Josiah Quincy Sr. lived the rest of his life in Braintree. Throughout the Revolutionary War, he served as lookout from his beloved monitor. He received visits from Ben Franklin and the two men corresponded for years. It was in a letter to Josiah that Franklin declared, after peace with England had been made, “May we never see another war! For in my opinion there never was a good war or a bad peace.”8
During the war, Josiah arranged to have his son’s body exhumed from his Gloucester grave and reburied in Braintree, as Josiah Jr. had wished.
Josiah Sr. died on March 3, 1784, his death caused by going out to sit “upon a cake of ice” in the frozen expanses of the bay beside his house, while “watching for wild ducks.”9 He was seventy-five years old.
Josiah Quincy Sr.’s will provided that his home in Braintree pass to Josiah Quincy III, his grandson. Josiah also left to his grandson the ring that Josiah Jr. had made for him. In his will, Josiah Sr. instructed his grandson to never forget or neglect the motto inscribed on the ring, “Oh, Save My Country,” and the duty it imposed. By all accounts, Josiah III wore the ring all his adult life.
Abigail Quincy never remarried. Five years after Josiah Jr.’s death, she wrote, “I have been told that time would wear out the greatest sorrow, but mine I find is still increasing. When it will have reached its summit, I know not.”10 She devoted her life to raising her son and preserving her husband’s memory.
Josiah Quincy III spent his life in public service, serving on the Boston Town Meeting, in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, in the U.S. House of Representatives, and as mayor of Boston. From 1829 to 1845, he was president of Harvard University. Quincy Market in Boston is named for him. Like his father (and his cousin John Quincy Adams), Josiah III abhorred slavery and was an early abolitionist.
Later in his life, Josiah III recalled how his mother had him memorize stanzas from The Iliad by Homer (as translated by Alexander Pope) and then recite them for her. She particularly favored the story of Andromache, whose husband, Hector, leaves her and their newborn baby to fight in the Trojan War.
“Her imagination, probably, found consolation in the repetition of lines which … seemed to typify her own great bereavement,” Josiah III explained. “She identified [these lines] with her own sufferings and seemed relieved by the tears my repetition of them drew from her.”11
Too daring prince! ah whither dost thou run?
Ah too forgetful of thy wife and son!
And think’st thou not how wretched we shall be,
A widow I, a helpless orphan he!
For sure such courage length of life denies,
And thou must fall, thy virtue’s sacrifice.
When Abigail Quincy died on March 25, 1798, she was buried beside her husband, Josiah Jr., in the burial ground at Braintree.12 Their shared grave lies just across the grassy path from the grave of the Reverend John Hancock, the man whose vision of community and liberty fostered a generation that fought for both.
Acknowledgments
* * *
Many people helped me in researching and writing this book. From its first vague outline, the truly marvelous Esther Newberg encouraged me and supported me. I am so grateful to Michael Flamini, my smart, kind, and insightful editor at St. Martin’s Press. Thanks are also due to talented book designer Young Lim, who created the beautiful cover; editorial assistant Hannah Phillips, who is patient with me; and Rebecca Lang, Michelle Cashman, and Paul Hochman, who propel my book into the world. Martha Cameron copyedited with an eagle eye and a much-appreciated sense of humor.
My extensive research at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston was supported by the Marc Friedlaender Fellowship, which I was honored to receive. The Massachusetts Historical Society is a true gem of a place, not only for its incredible collections and its fellowship opportunities, but also for its community of researchers, librarians, writers, and editors, including Sabina Beauchard, Alexis Buckley, Rakashi Chand, Anna Clutterbuck-Cook, Dan Hinchen, Peter Drummey, Sara Martin, and Conrad E. Wright. Thank you for sharing your collections and your knowledge with me.
Thanks are also due to Maggie Hoffman, for guiding me through the Brinkler Library of the Cambridge Historical Society; and to Elizabeth Rose for her assistance at the Fairfield (Connecticut) Museum and History Center.
Visits to the Dorothy Quincy Homestead and to the Josiah Quincy House were an integral part of my research (along with many, many follow-up emails). I am very grateful to the best guides ever, the women who led me through the rooms, the grounds, and most important, the history of these amazing landmarks: Mary Robinson, Barbara Armenta, Marcia Synott, Jeanne Eckard, Melinda Huff, and Nancy Carlisle.
Anyone interested in the history of the United States should make a pilgrimage to Quincy, Massachusetts, and visit the Dorothy Quincy Homestead, managed by The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, Massachusetts Society; and the Josiah Quincy House, managed by Historic New England; as well John Adams National Historical Park. I was fortunate to have my great friend Viveca Van Bladel as my traveling companion and will always treasure our time together on the history trail. I will miss Deborah Quinsee and her rebel heart, and am grateful for her support of my work.
Natasha Sankovitch and Charlotte Rogan were more than willing to read through my drafts, and they both offered comments and edits that helped enormously. Dorothy Ko encouraged me in my research and writing. Thank you to these brilliant women.
As always, I am deeply indebted to my parents, Tilde and Anatole Sankovitch, and my sister Natasha; and to my husband, Jack Menz, and our children, Meredith, Peter, Michael, George, and Martin. Thank you to my granddaughter Charlotte for the joy she has brought into all of our lives.
I carry my sister Anne-Marie Sankovitch with me always, and my work is inspired by her dedication to researching and writing the history of our world.
Notes
Prologue: A Village Mourns
1 Ebenezer Gay, “The Untimely Death of a Man of God Lamented in a Sermon Preach’d at the Funeral of the Reverend Mr. John Hancock, Pastor of the First Church of Christ in Braintree; Who Died May 7th. 1744,” Hancock Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society (hereafter cited as MHS).
2 Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of American Statesmen (New York: William W. Wise, 1916), p. 103.
3 Gay, “The Untimely Death of a Man of God.”
4 Ibid.
5 Records of the First Church, North Braintree, quoted in William S. Pattee, History of Old Braintree and Quincy (Quincy, MA: Green and Prescott, 1878), p. 218. The date noted by the Reverend John Hancock was in accordance with the Old Style calculation of time (pre-Julian calendar).
6 John Adams to William Tudor, June 5, 1817, Adams Papers, MHS. The Adams Papers include digital editions, microfiche, and original documents of John Adams and Abigail Adams; unless otherwise noted, all footnotes citing the Adams Papers refer to the digital edition of the document cited.
7 John Hancock, “A Memorial of God’s Goodness. Being the Substance of Two Sermons, Preach’d in the First Church of Christ in Braintree, Sept. 16th. 1739,” Hancock Family Papers, MHS.
8 John Langdon Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, vol. 3 (Cambridge, MA: Charles William Sever, 1885), p. 109.
9 Clifford K. Shipton, New England Life in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 450.
10 Daniel Munro Wilson, Where American Independence Began (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1902), p. 68.
11 Gay, “The Untimely Death of a Man of God.”
12 Hancock, “A Memorial of God’s Goodness.”
Chapter 1: Founding a Village
1 Also called “Filcher” in some accounts; John Adams refers to him as B. Fitcher in his autobiography, but I could find no record of his first name.
�
�� 2 Thomas Morton, New English Canaan of Thomas Morton, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Prince Society, 1883), p. 123.
3 Morton, New English Canaan, p. 14, 4n.
4 William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (Boston: Little, Brown, 1856), p. 238.
5 Morton, New English Canaan, p. 180.
6 Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, p. 237.
7 John Adams, “Notes on the History of Mt. Wollaston, 19 October 1802,” Founders Online, National Archives, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-4984.
8 Morton, New English Canaan, p. 277; Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, p. 237.
9 Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, p. 237.
10 Morton, New English Canaan, p. 283.
11 Ibid., p. 280.
12 Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, p. 241.
13 Morton, New English Canaan, p. 287.
14 Ibid., pp. 237–238.
15 Morton returned one more time to the New World. He was arrested yet again, this time for Royalist leanings; this was during the English Civil War, and Puritans in New England were on the side of the Parliamentarians and against the Royalists. Because of his age, Morton was released and died in the wilds of Maine sometime around 1647; he would have been around seventy years old.
16 Thomas Hutchinson, The History of Massachusetts Bay, vol. 2 (London: M. Richardson, 1765); Appendix, p. 509.
17 See Chandler, American Criminal Trials, vol. 1 (Boston: Timothy H. Carter and Company, 1841), pp. 24–26.
18 See Wilson, Where American Independence Began, pp. 42–43.
19 In the late seventeenth century, Daniel Quincy, grandson of the first Edmund Quincy in America, married Anne Shepherd, a granddaughter of Captain Tyng. John Quincy, a child of the marriage, inherited the lands of Mount Wollaston.
20 Hancock, “A Memorial of God’s Goodness.”
Chapter 2: The Education of Boys
1 “Indenture of Thomas Hancock,” Bostonian Society Publications, vol. 12, pp. 99–101, cited in William T. Baxter, House of Hancock (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1945), p. 5.
2 Boston News-letter, March 4, 1725, Collections of the MHS, cited in Baxter, House of Hancock, p. 6.
3 Thomas Hancock Bookseller Advertisement, reproduced in Baxter, House of Hancock, p. 7.
4 Herbert S. Allan, John Hancock: Patriot in Purple (New York: Macmillan, 1948), p. 31.
5 Carrie Rebora and Paul Staiti, John Singleton Copley in America (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995), p. 32.
6 Diary of John Adams, vol. 1, August 14, 1756, Adams Papers, MHS.
7 David McCullough, John Adams (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), p. 32.
8 Diary of John Adams, December 30, 1758, Adams Papers, MHS.
9 Diary of John Adams, vol. 3, Parents and Boyhood, Adams Papers, MHS.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid., vol. 1, A Letter to Richard Cranch About Orlinda, a Letter on Employing One’s Mind, and Reflections on Procrastination, Genius, Moving the Passions, Cicero as Orator, Milton’s Style, etc., October–December 1758, Adams Papers, MHS.
17 John Hancock to Jonas Clarke, undated, quoted in Allan, John Hancock: Patriot, p. 375.
18 Diary of John Adams, vol. 3, Parents and Boyhood, Adams Papers, MHS.
Chapter 3: Worldly Goods, Heavenly Debates
1 Samuel Eliot Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, 1636–1936 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1946), p. 60.
2 Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, A Sermon Preached at Enfield, 8 July 1741, Collections of the MHS.
3 Lemuel Briant, “The Absurdity and Blasphemy of Depretiating Moral Virtue: A Sermon Preached at the West-Church in Boston, June 18th, 1749,” p. 23, Collections of the MHS.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., p. 7.
6 Captain Isaac Freeman to Messrs. Quincy, Quincy, and Jackson, August 1, 1748, quoted in Robert A. McCaughey, The Last Federalist (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), p. 2.
7 Shipton, New England Life, p. 278.
8 Ibid., p. 107.
9 Edmund Quincy IV to Elizabeth Wendell Quincy, undated, quoted in Kate Dickinson Sweetser, Ten American Girls from History (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1917), p. 37.
10 John Porter, The Absurdity and Blasphemy of Substituting the Personal Righteousness of Men in the Room of the Surety Righteousness of Christ, in the Important Article of Justification Before God. A Sermon Preached at the South Precinct in Braintree, December 25th 1749, Evans Early American Imprint Collection.
11 Jonathan Mayhew to Experience Mayhew, August 21, 1752, Collections of Boston University Library.
12 Diary of John Adams, vol. 3, Harvard College 1751–1755, Adams Papers, MHS.
13 Shipton, New England Life, pp. 453–454.
14 Diary of John Adams, vol. 3, Harvard College 1751–1755, Adams Papers, MHS.
15 Diane Jacobs, Dear Abigail (New York: Ballantine, 2014), p. 19.
16 The Report of a Committee of the First Church in Braintree, Appointed March, 1753, to Enquire into the Grounds of Those Slanderous Reports That Had Been Spread Abroad, Respecting Themselves, and the Reverend Mr. Lemuel Briant, Their Pastor. Collections of MHS.
17 William S. Pattee, A History of Old Braintree and Quincy, with a Sketch of Randolph and Holbrook (Quincy, MA: Green & Prescott, 1878), p. 222.
Chapter 4: The Education of Girls
1 Woody Holton, Abigail Adams (New York: Free Press, 2009), p. 3.
2 Abigail Adams to Caroline Smith, February 2, 1809, Journal and Correspondence of Miss Adams, vol. 1 (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1841), p. 216.
3 Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams, December 26, 1790, Adams Papers, MHS.
4 Elizabeth Smith to William Smith, April 28, 1763, Library of Congress, Papers of William Cranch.
5 New England Chronicle or Essex Gazette, October 19, 1775, Collections of MHS.
6 Abigail Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 1795, quoted in Charles Francis Adams, ed., Letters of Mrs. Adams, Wife of John Adams, vol. 1 (Boston: Wilkins, Carter, 1848), pp. xxv–xxvi.
7 Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams, December 30, 1804, Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-1372.
8 Abigail Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 1795, quoted in Adams, ed., Letters of Mrs. Adams, pp. xxv–xxvi.
9 Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams, vol. 2 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1856), p. 75; Diary of John Adams, vol. 3, Spring and Summer 1759, Adams Papers, MHS.
10 Diary of John Adams, February 11, 1759, Adams Papers, MHS.
11 Josiah Quincy IV, Figures of the Past from the Leaves of Old Journals (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1883), pp. 64–65.
12 Diary of John Adams, vol. 1, A Letter to Richard Cranch About Orlinda, Adams Papers, MHS.
13 Early Diary of John Adams, vol. 1, Letters to Three Friends on Studying Law, October–November 1758, Adams Papers, MHS.
14 Ibid.
15 Diary of John Adams, vol. 3, Parents and Boyhood, Adams Papers, MHS.
16 Diary of John Adams, vol. 1, Tuesday, January 1759, Adams Papers, MHS.
17 Diary of John Adams, vol. 1, Worcester, February 11, 1759.
18 Diary of John Adams, vol. 1, Summer 1759, Adams Papers, MHS.
19 Ibid.
20 Diary of John Adams, vol. 1, October 26,
1758, Adams Papers, MHS.
21 Diary of John Adams, vol. 1, Summer 1759, Adams Papers, MHS.
22 Diary of John Adams, vol. 3, Harvard College, 1751–1755, Adams Papers, MHS.
23 John Adams to William Tudor, November 16, 1816, Founders Online, National Archives, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-6659.
24 Diary of John Adams, vol. 1, December 1758, Adams Papers, MHS.
25 Jonathan Sewall to Thomas Robie, June 16, 1759, Robie-Sewall Family Papers, MHS.
26 Diary of John Adams, vol. 1, Wednesday, January 1759, Adams Papers, MHS.
27 Diary of John Adams, vol. 1, A Letter to Richard Cranch About Orlinda, Adams Papers, MHS.
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