44 



(£l)c jTarmcr'0 illontljln bi sitor. 



breathing in about one hour he called his father 

 to the room: in less than one minute from the 



call the son was there, and he came in to see 

 him breathe only once. He went asleep without 

 the least motion that could lie perceived as one 

 falling into quiet rest. 



Thus lived and died a man who, noiseless and 

 unpretending, did as much for his immediate 

 connexions and dependents, for his country and 

 the world of mankind, as many whose praises 

 and whose name have been louder sounded. He 

 had scarcely ever been sick during his long life 

 — he had no occasion to follow medical pre- 

 scriptions, never having taken, as he declared to 

 us, twenty-five cents worth of doctor's medicine. 

 With extremely restricted means of education, 

 he was a scholar improving through life and 

 keeping pace with the advance made in his 

 mother English language. His letters written 

 at the age of more than a hundred years — their 

 chirography, their orthography and their con- 

 struction of sentences — woidd not disgrace a 

 man of learning. Mr. Adams was not only a 

 man of work, but he was a man of thought, of 

 discriminating deep thought, seldom failing to 

 arrive at the right conclusion. 



As he left the world as one falling into easy 

 sleep, so we had the great gratification a few 

 months previous to see the man of long career 

 of good experience cheerfully awaiting the great 

 change as one who feared no evil in the arbitra- 

 ment of a just God. A descendant of the Puri- 

 tans, he was brought up in the strict Calvinistic 

 faith of the churches of the last century. The 

 religious cjist and profession of those who came 

 to Massachusetts two hundred and twenty years 

 ago and settled at and around Boston, was of the 

 uncompromising sort — it regarded more the 

 stringent education of youth than the practice 

 even of the severest religionists of the present 

 day : it was then the fashion to be strict, and 

 church government, the instructions and moni- 

 tions of the minister and elders of the church, 

 were regarded as law even to those who had not 

 yet become professors. Mr. Adams with his ex- 

 cellent consort early after marriage united with 

 the church of his town. We have the copy of a 

 letter to his children written at the age of ninety- 

 four years, in which he details the circumstances 

 which induced him to change to a more liberal 

 religious faith. With this change there came no 

 change either in his devotion or his morality. 

 Entertaining-, after long thought ami study of the 

 bible, which was the great anchor to his soul, 

 and which he read almost to the last hour of his 

 life, the opinion that God would he gracious to 

 all, he found comfort and consolation in the last 

 great change which awaited him on earth : he 

 looked upon death rather as a friend to bring 

 him relief than ail enemy to mar his happi- 

 ness. 



The long life of that branch of tho Adams 

 family which settled in Cambridge is worthy of 

 notice. Deac. Joseph Adams, as has been men- 

 tioned, bad fifteen children by two wives. The 

 youngest of the family, the daughter who was 

 an infant driven in the arms of her mother out 

 of bouse h\ the British soldiers at Menotomy in 

 April 1775, mentioned to us a few months ago, 

 that on the day she was sixty years of age all of 

 the eleven children of her mother above her age 

 were living: one of that family, Thomas Adams 



of .New Sali Ms., died the last year at the age 



very nearly of 0110 hundred years. So the whole 

 family of nor John Adams, nine in number, lived 



to grow up and settle each in a married life: so 

 also his son James Adams has raised an entire 

 tamiiy of eleven, the youngest now eighteen 

 years of age. 



The family of Adams, as is written in the 

 records of Quincy, Ms., came to that town about 

 the year 1G30, and settled Mount Wallostan. 

 The father, Henry Adams, brought from Eng- 

 land eight sons according to one account. An 

 obituary notice of a descendant in the Ports- 

 mouth Journal gives the number as twelve. We 

 incline to the belief that the former is the true 

 number. These sons scattered to different di- 

 rections of the country: we must suppose one 

 of them, a millwright, settled at Menotomy in 

 the north-west corner of Cambridge, and there 

 erected his mill and the old Adams house now 

 standing, about the year 1G36. This was the an- 

 cestor of John Adams and our ancestor in the 

 female line of the mother. At the same distance 

 are other names of a long-lived ancestry that 

 came from England with the Puritans more than 

 two centuries ago. 



N. B. Since the foregoing journal was writ- 

 ten out, we have received from our kinsman and 

 friend, Hon. James Russell of West Cambridge, 

 a descendant of the Adams family in both the 

 father and the mother's line, the following, under 

 date of April 6, 1849: 



"1 have been anticipating making a visit this 

 spring to our old uncle John Adams, now de- 

 ceased, had he survived till the season should 

 have become favorable for such a journey. Ear- 

 ly in the winter i sent him some money, and re- 

 reived an answer from his son just ten days be- 

 fore his death. From the tenor of this letter I 

 was led to believe that he would probably have 

 his life extended at least one year more; but it 

 has been otherwise ordered. In the letter of 

 James Adams to me, one fact was staled which 

 1 consider most wonderful. Mr. Adams says 

 that his hither one morning in December last 

 seemed depressed in spirits — said nothing — 

 seemed thoughtful ; and on being inquired of 

 what was the matter, remarked that ' one hun- 

 dred years ago to-day my father came to my bed 

 side and woke me up, and told me my mother 

 was dead.' Who is there now living that can 

 distinctly remember nil occurrence which hap- 

 pened one hundred years ago ? I doubt if such 

 an one exists in ihe United States — perhaps not 

 in the world." 



The strong impressions remaining upon this 

 old man — impressions that seemed to conquer 

 and override the physical prostration which al- 

 ways comes to extreme age — were evinced as 

 well in our personal interview last September 

 as in the truly graphic account he. gave of him- 

 self in the letter written to the editor of the Vis- 

 itor when he was of the age of a hundred and 

 two years. To the day of his death the attach- 

 ment formed for his mother in his first four years 

 remained in all its strength : it was even his 

 " passion strong in death." The truly interest- 

 ing narrative of his life written two years ago 

 well accords with that event whose annual cele- 

 bration he kept one hundred years after its oc- 

 currence: he then wrote as follows: 



" When I was in my fourth year my father's 

 family were all taken sick except myself with a 

 fever; but all recovered except my mother; but 

 alas, she died; and oh! how to this moment my 

 heart aches for little children deprived of their kind, 

 careful, prudent mother." 



The tenderness of Cowper, mourning for a 

 similar privation, can scarcely excel this. 



THE SF.CJUEL. 



The stage road through Bradford and Susque- 

 bannah counties over the back bone of the pe- 

 ninsula hv Montrose to Carbondale and thence 



over the ridge which divides the waters of the 

 Snsquehannah from the Delaware rivers, is 

 equalled only by the unpromising aspect of the 

 country. The succession of continued hill and 

 valley continues all the way— it seems to be all 

 up hill and down. Travelling the distance lie- , 

 tween Montrose and Carbondale the progress 

 was not more than two or three miles an hour. 

 Carbondale has grown up entirely from the coal 

 bed existing near its location, to which access 

 by railroad has been found over the ridge as be- 

 tween two valleys. The coal region is all on 

 the Snsquehannah side of the valley. The 

 mountain has been pierced for miles running in 

 a horizontal direction. Far under ground the 

 miners enter to do their work : the coal is bro- 

 ken out by drilling and blowing in square lumps, 

 splitting in regular lines like granite. The rise 

 from the Carbondale mines to the top of the 

 ridge eastward is several hundred feet. This 

 rise is encountered by inclined planes at various 

 distances under the power of stationary steam 

 engines. The car loaded with from three to five 

 tons of coal comes out of the mountain with a 

 single horse who generally in a pace no faster 

 than a man's walk takes it to the first rise, where 

 he leaves it to take an empty car back. The 

 steam is applied to the loaded car which passes 

 up the inclined plane seemingly of its own self- 

 movement, while in another track an empty car 

 comes down to supply the place of that just ta- 

 ken away. In this manner the railway, which 

 has been constructed solely for the coal trans- 

 port, encounters the up-hill distance for about 

 six miles. The distance from Carbondale to 

 Honesdale is sixteen miles: over the last ten 

 miles inclining towards the Delaware the loaded 

 cars go down all the distance as of their own 

 weight, drawing up the empty cars with the 

 downward heft. At Honesdale the coal takes 

 the Delaware and Hudson canal which commu- 

 nicates with the latter river above the highlands 

 near Kingston in Ulster county. The Carbon- 

 dale coal bed is in the Lackawana valley com- 

 municating with the Snsquehannah river in Lu- 

 zerne county. Lower down are the beds of an- 

 thracite which yield the immense supply for the 

 city of Philadelphia. This coal business has 

 created for the latter city a trade which is 

 relieving it from that blighting curse coming out 

 of the great bank speculations which reduced 

 her from the proudest and most wealthy to the 

 condition of the poorest and meanest of the cities 

 of the Union. The coal and iron (better than 

 mines of gold) coining through Philadelphia 

 down the Schuylkill and Delaware have extend- 

 ed the limits of that city to an entire covering of 

 the long vacant space on the westerly side with 

 dwellings and places for business: here is the 

 extensive depot which supplies coal and iron 

 and employs thousands of ships to transport it 

 to the various ports of the country. New York 

 is making the effort to obtain her supply of 

 coal through her own waters. She has tapped 

 Pennsylvania through a mountain region by the 

 Delaware and Hudson canal crossing the Dela- 

 ware several miles above the line of the Erie 

 canal. This canal down the slope of the wester- 

 ly side of the Delaware winds its way for some 

 distance along the track of the road which we 

 travelled. Jn the same track we encountered 

 another enterprise which is now nearly in com- 

 pletion for the benefit of New York — a new 

 railway lo another extensive coal bed, on which 

 the well-known Irish shanties indicated hundreds 

 at work. This new railway when completed 



