Wonderful ALS, three pages on two adjoining sheets, 8 x 10, September 25, 1846. Letter to Reverend Alvan Lamson of Dedham, in full: "I return herewith the manuscript of the Rev’d Dr. Gilman, with many thanks to him and to you for the privilege of perusing it, and with further thanks to you, for the copy of your Convention Sermon, in vindication of the simplicity of the congregation form of worship. The Reminiscences of New England at the close of the eighteenth century were fraught with deep interest to me carrying back my memory to a still earlier period when the lady so kindly noticed and so truly described in this manuscript was the maiden daughter of my grandfather, the Rev’d William Smith, Pastor of the first congregational church in Weymouth, and I was a child in the 7th year of my age, sent out from Boston, in the spring of the year 1774 when that town was beleaguered by the Red-dressed grievances as they were called by the Rev’d Mather Byles, of General Gage, and committed to the charge of my grandfather and grandmother Smith—She was a daughter of Col. John Quincy whose name I bear and was a second mother to me, until her death—My aunt Betsey was the youngest of three daughters, one of them was the wife of Richard Cranch Esq’r and the other was my mother. Ten years later, in 1785, my aunt Betsey had become the wife of the Rev’d John Shaw of Haverhill with whom I studied and resided from August 1785 to March 1786 previous to entering Harvard University and during that time experienced again from her all the kindness and tenderness of a mother. Nearly ten years after this in the winter of 1796 Rev’d Shaw died, and towards the close of the century she married the Rev’d Peabody of Atkinson and there Dr. Gilman first became acquainted with her in the manner related in his affecting narrative. And there I believe at the same time two of my sons, then students at the Academy of Atkinson now no more, were enjoying the same angelic kind of maternal affection and benevolence which had been extended to their father thirty years before. I never saw Mrs. Peabody at her house in Atkinson, and had but a light and transient personal acquaintance with Rev’d Peabody himself; but whatever I have heard of his character perfectly corresponds with the graphic delineation of it in the Reminiscences of Dr. Gilman.
I have read with great attention, and equal satisfaction your discourse on Congregational Puritanism. I consider the form of congregational worship with the principles of its establishment among the real glories of that grossly slandered and really heroic race of men, as the foundation of New England belongs to them—Perhaps in the simplicity of their mode of worship they have been surpassed by the disciples of George Free, and William Penn, but they never did like the associates of Penn make hereditary monarchs of their spiritual leaders, nor like the Baptists of Rhode Island make an Idol Saint in counterpart to Roger Williams—It has afforded me a pleasure of somewhat whimsical character to witness recently one of the loftiest tributes to the puritan character in the form of an Italian Opera. I consider the essentials of Christianity as equally professed in every variety of their religious devotions and preferring those of the Congregational Church in which I was born and bred, I cheerfully join in social worship with all others willing to receive me in Communion with them.” In very good to fine condition, with some light toning, and old tape repairs to splitting along the intersecting folds and the hinge.
In the twilight of his career an elder Massachusetts congressman, lineage and religion served as focal points for the 79-year-old Adams. The first half of this letter finds Adams reflecting on the life of his aunt Elizabeth ‘Betsey’ Smith, the daughter of Rev. William Smith and Elizabeth Quincy, and the sister of Abigail, wife of President John Adams; in the second half, his discourse turns to the defense of “Congregational Puritanism,” contrasting colonial religious figures William Penn and Roger Williams before asserting that his circles of prayer ultimately serve the same higher purpose: “I consider the essentials of Christianity as equally professed in every variety of their religious devotions and preferring those of the Congregational Church in which I was born and bred, I cheerfully join in social worship with all others willing to receive me in Communion with them.” Both Adams and his father, as well as their wives, Louisa and Abigail, are interred at the United First Parish Church in Quincy, Massachusetts. The recipient of this letter, Reverend Alvan Lamson, served as the pastor of the First Church and Parish in Dedham, and belonged to several historical societies. A month after writing this letter, on November 20, 1846, Adams suffered a mild stroke on a trip to the Harvard Medical School; after extended convalescence he made a full recovery and returned to his duties in Congress.
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