The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers

by Thomas Fleming

  17. Cawthorne, Sex Lives, 25. Fitzpatrick, The George Washington Scandals, 5–6.

  BOOK TWO: Benjamin Franklin

  THE SINS OF THE FATHER

  1. Extracts from the diary of Daniel Fisher, 1755. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 17, 1893, 276–77.

  2. Sheila L. Skemp, Benjamin Franklin, and William Franklin, Father and Son, Patriot and Loyalist (New York, 1994), 18.

  3. Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (New York, 1948), 96. All of the preceding narration is from this source.

  4. William H. Mariboe, The Life of William Franklin, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1962, 19–24. A half dozen opinions are considered here.

  5. The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (hereafter PBF), vol. 2, 353–54.

  6. BF to Catherine Ray, March 4, 1755, PBF, vol. 5, 503–43.

  7. Ibid.

  8. BF to Catherine Ray, September 11, 1755, PBF, vol. 6, 184.

  9. BF to Jane Mecom, June 1748, PBF, vol. 3, 303.

  10. Sheila L. Skemp, William Franklin, Son of a Patriot, Servant of a King (New York, 1990), 24–25.

  11. W. Strahan to Deborah F., December 13, 1757 and January 1758, PBF, vol. 7, 297, 369.

  12. WS to DF, December 13, 1757, PBF, vol. 7, 295–98.

  13. BF to DF, June 27, 1760, PBF, vol. 9, 174.

  14. Claude-Anne Lopez, The Private Franklin, The Man and his Family (New York, 1975, 83–84). In 1770, when Polly married a young doctor named Hewson, Mrs. Stevenson asked Franklin to give her away at the wedding ceremony.

  THE OLDEST REVOLUTIONARY

  1. BF to Margaret Stevenson, November 2, 1772, PBF, vol. 14, 299–300.

  2. The Craven Street Gazette is printed in full in PBF, vol. 17, 220–26. A good sample of it can be read in David Freeman Hawke, Franklin (New York, 1976), 280–89.

  3. Skemp, William Franklin, 83.

  4. BF to WF, October 7, 1773, PBF, vol. 20, 437.

  5. BF to WF, March 22, 1775, PBF, vol. 21, 545–99.

  6. Lopez, The Private Franklin, 200. Also see Skemp, William Franklin, 178–79. Skemp suggests BF may have used comments he wrote to William in a 1774 letter that the British appeared to lack the discretion “to govern a herd of swine.” Also see Mariboe, William Franklin, 436–37.

  7. BF to WF, May 7, 1774, PBF, vol. 21, 212.

  8. David Freeman Hawke, Franklin (New York, 1976), 1–2.

  9. Lopez, The Private Franklin, 201.

  10. WF to WTF, January 22, 1776, Benjamin Franklin Papers, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, vol. 101.

  11. Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, An American Life (New York, 2003), 322.

  12. Skemp, William Franklin, 222–223. Also see Mariboe, William Franklin, 471–72; and Lopez, The Private Franklin, 213–14.

  MON CHER PAPA

  1. J. C. Ballagh, Letters of Richard Henry Lee (New York, 1911–14), vol. 2, 202.

  2. Claude-Ann Lopez, Mon Cher Papa, Franklin and the Ladies of Paris (New Haven, CT, 1966), citing Albert Henry Smyth, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (New York, 1905), vol. 7, 132.

  3. Gilbert Chinard, Abbe Lefebvre de la Roche’s Recollections of Benjamin Franklin, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 44 (1950), 219.

  4. Lopez, Mon Cher Papa, 38.

  5. The recent HBO TV series on John Adams has a gross distortion of this combination of bathing and chess. The scene portrayed Franklin sitting naked in the bathtub with Madame Brillon.

  6. Lopez, Mon Cher Papa, 64–65.

  7. Lopez, The Private Franklin, 222–25.

  8. Lopez, Mon Cher Papa, 259.

  9. Ibid., 260.

  10. Ibid., 265–67.

  11. Ibid., 271.

  12. Ibid., 269–70.

  13. Lopez, The Private Franklin, 263–64.

  14. WF to BF, July 22, 1784, Smyth, Writings of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 9, 264.

  15. BF to WF, August 16, 1784, ibid., 252–54.

  16. Skemp, William Franklin, 269.

  17. Lopez, The Private Franklin, 273.

  18. Nicholas Guyatt, “Adams Ribbed,” The Nation, June 16, 2008, 39–43.

  19. Lopez, The Private Franklin, 274. Lopez has been an editor of the Franklin papers as well as the author of the two best books on Franklin’s private life.

  20. Gaillard Hunt, ed., Margaret Bayard Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington Society (New York, 1906), 55–59.

  21. Lopez, The Private Franklin, 275. Sally had seven children, all told. Three were born before Franklin left America in 1776.

  22. Lopez, Mon Cher Papa, 299.

  23. Ibid., 300.

  24. Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin (New York, 1941), 242.

  25. Lopez, Mon Cher Papa, 314.

  BOOK THREE: John Adams

  AN AMOROUS PURITAN FINDS A WIFE

  1. JA to Abigail Adams, January 23, 1775, Margaret A. Hogan and C. James Taylor, ed., My Dearest Friend, Letters of Abigail and John Adams (Cambridge, MA, 2007), 64. Also see Catherine Drinker Bowen, John Adams and the American Revolution (Boston, 1950), 534.

  2. L. H. Butterfield, ed., Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, vol. 1 (New York, 1964), 194.

  3. Ibid., 66–67.

  4. Diary of John Adams, vol. 1, 109.

  5. JA to Abigail Smith, October 4, 1762 (electronic edition), Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

  6. JA to Abigail Smith, October 4, 1762, ibid.

  7. Abigail Smith to JA, May 9, 1764, ibid.

  8. JA to Abigail Smith, September 30, 1764, ibid.

  9. Abigail Smith to JA, October 13, 1764, ibid.

  10. L. H. Butterfield, ed., Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1, 1763–1792 (Princeton, NJ, 1951), 152–53. This letter is a good summary of the True Whig ideology.

  11. AA to JA, March 31, 1776, and JA to AA, April 14, 1776, Hogan and Taylor, eds., My Dearest Friend (Cambridge, MA, 2007), 109–111.

  12. Ibid., 108 (quoted in editor’s commentary).

  13. JA to AA, May 22, 1776, ibid., 119–20.

  14. JA to AA, July 3, 1776, ibid., 121–23.

  15. AA to JA, May 7, 1776, ibid., 115–16.

  16. AA to JA May 27, 1776 (electronic edition), Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

  17. John Thaxter to John Adams, July 13, 1777, L. H. Butterfield et al., eds., Adams Family Correspondence (Cambridge, MA, 1963–93), vol. 2, 282.

  18. Ibid., 370–71.

  PORTIA’S DUBIOUS DIPLOMAT

  1. John Adams autobiography, part 2, “Travels and Negotiations,” 1777–1778, sheet 9 of 37 (electronic edition). Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

  2. JA to AA, April 25, 1778, Hogan and Taylor, eds., My Dearest Friend, 206.

  3. AA to JA, March 8, 1778, ibid., 205.

  4. AA to JA, November 12–23, 1778, and JA to AA, December 3 and December 18, 1778, ibid., 215–20.

  5. AA to JA, January 1779 (electronic edition), Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

  6. JQA to AA, February 20, 1779, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 3, 175–76.

  7. Edith B. Gelles, Portia, the World of Abigail Adams (Bloomington, IN, 1992), 58–71, “A Virtuous Affair.”

  8. JA to AA, February 28, 1779, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 3, 181–82.

  9. JA to AA, February 28, 1779, ibid., 182 (a second letter written on the same day).

  10. Richard B. Morris, The Peacemakers, The Great Powers and American Independence (New York, 1965), 15ff.

  11. Gregg L. Lint et al., eds., Papers of John Adams (Cambridge, MA, 1996), vol. 10, 39–40.

  12. JA to AA, March 16, 1780, Hogan and Taylor, eds., Dearest Friend, 234.

  13. JA to AA, December 18, 1780 (electronic edition), Adams Family Papers: An
Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

  14. AA to JL, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 4, 165–66 (no date but assumed to be June 1781 based on Lovell’s responses).

  15. PBF, vol. 36, 226, note, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 4, 284–86, n. 1, 295.

  16. Phyllis Lee Levin, Abigail Adams, A Biography (New York, 1987), 141–44.

  17. AA to JA, December 9, 1781 (electronic edition), Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

  18. AA to Mrs. Cranch, February 20, 1785, ibid., 279.

  19. AA to Miss Lucy Cranch, September 5, 1784, ibid., 251.

  20. AA to Mary Cranch, September 5, 1784, ibid., 166.

  21. David McCullough, John Adams (New York, 2001), 371.

  22. Elizabeth Smith Shaw to AA, March 18, 1786, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 7, p. 93.

  SECOND BANANA BLUES

  1. AA to JA, July 27, 1788, Caroline Amelia Smith DeWindt, ed., Journal and Correspondence of Miss Adams (New York, 1841), vol. 2, 90–92.

  2. AA to JA, May 14 and June 6, 1789, Hogan and Taylor, eds., My Dearest Friend, 324, 328.

  3. Paul C. Nagel, Descent from Glory, Four Generations of the John Adams Family (New York, 1983), 45–47.

  4. Ibid.

  5. January 12, 1788, The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection, Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2008, http://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries.

  6. AA to Mary Cranch, September 1, 1789, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 8, 402–5, n. 5.

  7. Nagel, Descent from Glory, 52.

  8. Levin, Abigail Adams, 275.

  9. JA to AA, February 4, 1794, Hogan and Taylor, eds., Dearest Friend, 355.

  10. Jack Shepherd, Cannibals of the Heart, A Personal Biography of Louisa Catherine and John Quincy Adams (New York, 1980), 58.

  11. AA to WSS, March 16, 1791, DeWindt, ed., Journal and Correspondence of Miss Adams, vol. 2, 109.

  12. JA to AA, December 6, 1795, Hogan and Taylor, eds., Dearest Friend, 389–90.

  13. JA to AA, December 28, 1792, ibid., 336–38.

  14. AA to JA, December 31, 1793, ibid., 346–47.

  PARTY OF TWO

  1. JA to AA, February 10, 1796, Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

  2. JA to AA, January 9, 1797, ibid.

  3. AA to JA, January 28, 1797, ibid.

  4. Levin, Abigail Adams, 305.

  5. JA to AA, March 13, 1797, ibid. JA to AA, March 2, 1797, Hogan and Taylor, eds., Dearest Friend, 442. JA to AA, May 4, 1797, Hogan and Taylor, eds., Dearest Friend, 448.

  6. AA to JA, January 1, 1797 (electronic edition). Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

  7. AA to JA, December 31, 1796, ibid.

  8. McCullough, John Adams, 489.

  9. Richard N. Rosenfeld, American Aurora (New York, 1997), 237.

  10. AA to Mary Cranch, February 28, 1798, Stewart Mitchell, ed., New Letters of Abigail Adams. 1788–1801 (Boston, 1947), 137.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Levin, Abigail Adams, 344.

  13. JA to Oliver Wolcott, September 24,1798, Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States with a Life of the Author, vol. 8 (Boston, 1853), 600–3.

  14. John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (Knoxville, TN, 1992), 362.

  15. AA to MC, May 26, 1798, Mitchell, ed., New Letters, 179.

  16. Peter Shaw, The Character of John Adams (Chapel Hill, NC, 1976), 258. Page Smith, John Adams, 982.

  17. Theodore Sedgwick to AH, February 22, 1799, Harold Syrett, ed., Papers of Alexander Hamilton (hereafter PAH), vol. 22 (New York, 1974), 494.

  18. Robert Troup to Rufus King, April 19, 1799, Charles R. King, ed., Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, vol. 2 (New York, 1894–1900), 596–97.

  19. Levin, Abigail Adams, 370–71.

  20. JA to Timothy Pickering, May 17, 1799; JA to Wolcott, May 17, 1799; JA to Charles Lee, May 17, 1799, Works of John Adams, vol. 3, 648–50.

  21. JA to AA, October 12, 1799 and October 27, 1799, Hogan and Taylor, eds., Dearest Friend, 466–68. Also see Smith, John Adams, 1015.

  22. AA to MC, December 22, 1799, Mitchell, ed., New Letters, 222.

  23. AA to MC, January 28, 1800, ibid., 228–29.

  24. AA to MC, December 11, 1799, ibid., 219–21. Also see Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 2004), 601.

  25. Smith, John Adams, 1027–28.

  26. Levin, Abigail Adams, 380.

  27. AA to MC, Nov. 21, 1800, Mitchell, ed., New Letters, 256.

  28. Smith, John Adams, 1049.

  29. AA to Sally Smith Adams, December 8, 1800, Mitchell, ed., New Letters, 261–62.

  30. McCullough, John Adams, 556.

  31. AA to TBA, November 13, 1800, Mitchell, ed., New Letters, 431.

  REMEMBERING SOME OTHER LADIES

  1. Levin, Abigail Adams, 479.

  2. Nancy Rubin Stewart, The Muse of the Revolution, The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of the Nation (Boston, 2008), 247–56. Also see James Grant, John Adams, Party of One (New York, 2005), 433ff.

  3. McCullough, John Adams, 594. Also see Grant, Party of One, 433; and Levin, Abigail Adams, 424–26.

  4. Joseph J. Ellis, Passionate Sage, (New York, 2001), 72.

  5. Levin, Abigail Adams, 426–27.

  6. Stuart, Muse of the Revolution, 262–64. Also see Ellis, Passionate Sage, 184.

  7. Paul C. Nagel, The Adams Women (New York, 1987), 126.

  8. Levin, Abigail Adams, 449–50; McCullough, John Adams, 602.

  9. Nagel, The Adams Women, 145.

  10. AA to TJ, September 20, 1813, Lester J. Cappon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters (Chapel Hill, NC, 1959), 378.

  11. Nagel, The Adams Women, 170.

  12. Ibid., 168.

  13. Ellis, Passionate Sage, 198.

  14. Ibid., 198.

  15. Smith, John Adams, 1123.

  16. Ibid., 1124–25.

  17. Ellis, Passionate Sage, 200.

  18. Josiah Quincy, Figures of the Past: From the Leaves of Old Journals (Boston, 1883), 64–65.

  19. McCullough, John Adams, 646. In his final moments, Adams said, “Help me! Help me!”, to a granddaughter.

  BOOK FOUR: Alexander Hamilton

  BASTARD SON AND WARY LOVER

  1. James Thomas Flexner, The Young Hamilton (Boston, 1978), 13. Also see Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 2004), 11. Rachel and her mother had well-to-do relatives on St. Croix. That none of them came to her defense indicates the charge of double adultery was true.

  2. Forrest McDonald, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 1979), 7. Also see Chernow, Hamilton, 16–17. He discusses the two dates at some length and also opts for 1755.

  3. AH to JH, June 22, 1785, PAH, vol. 3, 617. Flexner, Hamilton, 26.

  4. AH to ES, November 11, 1769, PAH, vol. 1,4.

  5. PAH, vol. 1, 6–7.

  6. Ibid., 35–38.

  7. AH to CL, April 11, 1777, PAH, vol. 1, 226.

  8. Robert Hendrickson, Hamilton (New York, 1976), vol. 1, 54–55.

  9. AH to JL, April 1779, PAH, vol. 1, 37–38 (begins on 34).

  10. Ibid., 348.

  11. AH to ES, October 5, 1788, PAH, vol. 2, 455.

  12. AH to ES, August 1780, PAH, vol. 2, 398.

  13. AH to MS, January 21, 1781, PAH, vol. 2, 539.

  14. AH to PS, February 18, 1781, ibid., 563–67.

  THE WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE

  1. Hendrickson, Hamilton, 531–32.

  2. AH to Angelica Church, December 6, 1787, PAH, vol. 4, 374–76.

  3. Hendickson, Hamilton, 530.

  4. AH to AC, November 8, 1789, PAH, vol. 5, 501–2.

  5. EH to AC, November 8, 1789, PAH, vol. 5, 502.

  6. Hendrickson, Hamilton, vol. 2, 20.
<
br />   7. Ibid.

  8. Forest McDonald, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 1979), 229.

  9. Ibid., 222.

  10. JM to TJ, July 10, 1791, James Morton Smith, ed., The Republic of Letters, The Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (New York, 1995), vol. 2, 695–96.

  11. McDonald, Hamilton, 229.

  12. PAH, vol. 21, 251–52.

  13. PAH, vol. 21, 269. Reynolds Pamphlet, Appendix II, 1792.

  14. Julian P. Boyd, ed., Papers of Thomas Jefferson (hereafter PTJ) vol. 18 (Princeton, NJ, 1971), 635.

  15. TJ to GW, September 9, 1792, PTJ, vol. 24, 353.

  16. Bernard C. Steiner, Life and Correspondence of James McHenry (New York, 1979), 129.

  17. Katherine Schuyler Baxter, A Godchild of Washington (New York, 1897), 224.

  18. Many people think Hamilton could not have become president because he was born outside the borders of the United States. But this proviso in the Constitution applied to immigrants who arrived in the United States only after the Constitution was written and ratified in 1787–88. Hamilton came to America in 1773, before the Revolution began. Also see Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, 508–509, for a discussion of various reasons why Hamilton was never a candidate. The Maria Reynolds scandal was a primary factor.

  19. Callender, History of the United States for 1796 (Philadelphia, 1797), 220–22 (Google Books, online edition).

  20. PAH, vol. 21, 135ff. Introductory Note and letter from Oliver Wolcott Jr., July 3, 1797. Additional letters to James Monroe, Frederick A. C. Muhlenberg, Abraham B. Venable, James Thomson Callender, et al.

  21. PAH, vol. 21, 238ff, Reynolds Pamphlet.

  22. Broadus Mitchell, Hamilton, The National Adventure (New York, 1962), 714. Also see Julian P. Boyd’s eighty-page essay in PTJ, vol. 18. Boyd agrees in toto with Callender and in many instances goes beyond him.

  23. GW to AH, August 21, 1797, PAH, vol. 21, 214–15.

  24. Mitchell, Hamilton, 417–18.

  25. Hendrickson, Hamilton, vol. 2, 420.

  26. JBC to AH, July 13, 1797, PAH, vol. 21, 163.

  27. PAH, vol. 25, 436. Hosack became the Hamiltons’ family doctor. Later he recalled that Hamilton was the nurse “in every important case of sickness that occurred in his family.”