Abigail Adams
...way of this goal. Abigail met John Adams when she was 15 years old. John was a 27-year-old Harvard graduate that was pursuing a career in law. They met briefly at her sister Mary’s wedding, but didn’t talk until two years later. Then they started to notice each others special qualities. They read and talked together. Then one evening in the middle of a thunderstorm, John proposed and she accepted. They were married on October 25, 1764. Abigail was 19 and John was 31, which was quite an age gap, but they made it work. They were lovers, friends, counselors, and mentors to one another into old age. Their 54-year marriage proved that they were truly meant-to-be. In terms of looks, the couple looked opposite from each other. John was short and pudgy with a round, plain face, while Abigail was tall and slender with sharp and striking features. People explained Abigail’s face as being masculine, but it was about as confident, controlled, and commanding a face as a woman can have and still remain feminine. The young couple lived on John’s small farm at Braintree and later in Boston as his practice in law grew. In 10 years, she gave birth to 3 sons and 2 daughters. Their names were Abigail, John Quincy, Susanna, Charles, and Thomas. Unfortunately, Susanna died at birth. Vandehey 4 John would sometimes travel as a circuit judge and Abigail would stay home and look after their children. She felt that it was a wife’s duty to support her husband in his aspirations and not prevent him from reaching his full potential. John did not resent his wife’s abilities to manage a farm and raise a family without him during his long absences on the nation's business. Rather, he took considerable pride in her accomplishments. He told her she was successful in budgeting, planting, managing staff, regulating live-stock, buying provisions, nursing and educating her children that their neighbors would surely remark on how much better things seemed to go in his absence. They went through many long separations while he was off designing a new nation. She supported and helped him in his insistence upon the Declaration of Independence. He served the country as a delegate to the Continental Congress, and an elected officer under the Constitution. In 1768, Abigail and John moved from the rural life in Braintree to the city life in Boston. Abigail was delighted with the busy town life, where she could read four different newspapers a week and socialize with Boston’s most influential families. Although she loved it in Boston, life was difficult as well. In just a few years, the family moved several times. Also, the first movements of the revolution were beginning in Boston and war was becoming more and more likely. Abigail wrote hundreds of letters in an excellent English style that recorded the history of our young country and the many perils it faced on the road to independence. She worked hard at writing her letters and fearlessly expressed her opinions in private and in public. Her letters were witty and written the same way that she spoke. They tell the story of the woman who stayed at home to struggle with wartime shortages and Vandehey 5 inflations. They tell of the woman that runs the farm with minimal help and teaches their children when formal education is interrupted. Most of all, her letters tell of her loneliness, but she addressed it to whoever would listen. She would write, “Dear Friend….,” and then continue on as if she was writing to someone. During Abigail and John’s long separations, they would keep in close contact with a steady flow of letters in order to keep their intimate bond together. Throughout most of her life, Abigail devoted a significant amount of time and energy to correspondence with friends and family. Letter writing gave her a forum for expressing her ideas, sharpening her opinions, and sharing intellectual, domestic, and political concerns with others. She would, over time, share her opinion with shapers of the country such as Thomas Jefferson and John Lovell, a delegate to the Continental Congress. John and Abigail were active members of the First Parish Church in Braintree. She did not sign the membership book like John did, but she attended the church, supported it, and showed care for its ministry. She clearly believed in theology and its teachings. This is apparent in some letters that she wrote her sons about how the father alone is the supreme god, and that Jesus Christ derived his being, and all his powers, and honor from the father. She believed that religion was from the heart, and not about some creeds or tests within a church. She became a trusted and influential political advisor to her husband. She had many ideas that were very controversial for the time. She opposed slavery and believed in equal education for boys and girls. She wanted her daughters to have a better education Vandehey 6 than she had as a child. She was among the first women in the new country to begin to question a woman’s rights and role in a free society. This started a revolution because other women like her wanted to follow her lead and bring some change for women into their society. Abigail and John both thought that slavery was not only evil, but a threat to American democratic experiment. On March 31, 1776, Abigail wrote that she doubted that distinguished Virginians in the corridors of power had quite the “passion for Liberty,” they claimed, since they had been used to “depriving their fellow creatures” of freedom. On February 13, 1791, she wrote to her husband regarding a black servant boy who had come to her asking to go to school to learn to write. Abigail enrolled the boy in a local evening school. A neighbor said that many people were upset about the black boy’s presence. Abigail responded saying that the boy is a free man just as all other men are and his color shouldn’t deny him of instruction. People stopped complaining shortly after that. Abigail often spoke up for married women’s property rights and more opportunities for women, particularly in education. She believed that women should not submit to laws that weren’t made in their interest and should not have the role of being decorous companions to their husbands. Abigail believed they should educate themselves just as she did. She wanted them to be recognized for their intellectual capabilities, as well as their house...