24 June 1839
adams-john10 Neal Millikan Temperance Movement
121

24. IV:30. Monday.

Mrs Lucy Dawes Norton Jacob Campbell Archibald Adams Isaac Hull Elizabeth C. Adams Miss Mary Harrod Miss Georgiana Harrod Miss French Frothingham N. L. Mrs Frothingham Three Children Spear William

Yesterday morning I found in Louisa Catherines seminary plat a seedling walnut tree just out of the ground, and this morning in John Quincy’s plat an Oak— These are the first since the solitary oak which appeared on the 31st. of May in Mary-Louisa’s plat, which put out a stem about 3 inches long and opened four leaves, which have developed themselves and turned brown— The stem has not since grown a hair’s breadth— I found one nectarine on the transplanted tree near the South-east corner of the house which I have given to John Quincy besides his platt— Found a ripe wild Strawberry in the Garden and 3 Kean Seedlings— Sowed the Wild Strawberry in the bottomless flower pot, and one Kean Seedling in the Summer house cellar— Had the alley fronting the seminary border weeded.— Mr Jacob Norton was here this morning with Mrs Lucy Dawes; and Archibald Campbell with Isaac Hull, and Elizabeth C. Adams, Mary and Georgiana Harrod— In the afternoon Miss French came with a subscription paper for the Sunday School Library.— Dr. and Mrs Frothingham with three children, Ward, Ann and Ellen came out from Boston to Charles’s, and stop’d a few minutes here on their way. Mr Frothingham attended a clerical convocation at Mr Lunt’s. Mrs Frothingham 122Frothingham took tea at Charles’s— We were there in the Evening— I came away with my wife— Mrs John, Mrs Charles Adams and Miss Cutts went afterwards to Mrs T. B. Adams’s— Deacon Spear brought me a note of Seth Spear dated the 20th. payable in four Months with interest. No small portion of the day was consumed in packing up and despatching copies of Congressional documents—of Letters to the Petitioners and of the Jubilee Discourse— All my useful occupations are suspended. Reading nothings in Newspapers absorbs time enormously— And Letters asking for autographs, and inviting me to deliver orations addresses and Lyceum Lectures, seem to me as if they would never end— Among the Letters this day received was one from Henry Williams, asking for publication my opinion upon the constitutionality and expediency of the fifteen gallon law; an act of the Legislature passed in 1838. forbidding the sale of ardent Spirits in quantities less than 15 gallons— A measure of overheated zeal for the restraint of intemperance, and which is operating a revolution in the State against its administration, and in favour of the general administration of Martin Van Buren

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