The Smith girls were born to William and Elizabeth Quincy Smith in Weymouth, Massachusetts. Abigail and her two sisters did not receive a formal education like their brother William, but were taught by their father who was a preacher. Abigail was an avid reader and loved to debate with the students that often met and sometimes lived at the Smith home. She and her sisters were prolific letter writers and always tried to see who could out-write and out-wit the others. The three sisters were very close and wrote to each other as often as their busy home lives would allow. They also believed in equal education for both sexes and all were upset that their brother regarded it disdainfully when it was so accessible to him. All three sisters made sure that their own daughters were taught the classics, philosophy, languages and math and science; subjects that were decidedly male.
The sisters also became caught up in the politics of the world. As the times in which they lived began to change, so too did the sisters thinking and political ideas began to change. Abigail especially, as the wife of a congressional delegate and then ambassador in Europe, felt the pull of politics and always kept up with political news and ideas and worked tirelessly to help John as he became more important to the formation of the new country. At first all of them craved anything to do with their "Mother Country" of England. As Parliament began to enact taxes that the colonies felt were unjust, so too did the Smith sisters begin to think less of England as home and more of America as their true country. Abigail wrote in 1773 "... the tea that baneful weed is arrived. Great and I hope effectual opposition has been made to the landing of it." Betsy, writing to her cousin Isaac at Harvard remarked that "A glorious spirit of Liberty prevails among you." The sisters also began making their own homespun clothes instead of fabrics imported from England.
Mary, the oldest sister, was born December 9, 1741. When Mary was 14 she met the man with whom she would spend the rest of her life. Richard Cranch was an Englishman staying at the Smith home. He was a quiet, studious man from a poor family, and he was 15 years older than Mary. Richard decided to take it upon himself to tutor Mary and her sisters and he taught them all about Shakespeare, the Enlightenment, French and many other subjects. This of course endeared him to all the females in the Smith household. After Mary and Richard were wed in 1762, they moved to Braintree and then on to Salem. Mary gave birth to her first baby, a daughter she named Elizabeth. Another daughter, Lucy followed. Shortly after their son Billy was born the Cranches moved to Boston after they were chased out of Salem by Tory sympathizers in 1774. Richard was not much of a business man and most of his endeavors did not prosper so the Cranches were not as well off as the Adams. They finally settled in Quincy, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. For the most part, Mary was content to arrange the lives of her children and nieces and nephews along with the people in Quincy. The Cranches outlived their daughter Betsy and took in their 8 grandchildren. Mary wasted away under the harsh life with tuberculosis and she and Richard died just a few days apart in 1811.
Abigail was born November 11, 1744. When she was very young, she was sick with rheumatic fever that was so severe she became paralyzed for two weeks. She would have recurring bouts with this sickness throughout her life. It was through Mary's beloved Richard Cranch that Abigail first met John Adams in the summer of 1759. Each had an unfavorable impression of the other. Two years later, upon meeting again, John decided that nothing would do but for him to marry Abigail. Her parents still weren't fond of John and insisted on a long engagement. John and Abigail were married on October 24, 1764. They moved to Braintree and lived in a small house beside John's mother on 23 acres of land. Their first daughter Abigail (Nabby) was born in 1765 and John Quincy was born two years later. Another girl was born but died fourteen months later. Two more boys, Charles and Thomas would complete their family. She did become pregnant again but the baby, a girl, was stillborn.Since John was away from home for long periods of time, Abigail was tasked with the daily management of their farm; as landlord, farmer, and banker. As John's eminence in America rose so did Abigail's popularity but she missed her husband terribly. When John went off to play ambassador to France, Abigail was beside herself with loneliness and reproached him often for not writing to her. This dismissal from her husband's affections led to a bit of a scandal with another married man named James Lovell. They began a writing correspondence in which he boldly flirted with her and to which she made no move to stop. A letter Lovell wrote to another congressional delegate was intercepted by the British and was printed in a Tory newspaper. In it was sexual reference that made Lovell look bad and embarrassed his wife. This apparently woke Abigail up to the dangers of their correspondence. She sent him a letter scolding him for being so forward but her letter sounds like she was more angry at herself for letting things progress so far out of moral bounds. "No situation more delicate, more critical or more liable to censure than that of a Lady whose Husband is away," she wrote to Lovell. Finally John asked his wife to join him in London. Sister Shaw took in Abigail's youngest sons and saw to their education while she was away. They weren't in England long before John was sent back to France. In 1787 after John had been in Europe for over a decade and Abigail with him for four of those years; the Adams's set sail for America. When John was elected Vice-President of the newly formed United States Abigail was happy for him but not ready to part again. Eventually she went to New York and then to Philadelphia to be with him. As Vice-President, Adams received $5,000 a year but this was not enough to support their two households and Abigail had to scrimp to get by. When Adams became the second President his salary increased to $25,000. In 1800 the capitol was moved to Washington D.C and Abigail became the first First Lady to live in the White House. When John lost the next presidential election Abigail was happy to return to some kind of normal life at her home Peacefield, located in Quincy. She still worried about money since at that time there was no pension offered to former presidents. The lost of the presidency was compounded by the death of their son Charles from liver failure. They settled into retirement at Peacefield but sadly they outlived their son Thomas, who like Charles and Abigail's brother, died from alcoholism and their daughter Nabby who died from breast cancer. Abigail herself died in 1818 of typhus fever. She was the last of the Smith sisters.
Elizabeth (Betsy), born on April 7, 1750 was the youngest of the girls. When she was just a young girl she became so ill that the doctor gave strict orders that she was not even to read or write. After Abigail was married, Betsy lived off and on with her in Braintree while John was away working as an ambassador for the colonies. Since Betsy was the youngest, she spent the most time at home nursing her parents as they grew older. Judging from her letters to their Cousin Issac Smith, it appears that Elizabeth may well have been in love with him. Though she refused to confirm her feelings, she wrote to him of their "friendship formed in infancy, which has been cemented by the most rational esteem in maturer years." Eventually, she and Isaac drifted apart and letters became less frequent as life pulled them in different directions, especially when Isaac admitted he was a Tory; sympathetic to the British. In 1773 Elizabeth met John Shaw. She was 22 and he was 24. Abigail did not like Shaw but Betsy assured her that neither had any designs for marriage; writing up a fake official document and attaching Shaw's signature that she cut off from another letter and sending it to Abigail. "We...have no such purpose in our hearts, as has been unjustly surmised." But contrary to the protests John Shaw and Elizabeth were married in 1777. John became a minister and Elizabeth was happy to tend her new home and garden and the new society she met in her new parish of Haverhill. By 1781 the Shaws had two children and when Elizabeth turned 39 she was pregnant with her third child. She named her new daughter after her sister Abigail in hopes of reconciling her to the new baby. Sister Adams was appalled by this late in life pregnancy and even after baby Abbey was born, Abigail refused to write to Elizabeth for months. In 1793 John Shaw passed away in his sleep at the age of 47. In letters later sent between the Smith sisters and the townspeople of Haverhill, it came to light that John Shaw had been an alcoholic and possibly abusive. Elizabeth didn't stay a widow for long. In fact she was courted by several eligible men in the area. One of those men was her old friendly correspondent and cousin Isaac but he waited too long. Another minister, Parson Peabody, was already there proposing on the same day that Isaac had ridden over to do the very same thing. On the day the ceremony was set to take place came a horrible snow storm. The Parson would not wait and arrived promptly on time to pick her up. During the ceremony itself someone came running into the church yelling that her own house was on fire! Their marriage seemed to run much more uneventfully than their wedding day. They set up a school in their home and Elizabeth felt she had found her place in helping to mold future generations. Unfortunately tragedy marred her happy home when her oldest daughter, Betsy Q, contracted tuberculosis and by September 1798 she had passed away. The Peabody's Atkinson Academy continued to prosper. In 1815 Elizabeth passed away in her sleep.All three sisters spent their lives living for each other and living to make changes in a changing world. Their letters are lasting evidence of the deep bonds that sisterhood and a collective shared experience can create. They were witness to revolution, rebellion, war, and reform, death, and life. The Smith sisters fought to challenge societal norms by teaching their own children and their grandchildren that a woman's intellect was no less than a man's. Even though they participated in separate spheres, men and women should work to complete and compliment each other. Mary, Abigail and Elizabeth fought to make history and to change the future.
For further reading:
Dear Abigail: The Intimate Loves and Revolutionary Ideals of Abigail and her two Remarkable Sisters - Diane Jacobs
John Adams - David McCullough
Abigail Adams: Letters - Abigail Adams, Edith Gelles
Abigail Adams - Woody Holton
First Family: Abigail and John Adams - Joseph J. Ellis
