Acknowledgments

The path to Abigail Adams starts at the Massachusetts Historical Society. When I took my first step toward her biography, the late Lyman H. Butterfield was Editor of The Adams Papers and held forth at The Society in a top-floor sanctuary whose bay windows overlooked Boylston Street and the Fenway. As I was a journalist rather than a correctly laureled scholar, and he was more an admirer of Abigail’s daughter-in-law, Louisa Catherine, I shall never fail to appreciate his guarded objectivity about my quest. A slight man with puzzled eyes and a distant cordiality, he seemed to be testing my powers of endurance even more than intellect as he explained the tangled scope of the Adams family, its accomplishments, trials, idiosyncracies. He spoke with such commanding fluency and affection, however, that Abigail (pronounced by him as Abigull) and John appeared to join us around his desk and, as daylight vanished, this spellbound visitor thought it might soon be time for all four of us to adjourn for tea. Perhaps inadvertently but surely irrevocably, Lyman Butterfield’s inspired affinity for the Adams family proved totally contagious.

Mrs. Wilhelmina S. Harris, Superintendant of the Adams National Historic Site, worked as secretary to Mr. and Mrs. Brooks Adams, the last of that name to live in the family home. I doubt that anyone will ever know a more enthusiastic champion and concerned guardian of the family history and heritage. Walking about the Adamses’ house with her, or sitting around the white kitchen table as she vividly recounts Adams lore, her voice hushed as she imparts some especially personal detail, one senses, as with Lyman Butterfield, that Abigail and John are alive and flourishing, only momentarily gone to another part of the house Mrs. Harris protects, or out for a carriage ride.

My research both began and ended in the Society’s library, its formidable resources hospitably offered to me by the present director, Louis Tucker. His staff, including Peter Drummey and Ross Urquhart, are responsible for innumerable answers regarding citations and for providing illustrations. Celeste Walker, the Adams Papers Assistant Editor, has responded generously and patiently to questions ranging from the species of a puppy named Juno (a Newfoundland), to the date of the death of Abigail’s mother-in-law.

I am beholden to my agent, Jane Cushman, for her editorial wisdom; I also thank her for her appreciation of Abigail and John as I do, most profoundly, my editor, Tom Dunne. At St. Martin’s, Amelie Littell has been a significant participant from start to finish; David Smith has been a searching and improving copy editor; and Edmée Reit has been zealous in her care of the index. Abigail Adams is the better (and more accurate) for having been read by Dr. John E. Crowley, Assistant Professor of History, Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. As for the typing, Dorothy Ryer, with the help of Johanna Krogstadt, observed the eighteenth-century spellings and random capitalization with accuracy and aplomb.

At the last, the source notes for Abigail Adams seemed to take on a vast dimension of their own, and I am indebted to Anne Emmanuelle Birn for her rigorous pursuit of them, and to Lalita Kolenz and Ivana Mestrovic. I am convinced that the whole of the book finally coming together between covers is due to the lawyerly skills, discipline, and dedication of my daughter-in-law, Anna Hayes Levin.

Others who befriended Abigail Adams include Christopher Angell; James Oliver Brown; Anne Burnier in Paris; Sally Coolidge; Rachel Dach at the Pennsylvania Historical Society; Barbara Dubivsky; Eleanor Elliott (a relentless prodder); Admiral Harry Hull and his son Kimball, whose wife and mother respectively is a descendant and namesake of Louisa Catherine Adams; James H. Hutson, Chief at The Library of Congress; my nephew William Schwalbe (a thoughtful critic); my brother Douglas Schwalbe; and Roger Starr. I wish I could personally thank all the unknown researchers at the New York Public Library who have so kindly answered at least a hundred questions on writing the bibliography for Abigail Adams.

And, finally, there is the rest of my family to thank. The writing of Abigail Adams was a family project, a cottage industry from start to finish, from Xeroxing to filing and editing. The foundation of my private library for research purposes is based on Xeroxed editions of the long out-of-print but essential works reposing in many university libraries. Their acquisitions are due to the diligence of my daughters, Emme and Kate, my daughter-in-law Anna, my sons, Peter and John. My son-in-law, Dr. Jonathan Deland, has acted as a special consultant on Abigail Adams’s diseases.

Kate was in grade school when I began Abigail, and a favorite filer. Most recently she has proved a thoughtful, witty, and decisive editor. Further, there is not one word of this book that my husband, Wilbur Arthur Levin, has not read at least three times. A stern grammarian, a rigorous statistician and patient philosopher, he has proven himself to be, in Abigail’s words, “Dearest Friend” to me and, therefore, to Abigail Adams.