Adams John 1735 - 1826 Gentleman Farmer John Adams scripts a long letter entirely in his own hand regarding the care of his land

Single page letter on laid paper stock , 8" x 9". Inlaid onto an original sheet as it existed in the album. Small stain along left edge in outer margin not affecting script. Dated "October 14, 1791", and signed "John Adams"

John Adams, while in East Chester, "20 miles from New York", writes to "Cotton Tufts Esq" his cousin, asking him to relay his detailed wishes for the caring and maintenance of his farm and to pass his thoughts on to Mr. Porter and Mr. Billings. In the letter he even references "Penns Hill', the infamous location on his property where his family observed the smoke and fire of the Battle Of Bunker Hill!

As one read his letter, one is left with a heart warming acknowledgement that even our Founding Fathers needed to tend to mundane affairs and here a very busy Vice President and President Pro Tempore of the Senate John Adams makes plans to winterize his estate. Like his President, Washington, and chief rival, Jefferson, the landed gentry of the United States moved back and forth between high ideals of liberty and the need to plough fields, taking in crops, kill weeds, and gather seaweed for the hogs. John Adams' childhood was spent hunting, fishing, and exploring the wilds He loved his family's farm. Early in his working life he wrote for the Boston Gazette and the Boston Evening Post as "Humphrey Ploughjogger" extolling the virtues of family farming. As a farmer, Adams naturally was interested in increasing the fertility of his land, an endeavor which he still portrayed in his later years at the time of the writing of this letter.

Life would be an interesting dichotomy for Adams, flowing from a persona of major political importance to John Adams, the 'farmer' at heart, longing to be back to his 'roots' having been known to have said in 1794, "I begin now to think all the time lost that is not employed in farming, innocent, healthy, gay, elegant amusement! Enchanting employment! How my imagination roves over my rocky mountains, and through my brushy meadows." He wrote this letter while in Eastchester waiting for the opening of the First Session of the Second Congress. (The body had met in a one-day special session following Washington's Second Inauguration on March 4, 1791, to admit Vermont into the Union and needed to settle unfinished appointments that were mostly housekeeping matters). The actual First Session of the Second Congress began on October 24, ten days after Adams wrote this letter. And little did John Adams know that within but a few years his wistful thoughts of farming would need to be shelved once again, as he would become President of the United States.

His letter is in full:

"East Chester 20 miles from New York/October 14, 1791

Dear Sir

We arrived here on the 11th at night and here and at New York shall remain till the meeting of Congress.

I came off without communicating my thoughts to Mr. Porter and Mr. Billings so fully as I intended. I wish to have the Meadow below my garden ploughed this fall if possible, after the corn shall be got in, and the Lott next to Mr. Bass broke up and the hills split, at least upon the top of Stony Field Hill. This is the only way to kill the seeds of weeds beside putting the ground in a better state to ameliorate and mellow. The wall at the foot of Penns Hill is to be completed[sic], and as much Seaweed carted up from the Beach as possible. I must pray you to pay the necessary Bills. Will you pray Mr. Porter not to forget to plough his Barnyard often and fill If you can give me a summary now and then in a few Line, they will give me much pleasure.

My children and family are well and desire to send their respects with mine to you and yours.

With the strictest friendship I am ever yours

John Adams"

Hon Cotton Tufts Esq

A wonderful revealing lengthy letter written entirely in the hand of John Adams

From the library of John Augustin Daly (1838-1899). Daly, one of the most important figures in nineteenth-century American theater, worked as a critic, manager, playwright and stage director. At the time of his death, he owned two major theaters, one in New York and the other in London. Daly is considered personally responsible for the careers of such acting greats as John Drew Jr. Maurice Barrymore, Fanny Davenport, Maude Adams, Sara Jewett, Isadora Duncan, Tyrone Power, Sr. and many others.

Daly was also an avid book lover and collector, amassing an enormous library of books and original manuscripts. That collection was dispersed in an epic, two-week auction at the American Art Association in New York in March 1900. The present letter was part of an extra-illustrated volume, described in the catalog as a "Unique copy, with autograph letters of all the Presidents inserted..." Walter Benjamin, writing in The Collector, described the sale as a "blaze of glory, due to the total having reached nearly $200,000." Benjamin attributed the sale's incredible success to "a small bookseller on 42d street, who appeared at the sale with apparently unlimited cash, and was soon the master of the situation." That "small bookseller," was George D. Smith (d. 1920), who, up until that time, had been an obscure and unsuccessful book dealer who began his career in 1883 with Dodd & Mead. Smith would dominate the market for the next two decades, working as an agent for some of the wealthiest collectors in the country_Üîmost notably Henry E. Huntington, for whom Smith purchased a portion of the Duke of Devonshire Library in 1914 for $1.5 million (American Art Association, Catalogue of the Valuable Literary and Art Property Gathered by the Late Augustin Daly, New York, 1900; The Collector, New York, May 1900, 1-2; Publisher's Weekly, March 13, 1920, 801; Ibid, March 21, 1914, 1008; "Geo. D. Smith Dies in HIs Book Store, New York Times, March 5, 1928, 13).

Provenance: John Augustin Daly; American Art Association, New York, March 19, 1900, Lot 3122; George D. Smith, New York.