[Illustration: _C. Harding Pinx.ᵗ_ _Pendleton’s, Lithog.ʸ Boston._ _Your friend_ _Hannah Adams._] A MEMOIR OF MISS HANNAH ADAMS, WRITTEN BY HERSELF. WITH ADDITIONAL NOTICES, BY A FRIEND. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY GRAY AND BOWEN. 1832. ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1832, By GRAY & BOWEN, in the Clerk’s office of the District Court of Massachusetts. PRINTED BY I. R. BUTTS BOSTON. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. The autobiography of MISS ADAMS is written with the modesty and unobtrusiveness which distinguished her character. It appears as if composed reluctantly, under the feeling that the community could hardly care to know anything about the struggles, disappointments, hopes and purposes of an individual so humble as herself. She undertook the task at the request of some of her friends, who thought that the circumstances of her life, and the traits of her character, well deserved to be remembered. But her principal motive in executing it, was to leave it as a legacy, which she hoped might be of some small benefit to an aged and very infirm sister, to whose comfort she had devoted her little savings for many years. It presents a lithographic drawing of herself, which will recall the features of her mind to those who knew her, and give some idea of them to those who did not. The continuation of her life is by a lady, one of those friends whose kindness she has acknowledged with warm gratitude towards the conclusion of her own narrative. It could not have been confided to better hands. The discrimination and delicacy with which the retiring virtues, and nicer shades of her character are delineated and produced, will explain to those who did not know her, what was the charm that drew genius and wealth, and youth and beauty, to minister with so much interest to the infirmities of a poor old woman.