LETTER: Autograph letter signed, "L.C. Adams," to "Dear Sir” (John Vaughan Esq., Philadelphia,] Washington, December 1, 1814.
ALS, "L.C. Adams," to "Dear Sir" (John Vaughan Esq., Philadelphia,] Washington, December 1, 1814.
8vo.; one leaf; one page.
Adams (1775-1882), the English born First Lady of sixth President John Quincy Adams, writes about problems with her servants, whom she discusses as if they are her property:
"the German girl having fun away from us with an intention to return to her friends in hedelphia I am induced to trouble you again to apply to the person who procured her to escentem if she is in that city and to take measures to secure her. Mr. Adams think she had better be put into prison for a day or two and then sent on to us under the charge of some person so as to make it as little expense as possible and especially with a view to punish her and to set an example to the boy. They have both been treated with the greatest kindness and the the boy informs us that she had already laid her plan before she left Philadelphia. It is not with any hope of advantage from the services of this woman as I feel she is not good for much but the bey seems as if he would prove a valuable acquisition…”
She expresses concern that if they fail to punish the girl, the boy may, too, run away. "Mr. Adams writes with me in a sentiment of high respect and esteem. L.C. Adams."
She adds a post script "She carried away her clothes."
LC Adams was the first First Lady to be born in a foreign country, to be married in a foreign country, and to bear a child in a foreign country. Her uncle, Thomas Johnson, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Louisa was well educated in the classics, which she translated. She was a talented poet and an accomplished musician who played the harp and spinet She was fluent in Greek and French and wrote a play called Suspicion. As First Lady, Louisa continued the practice of her predecessor Elizabeth Monroe and did not return calls and continued the formal entertaining style of the Monroes. The two social highlights of her tenure as First Lady were the White House wedding of her son, John Adams Il, to his first cousin Mary Catherine Hellen; and a birthday party for Lafayette Louisa was a talented writer and correspondent and the quality and content of her letters is second only to those of her outspoken mother in law, Abigail Adams.
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