John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

246 Quincy. Wednesday 3. September 1845—

3. IV:15. Wednesday

Harriet Welsh King John C. Healy Quincy Josiah Foster John Ann Henshaw

There is a change of feelings in the condition of physical existence consequent upon the change of the Seasons for which I cannot account and which I cannot describe— I have been sensible of it every year of my life— The principal change usually occurs to me in July and was once marked by a severe intermittent fever of 8 days, at Töplitz in Bohemia. It has several times since been attended with slighter indispositions perhaps this year superseded by my fits of lumbago through the month of June.— I presume that the shower bath which I have taken every morning from the 7th. of last month to this day has had considerable effect on the course of nature, and that the symptoms of gradual bodily decay are modified by it— Without actual sickness I have been several days not well, but not knowing what ails me— I went this morning to Boston with Harriet Welsh, and alighted at Amory Hall where we parted— She is going to England by the Steamer which is to sail on the first of next month to visit for one year Mr and Mrs Hodgkinson by their invitation.— Mrs Hodgkinson once Ann Hinckley is a beautiful native American, of adventures somewhat romantic but now soberly settled as the wife of a wealthy English Country Gentleman in England— Harriet Welsh is the last waif from the wreck of the family of Doctor Thomas Welsh whose wife Abigail Kent was a first cousin of my mother, and with whom I resided in Boston four of the most important years of my life from 1790 to 1794— I gave a sitting of two hours to Mr King the Sculptor whose progress in taking my bust is inconceivably slow and who to my judgment has not yet reached one feature of likeness to my face. I had agreed with Mr Healy to call on him at Mr Charles Hubbard painting room—N 11 1/2 Tremont row at 11. or 1/2 past 11. O’Clock— It was past 12 when I got there and learnt that Mr Healy was at Harding’s painting room in School-street where Page had painted me before— I went there, and at the door met the late President Quincy who told me that judge Story was lying at the point of death at Cambridge, not expected to survive this day. He had determined to resign his Office as a judge of the U.S. Supreme Court and to embark next month on a voyage to England— I sat to Mr Healy till the Old South Church Clock struck two, and then immediately returned to Quincy alone— I had agreed with Mr King and Mr Healy to give each of them another sitting next Friday— when I reached home my wife told me that Mrs Ann Adams, widow of my deceased brother Thomas Boylston Adams, died at 1. O’Clock this afternoon. Her disease was a cancer in the breast, for which she had submitted to an operation in which proved to be only a temporary remedy. She has been now more than 6. months lingering on her dying bed. Her children sent and requested me to write the obituary notice for the Quincy Aurora, and the Boston Newspapers to-morrow morning, and gave the latter to Mr. John Foster. Mrs. C. F. Adams and Miss Henshaw spent the Evening here.