 84 account book, dozens of letters from the Adams and Jefferson papers, as well as the book Thomas Jefferson American tourist and some modern blogs about the relationship between Jefferson and the Adams.
I’ll also link to more information about the enslaved chef James Hemings plus Lin Manuel Miranda’s tweet about the John Adams HBO miniseries from way back in the day, if you’d like to get in touch with me.
You can email podcast at hub history dot com.
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Music

Jake:
[42:53] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.