Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams During the Revolution: with a Memoir of Mrs. AdamsAdams, John
History
Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams During the Revolution: with a Memoir of Mrs. Adams
Adams, John
Adams, Abigail, 1744-1818 -- Correspondence; Adams, John, 1735-1826 -- Correspondence; Presidents -- United States -- Correspondence
At Mount Wollaston, a part of Braintree, the town next adjoining
Weymouth, lived Colonel John Quincy, her grandfather on her mother's
side, and a gentleman who for very many years enjoyed, in various
official situations, much of the confidence of the Province. At his
house, and under the instruction of his wife, her grandmother, she
appears to have imbibed most of the lessons which made the deepest
impression upon her mind. Of this lady, the daughter of the Reverend
John Norton, nothing is now known but what the frequent and cheerful
acknowledgment of her merit, by her disciple, tells us. "I have not
forgotten," says the latter to her own daughter, in the year 1795, "the
excellent lessons which I received from my grandmother, at a very early
period of life. I frequently think they made a more durable impression
upon my mind than those which I received from my own parents. Whether it
was owing to the happy method of mixing instruction and amusement
together, or from an inflexible adherence to certain principles, the
utility of which I could not but see and approve when a child, I know
not; but maturer years have rendered them oracles of wisdom to me. I
love and revere her memory; her lively, cheerful disposition animated
all around her, whilst she edified all by her unaffected piety. This
tribute is due to the memory of those virtues the sweet remembrance of
which will flourish, though she has long slept with her ancestors."
Again, in another letter to the same person, in 1808, she says, "I
cherish her memory with holy veneration, whose maxims I have treasured
up, whose virtues live in my remembrance; happy if I could say they have
been transplanted into my life."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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