Abigail Adams
| Abigail Adams | |
|---|---|
 |
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| First Lady of the United States | |
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In role March 4, 1797 – March 4, 1801 |
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| President | John Adams |
| Preceded by | Martha Washington |
| Succeeded by | Martha Randolph (Acting) |
| Second Lady of the United States | |
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In role May 16, 1789 – March 4, 1797 |
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| President | George Washington |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Ann Gerry (1813) |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
November 22, 1744 Weymouth, Massachusetts Bay, British America |
| Died | October 28, 1818 (aged 73) Quincy, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Typhoid fever |
| Spouse(s) | John Adams (1764–1818) |
| Children |
Nabby John Quincy Susanna Charles Thomas Elizabeth (Stillborn) |
| Religion | Unitarianism |
 Abigail Adams by Gilbert Stuart
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 "First Lady Abigail Adams", First Ladies: Influence & Image, C-SPAN
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Abigail Adams (née Smith; November 22 [O.S. November 11] 1744 – October 28, 1818) was the closest advisor and wife of John Adams, as well as the mother of John Quincy Adams. She is sometimes considered to have been a Founder of the United States, and is now designated as the first Second Lady and second First Lady of the United States, although these titles were not in use at the time.
Adams's life is one of the most documented of the first ladies: she is remembered for the many letters she wrote to her husband while he stayed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the Continental Congresses. John frequently sought the advice of Abigail on many matters, and their letters are filled with intellectual discussions on government and politics. In one of her more famous letters she implores her husband and his colleagues, all of whom were male, to, "...remember the ladies . . .If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation." Her letters also serve as eyewitness accounts of the American Revolutionary War home front.
Abigail Adams was born at the North Parish Congregational Church in Weymouth, Massachusetts, to William Smith (1707–1783) and Elizabeth (née Quincy) Smith. On her mother's side she was descended from the Quincy family, a well-known political family in the Massachusetts colony. Through her mother she was a cousin of Dorothy Quincy, wife of John Hancock. Adams was also the great-granddaughter of John Norton, founding pastor of Old Ship Church in Hingham, Massachusetts, the only remaining 17th-century Puritan meetinghouse in Massachusetts. Smith married Elizabeth Quincy in 1742, and together they had four children, including three daughters: one born in 1743, Abigail born in 1744 and another born in 1745. Their only son, born in 1746, died of alcoholism in 1787. As with several of her ancestors, Adams's father was a liberal Congregationalist minister: a leader in a Yankee society that held its clergy in high esteem. Smith did not focus his preaching on predestination or original sin; instead he emphasized the importance of reason and morality. In July 1775 his wife Elizabeth, with whom he had been married for 33 years, died of smallpox. In 1784, at age 77, Smith died.
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