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Online Finding Aids Abigail Adams, Letters, 1784-1816 Contents List About this collection Folder Contents     1 Letters, n.d.; 1784 1785 2 Letters, 1786 - 1787 3 Letters to Mary Cranch, 1788 - 1795 (Published) 4 Letters to Mary and Lucy Cranch, 1797 - 1798 (Published) 5 Letters to Mary Cranch, 1799 - 1816 (Published) 6 Letters, 1788 - 1816     About this collection Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818), the daughter of Rev. William Smith (1707-1783) and Elizabeth Quincy Smith (1721-1775), was the wife of John Adams (1735-1826), second president of the United States. This extensive collection of the letters of Abigail Adams are to her sister, Mary Smith Cranch (1741-1811), and her niece, Lucy Cranch Greenleaf (1767-1846). The letters start with the crossing, in 1784, of the Adamses to England, where John Adams served as Minister to the Court of St. James, and continue in profusion until John Adams retired from the Presidency and Washington, D.C., back to Quincy in 1801. There are some later letters from Abigail Adams to her niece, Lucy Cranch Greenleaf, dated in the period 1811 to 1816. Abigail Adams was an ardent Federalist and her letters contain tart comments on political topics and personalities. There is also much comment on city life in London, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington in these familiar letters to her older sister and, later, her niece. Collection is item-cataloged; available in Catalogue of the Manuscript Collections of the American Antiquarian Society. 4 vols. (Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1979), and in the Manuscripts Department card catalog. Selected items (unpublished letters) also available on positive microfilm (1 reel, 35 mm.). Selected items (unpublished letters) also available on master negative microfilm (1 reel, 35 mm.). One hundred forty-one letters have been published as: Mitchell, Stewart. "New Letters of Abigail Adams, 1788-1801." Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 55 (1945) 95-232, 299-444. One hundred forty-one letters have been published as: Mitchell, Stewart. "New Letters of Abigail Adams, 1788-1801." Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947.

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