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KF5JRV > TODAY 01.11.18 13:29l 43 Lines 2180 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 24092_KF5JRV
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Subj: Today in History - Nov 01
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<IW0QNL<JH4XSY<N3HYM<NS2B<KF5JRV
Sent: 181101/1124Z 24092@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.16
On this day in 1800, President John Adams, in the last year of his only
term as president, moved into the newly constructed President’s House,
the original name for what is known today as the White House.
Adams had been living in temporary digs at Tunnicliffe’s City Hotel near
the half-finished Capitol building since June 1800, when the federal
government was moved from Philadelphia to the new capital city of
Washington, D.C. In his biography of Adams, historian David McCullough
recorded that when Adams first arrived in Washington, he wrote to his
wife Abigail, at their home in Quincy, Massachusetts, that he was
pleased with the new site for the federal government and had explored
the soon-to-be President’s House with satisfaction.
Although workmen had rushed to finish plastering and painting walls
before Adams returned to D.C. from a visit to Quincy in late October,
construction remained unfinished when Adams rolled up in his carriage on
November 1. However, the Adams’ furniture from their Philadelphia home
was in place and a portrait of George Washington was already hanging in
one room. The next day, Adams sent a note to Abigail, who would arrive
in Washington later that month, saying that he hoped “none but honest
and wise men [shall] ever rule under this roof.ö
Although Adams was initially enthusiastic about the presidential
mansion, he and Abigail soon found it to be cold and damp during the
winter. Abigail, in a letter to a friend, wrote that the building was
tolerable only so long as fires were lit in every room. She also noted
that she had to hang their washing in an empty “audience roomö (the
current East Room).
John and Abigail Adams lived in what she called “the great castleö for
only five months. Shortly after they moved in, Thomas Jefferson defeated
Adams in his bid for re-election. Abigail was happy to leave Washington
and departed in February 1801 for Quincy. As Jefferson was being sworn
in on March 4, 1801, John Adams was already on his way back to
Massachusetts, where he and Abigail lived out the rest of their days at
their family farm.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
email: KF5JRV@ICLOUD.COM
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