John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

7925. V: About half an hour after which we departed from Newport, with the cheers of a multitude of people upon the wharf; we proceeded up Providence river, and between ten and eleven, landed upon India wharf at that place— I went immediately to Chapotin’s, and having while on board the ship jogged into a travelling acquaintance with some of my fellow passengers took a stage with five of them for Boston. They were Messrs. Van Lennep, Porter, Hammond, Charles Thorndike, and one other whose name I did not discover. While we were waiting for the Stage I met at Chapotin’s, Mr N. Knight formerly Governor of the State, and now one of its Senators in Congress, who did not at first recognize me; Mr Dexter the Marshal, and Alfred Edwards of Connecticut, just arrived over land from Albany— We dined at Fuller’s at Walpole; and on reaching Gay’s at Dedham, I there found my dear wife, and my Son John, who had come from Quincy to meet me— I then left my fellow travellers of the Steam-ship, and with my wife and son came to my fathers house, where we arrived just at the dusk of Evening— I found at my fathers a very numerous family— My brother and his wife with five children—Abigail, Elizabeth Coombs, Thomas Boylston, John Quincy, and Joseph Harrod, the sixth, Isaac Hull, being at Haverhill, with my brother’s wifes Parents— My own family; my brother Charles’s daughter the widow Susan Boylston Clarke, with her daughter Susan between three and four years old— Louisa C. Smith, Mary Hellen, W. S. Shaw, and J. Q. A. Boyd, lately returned in the Columbus 74 from the Mediterranean were all there, and we made up a company of nineteen persons— My father’s health is not good. He suffers much pain with the Sciatica, and has now a troublesome inflammation of the eyes, which deprives him of the power of reading. My brother has not entirely recovered from bruises received by oversetting ten days since in a Chaise. My Son George is in very infirm health. The rest of the family are well. Commodore Bainbridge, and Mr Brown the Senator from Louisiana had been here this morning.