Episode 5 - An Age Of Discovery

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant
Episode 5: “An Age Of Discovery”
Published on  August 8, 2020

Note: This transcript was generated by Otter.ai with light human correction

Kathryn Gehred 

Hello, and welcome to Your Most Obedient and Humble Servant. This is a Women's History podcast where we feature eighteenth and early nineteenth century women's letters that don't get as much attention as we think they should. I'm your host, Kathryn Gehred. Today I'm joined by public historian and my former roommate, Rachel Steinberg. Rachel is currently finishing her Master's in Public Health at the University of Colorado, and she runs a research study aimed at preventing childhood diabetes among American Indian kids. Hi, Rachel.

Rachel Steinberg

Hi.

Kathryn Gehred

Glad to have you with us. A little bit of background about Rachel when we live together, she used to work transcribing Abigail Adams papers, so I thought that she would be pretty good to have them a podcast and talk about Abigail Adams letter. But can you tell me about how you got involved in that project?

Rachel Steinberg

Absolutely. So, before I realized I needed to work in public health, I thought I was going to work in museum anthropology. I finished undergrad. And while I was living in Charlottesville, with Katie, I actually talked to a cousin who was like, 'Oh, I've got a job opening. I know somebody at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, you want to do that?' And I was like, Sure, yeah, why not? So I would work with a partner a couple hours a week, and one of us would be looking at a microfiche copy of the handwritten letter of someone like Abigail Adams or John Quincy Adams, and reading it out loud, and then the other person would be looking at a tape transcript and essentially put back in what we would think of as errors, things like weird spelling, weird punctuation. And the idea was just to make the transcripts more literally representative of what the handwritten letters had in them.

Kathryn Gehred

Okay.

Rachel Steinberg

So, yeah, so I mean, I'm just like, I remember reading Abigail letters and being like that she has great handwriting, which she cannot spell to save her life. Because there wasn't standardized spelling. So, you know if she wanted to spell the word business like bleakness like "Buis" I mean, what she did every time at least she was consistent.

Kathryn Gehred

Oh, she was consistent with bleakness.

Rachel Steinberg

Oh, yeah, it was like a running joke. Like everybody knew. That's how Abigail spells business. But I do remember Abigail and John Quincy Adams both had lovely handwriting. And they were like, the only ones who did.

Kathryn Gehred 

That's so funny. Because I've only ever heard of Abigail Adams is having really bad handwriting. I read it in a footnote somewhere that she had really frustrating, bad handwriting.

Rachel Steinberg

Okay, it's frustrating, I will give you that. If you're doing a bunch of them in the in a row, you know, you get used to it, and it's like actually very clear. It's not all really, really tiny. Or how do I explain it? Like I get what they're saying that it's frustrating. She also did this thing where she put a comma where you should have a period and a period where you should have a comma to figuring out where sentences end as the kind of a dish issue, but you can't really blame people. I mean, there's no there's no standard. There's no standards.

Kathryn Gehred

Exactly. Alright, so this week's letter because I knew that Rachel had some background and Abigail Adams, I do not have very much I had to do a lot of research to even get sort of the basic idea of what's happening at the time of this letter. So, I have picked a letter from Mary Smith Cranch to Abigail Adams, and I just want to give a quick shout out and a huge thank you to Gwen Fries. It's either Gwen Fries, or Quinn Freeze. I'm so sorry. I don't know how to pronounce your name. I've only ever read it. She works at the Massachusetts Historical Society. I follow her on Twitter, and she was always tweeting hilarious and great quotes from the family letters of the Adams Papers. And I thought this is a person that will understand the gist of the podcast I want to make. So I asked if she had any good ones to send me and she came through with this list of fantastic letters. So, this one I'm pretty excited about it has political intrigue. It's very funny. It has some very juicy gossip. So I am ready to get going with this letter. First off a little bit of context. Mary Smith Cranch is Abigail Adams older sister by three years. She was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, and she married Richard Cranch on 25th November 1762. Oh, I said that the European way. 25th November. She and her husband settled in Braintree, Massachusetts. She was really close with her sister and her younger sister Elizabeth. There's a whole book that's about the letters between Mary Cranch, Abigail Adams and her younger sister and actually, Mary Smith crunches husband courted her at about the same time that John Adams was courting Abigail Adams and there's a really cute young John Adams letter where he's flirting with Abigail. At the time of this letter, Mary Smith Cranch is writing to Abigail on September 24 1786. At this point, Abigail Adams is in England with her husband, John Adams had been sent to Paris. Oh, John Adams had gone all the way back in 1780 to Paris to help negotiate to the Treaty of Paris and then he stayed there for a while. Abigail joined him for his last eight months in Paris before he was sent to England to be American minister to the court of St. James, where he was just miserable the entire time apparently. But, Abigail brought their daughter, also named Abigail, this is another fun thing about documentary editing the way that you're supposed to identify women and documentary editing, you should use their maiden name and their last name. So technically, Abigail Adams is Abigail Smith Adams. Well, her daughter is named after her. So there's Abigail Smith Adams, and then her daughter, Abigail Adams Smith, which is delightful. And the good people at the Massachusetts Historical Society have solved this by referring to her as "AA2," which I like but I don't know if that translates to podcast as well. But so anyway, her nickname, the daughter's nickname was Nabi. So that's another way to do it. So Abigail went to England with Nabi and she left her sons in the care of Mary Smith Cranch. At the time that this letter was written, John Quincy Adams was back from his time in St. Petersburg, where he was working as a boy diplomat with Russia, and he was able to join Harvard as a junior in 1785. So, John Quincy Adams is attending Harvard, his Aunt is sort of looking after him and John and Abigail have just returned from a trip to the Netherlands where they had been until early September, at the time that this letter is written and their daughter Nabi had just gotten married to William Stephen Smith. How's that sound? Rachel? Is there some context there?

Rachel Steinberg

That's so much context. I mean, I was thinking as you were saying, like the Abigail Smith, Adams, Abigail Adams Smith thing, just like, like name your kids something else. 

Kathryn Gehred 

But, now that we have an idea of what's going on, I'm going to go ahead and read the letter. Okay, so this is Mary Smith Cranch to Abigail Adams, Braintree, September 24 1786.

"My dear sister, and my last I told you, I suppose your son Thomas would enter college at the end of his vacancy. He did so and entered with honor. He could not have a chamber in college this year, but he has a very good one it Mr. Stools and boards with the family. It is not so well as boarding in college, but it was the best thing we could do. We have furnishes his chamber with cousin Charles furniture. It was no easy thing to get him cousin Tom into a place we liked. One asked too much. And another head borders we did not like he should be connected with and others were full already. The doctor and I spent two days in Cambridge before we could get a place to our minds.

Rachel Steinberg

Can I just say this reminds me so much of like on and off campus housing and when you're trying to like move your furniture and the fall, like some things don't change.

Kathryn Gehred 

I do. I like the idea that there were borders that she's like, Oh, not those people.

Rachel Steinberg

Nope. You cannot live here.

Kathryn Gehred 

"I went with Betsy Betsy is married grantors daughter Elizabeth Cranch. Norton. I went with Betsy last week to see Mrs. Fuller and Colonel Hall and Lady and I returned through Cambridge. Our sons are well, cousin JQA had been unwell. A bed swimming in his head attended with a sick stomach occasion to I believe, by want of exercise and to close application to his studies. His cousin and brothers complained that they cannot get him out. I talked to him of the necessity of walking and some relaxation. I shall see him again this week and she'll give him a puke if he has a return of it."

Rachel Steinberg

Which means she's gonna make him throw up if he doesn't start to feel better.

Kathryn Gehred 

I looked it up to see if there was any other definition for puke and all of the other ones were out of use. Like it seems like puke was an article of clothing and like the 1600s but I'm pretty sure that at this point just puke meant she was gonna give them something to make them throw up which is about peak eighteenth century medical knowledge at the time.

Rachel Steinberg

Oh yeah. So like that they'd be like this is the solution Absolutely.

Kathryn Gehred 

Studying too hard, just throw up.

Rachel Steinberg

And I just say also like classic JQA being a nerd. Like what he's gonna be for the rest of his life.

Kathryn Gehred 

First off, I didn't I didn't call him JQA she wrote JQA everybody always calls him JQA, which I enjoy.

Rachel Steinberg

It's fun to say it's just fun.

Kathryn Gehred

"Judge Fuller and Lady were well. Mrs. Fuller desired me to tell you that she sent her most affectionate regards to you and hope to see you again in your own country. She was with her daughter who was in a poor state of health. Her lungs are disordered. She has three children, two daughters and a son. But the poor little fella was very sick. He is a beautiful boy about six months old. The Colonel has a fine countenance and is a fine figure. They appear to be very happy. She has an excellent temper and inherits her mama's benevolence. They live near Watertown bridge, have a very handsome house. and is very well furnished. She is much improved by her camp life."

Now, I don't know what she means by camp life.

Rachel Steinberg

I don't know either. I mean, like you would think it's like if the army is on the move, then they'd be staying in a camp. But where could it be going?

Kathryn Gehred 

That's I don't know for 1786, at this time period, maybe she was one of the wives that followed their husbands around to the camps. Anyway, more research required. Sorry about that.

"Colonel Hull is acquainted with Colonel Smith and told me more about him than anybody I have seen. He was brought up with Colonel Humphries and expects him in a few days upon a visit and has promised to bring him to see us. As I was sitting in my chamber the other day,"

Oh, and here's another name I don't know how to pronounce.

"As I was sitting in my chamber the other day Mr. Wyburd came into the house. In a few minutes, I heard him tell Betsy that her cousin Nabby was married, that Oaks Angier was dead, and that Mrs. PLR was brought to bed. I was rejoiced at the first, felt solemn at the second, and was astonished at the last piece of news. More on this later, except my congratulations, my dear sister, I hope the dear girl will be happy, but I cannot bear the idea of you're leaving her in Europe. I have not yet been called depart with any of my children, but I think it must be very hard to do it."

So yeah, Nabbu got married in England, there's a very real possibility that she would be staying behind in England.

Rachel Steinberg

Gross.

Kathryn Gehred

That ended up being the case. And we'll get into Oaks Angier in a little bit and Mrs. PLR.

"So I am impatient to receive letters from you. If the dis-United States of America will forward your return, you will be here soon. We are all in confusion and what will be the consequence? I know not. Anarchy I fear."

Rachel Steinberg

Oh, gosh.

Kathryn Gehred 

Sorry. Like, she is so dramatic throughout this letter. But to me, this paragraph is the most and the next one the most dramatic.

"The excess of liberty which the Constitution gave the people has ruined them. There is not the least energy in government, you will see by the public prints what manner the mob have stopped the courts and opened the jails and what their list of grievances are, there must be more power somewhere or we are ruined, but how to acquire it is the question. The people will not pay their tax nor their debts of any kind."

Rachel Steinberg

I like that she frames it as they just won't pay your debt just won't do it, guys. They just it's not that they don't have any money. Sorry. I get like really heated about this perspective on Shays' Rebellion. We're going to come back to this.

Kathryn Gehred 

This is one perspective of Shays' Rebellion.

"So the people will not pay their debts, and who shall make them, these things affect us most severely? Mr. Cranch, has been laboring for the public for three or four years without receiving scarcely any pay. The Treasury has been so empty that he could not get it. And now my sister there is not a penny in it. The public owe us 300 pound and we cannot get a shilling of it. And if the people will not pay their tax, how shall we ever get it. And attendance upon the Court of Common Pleas was the only thing that has produced any cash for above two year, part of this always went to pay Billy's quarter bills. If we had not lived with great caution, we must have been in debt, a thing I dread more than the most extreme poverty."

Rachel Steinberg

That is such a weird statement to me that she's more afraid of debt than poverty.

Kathryn Gehred 

It's also interesting that people who are most in debt at this time were farmers. And then because the Treasury had no money. They were raising the taxes up to I think, like thirty or forty percent at this time. And so farmers who already didn't have any money who are already cash poor, there had been a lot of economic issues, obviously, during the American Revolution. There just wasn't any money. So they kept taxing people higher and higher and higher. And then if they couldn't pay their taxes, they take their land, and so that's what inspired Shays' Rebellion, the rebellion first shut down the courts. So, it actually her husband is one of is one of the first people affected by the Shays' Rebellion. I think is interesting, because he's one of the lawyers in the courts that is now no longer getting paid. So this is very much the lawyer's perspective of Shays' Rebellion.

"Mr. Cranch is very dull says he must come home to go to watch mending and farming and leave the public business to be transacted by those who can afford to do it without pay. What will be the end of these things? I am not a politician enough to say they have a most gloomy appearance. I believe I told you in a former letter that Mr. Angier was in a consumption. He did not suppose himself dangerous until three days before he died and then sent for Mr. Reed, his minister and wished to have his children baptized, but did not live to have it done. This is all I have heard about it. So Oaks Angier was a former clerk for John Adams. He appears in John Adams notes and an Abigail Adams letters as someone who's smart, but maybe a little bit full of himself. And, so it's a little bit interesting that they frame him dying by saying he did not suppose himself dangerous until three days before he died.

Rachel Steinberg

Yeah, I mean, just knowing that consumption is tuberculosis and knowing how chronic that can be it just wonder like, I mean, he obviously didn't have it for only three days, like he had, he had tuberculosis for quite a long time. If that's what killed him. It's just that he was symptomatic. And in critical condition for three days anyway, I'm getting...

Kathryn Gehred 

This health side is really adding a little flavor to...

Rachel Steinberg

Well, there's so many like vague illnesses mentioned, this is the only illness in the letter that they actually say what it was interesting to me.

Kathryn Gehred

"We live in an age of discovery. One of our acquaintances discovered that a full grown child may be produced in less than five months, as well as a nine provided the mother should meet with a small fright a few hours before its birth. You may laugh, but it is true. The lady's husband is so well satisfied of it that he does not seem to have the least suspicion of it being other ways. But how can it be fair he left this part of the country the beginning of September last and did not return until the sixth of April, and his wife brought him this fine girl the first day of the present month. Now, the only difficulty seems to be whether it is the product of a year or twenty weeks. She affirms it is the latter, but the learned and the obstetric art say that it is not possible. The child is perfect, large, and strong. I have seen it my sister, it was better than a week old to true but a finer baby I never saw. It was the largest she ever had. Her mother says, I thought so myself, but I could not say it. It was a matter of so much speculation that I was determined to see it. I went with trembling steps and could not tell whether I should have courage enough to see it till I had knocked at the door. I was asked to walk up by and was followed by her husband. The lady was sitting by the side of the bed, suckling her infant, and not far from her with one slipper off and one foot just stepped in the other. There's a blank here. So she says and not far from her blank with one slipper off and one foot just stepped into the other. I had not seen him since last May. He looked. I cannot tell you how. He did not rise from his seat. Perhaps he could not. I spoke to him and he answered me, but hobbled off as quick as he could, without saying anything more to me. There appeared the most perfect harmony between all three, she was making a cap and observed that she had nothing ready to put her child and as she did not expect to want them so soon. I made no reply. I could not. I make no remarks. Your own mind will furnish you with sufficient matter for sorrow, and joy, and many other sensations, or I am mistaken. Do yours affectionately, Mrs. Cranch."

Rachel Steinberg

There's just so much to unpack in that last part.

Kathryn Gehred 

Again, kudos to Gwen Fries for sending me this one. She said, I don't know if this one's funny. Or if it's just more gossipy. I'm like oh,

Rachel Steinberg

Both? Both? It is funny and definitely both I mean, okay, so are you going to talk about the fact that Nabby almost married this guy that actually fathered this baby anyway, you should explain that part.

Kathryn Gehred 

Okay. All right. So so this the previous few letters I've done haven't had much annotation, but this one I was able to get from the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the John Adams papers, so there is annotation explaining some of the stuff that's going on. So the father of this child, not the woman's husband, the father of this child.

Rachel Steinberg

Who was not her husband. In case you weren't sure you cannot have a baby in five months.

Kathryn Gehred 

Mary Cranch is being pretty sneaky about it, but I think the implication was clear. So the situation here is there was a woman Elizabeth Hunt Palmer. So that's the Mrs. PLR, who was mentioned earlier, she was married to a man named Joseph Palmer. So she gave birth to a daughter named Sophia who could not have been the child of her husband. The father was a man named Royal Tyler. Now, Royal Tyler had been courting Nabby Adams right before they went off to England. And in fact, he had been courting rather successfully, but Abigail Adams put a stop to it because of things she'd heard about him from Mary Cranch. So Mary Cranch is like oh Nabby is married, is she i have some interesting news for you.

Rachel Steinberg

I mean, I feel like the very last line of this letter she's like, "Your mind will furnish you with sufficient matter for sorrow and joy and many other sensations," like she's basically being like 'I told you sis, so. Like, aren't you glad?'

Kathryn Gehred 

Learning more about royal Tyler, so he was a lawyer, later and important early playwright and novelist, who had been courting Nabby before she went to Europe. And he later ends up marrying the woman who gave birth to a child, Mrs. Palmer, I think he marries one of her other daughters.

Kathryn Gehred 

He marries one of her other daughters. That is so gross. Like we're all messed up. I, I hate that. But Sophia actually ends up moving in with her half sister, and Royal Tyler. And so it's one of those things that they didn't it was never publicly acknowledged during their lifetimes, but later generations have come out and said that they knew that this was the case. Rachel, I just wanted to ask you, what is something that really struck you as interesting about this letter?

Rachel Steinberg

I think, because my mind is so into population health right now, in disease and epidemiology. I was struck by how much illness is in the letter, but it's all really vague illness. It's like, oh, something's wrong with someone's lungs. There's something's wrong with their head, but it's not like it's this disease or that disease, right, with the exception of Mr. Angiers, who had consumption, tuberculosis. And I guess I don't know how much there really is to say about that. That's probably true of almost every letter from this time at least written by women, they're going to be really focused on marriage, babies and death.

Kathryn Gehred

Right.

Rachel Steinberg

It's true. But I think what's interesting is that they didn't know anything about how diseases were spread at this time. I mean, they had guesses, but their guesses were pretty much wrong. They the, the leading theory at this time was the theory of miasma, this idea that it was bad air that made people sick.

Kathryn Gehred

Yeah.

Rachel Steinberg

And it wouldn't be for, you know, like another 100 years or so before people would realize we have germs and microbiology is a thing. And you know, all of that good stuff. That's now the basis of modern medicine.

Kathryn Gehred 

I do. So I, obviously, my background is not so much in health. But when I read things like on the internet that are like, we have to go back to things that are natural, and, you know, people lived back then like, it's not the end of the world. reading all of these letters. People didn't live very long back then people died, a lot of people died. And after writing enough family trees, if people were we have to say this person had fourteen Children, six of them survived to adulthood, she had twelve children, four of them survived to adulthood. It's I'm very happy for modern medicine. And it really makes me appreciate modern medicine.

Rachel Steinberg

Absolutely. And not to throw in a plug for vaccinating your children. But this is a plug to vaccinate your children.

Kathryn Gehred 

Thanks for taking this opportunity.

Rachel Steinberg

I mean, that little kid she's like the six month old who's a beautiful little boy and is very sick right now. It was like that, yes. Probably has something that is vaccine preventable. ,

Kathryn Gehred 

Yeah. It gives me anxiety thinking about a time before they knew what terms were.

Rachel Steinberg

Right. Alright, so let's talk a little bit more about Shays' Rebellion. 

Rachel Steinberg

My favorite rebellion. Just kidding. I don't know that I have a favorite.

Kathryn Gehred 

This is Mary Smith's Cranch's perspective on Shays' Rebellion. So Rachel, you did a little bit of research into this looking into before we did the podcast. Can you tell me sort of your summary of Shays' Rebellion?

Rachel Steinberg

Yeah, I mean, so I didn't actually realize that what she was talking about with Shays' Rebellion until I looked at your notes. And I was like, oh, that's what she's talking about. And so then I wanted to remind myself of oh, why, why were they rebelling? Because if you really just read what Mary Cranch says, it's, well, they chose to be in debt. So it's obviously very one sided. So really, what happened is, the US had war debts from the Revolutionary War, and on top of this, the northern states economy was really based on trade with the West Indies, the British West Indies. So once the war is over, and they're not part of Britain anymore, there's not really any more trade with the West Indies. So, the flow of gold and silver that had been coming for many years through that trade just wasn't happening anymore. So now you just don't have gold and silver flowing in the economy. So as a result, state legislatures throughout the country start printing paper money. And of course, we know what happens when you do that. And you usually end up with inflation, so the US an economic depression, so that hit the farmers the hardest, but it hit everybody. And now we still have those war debts, right? The war that's didn't go away. This just is exacerbating the fact that we have debts, and there's no one to pay them, no money to pay them. So now the states are imposing taxes to pay the debts, and they're based on everybody's paying the same amount, basically, it's not a calm. And so that means that ordinary citizens really can't afford it, this is often about a third of their whole income is taxes, then, of course, the states are passing a bunch of laws trying to fix this, but they're really just band aid measures, you've got tender laws that are like, 'Oh, you can use paper money to pay your debts.' And then you've got stay laws that are like, 'Oh, if someone owes you a debt, you can't actually enforce it.' So this sort of giant mess of different people trying to fix the situation, that actually makes everything even worse. And eventually people are like we have had enough of this situation. I think you alluded to earlier, when people couldn't pay their debts, they're getting thrown in jail. They're having their lands auctioned off, right, so people's entire livelihoods are being destroyed. Of course, they're going to rebel. And that is really the context here. When,

Kathryn Gehred

Yes.

Rachel Steinberg

Cranch is talking, 'Oh, like they are just in debt. And it's their problem.' Like that's not really true, emphasize right, I want to emphasize her relatives like people like her husband, people like John Adams, people, like people all around her of her class and of her family, are some of the people making these policies and making these laws and making things worse, and they're the people that started the revolution and led the politics of the revolution. So it's a little bit ridiculous for her to be so dismissive.

Kathryn Gehred 

Another thing that is interesting about the situation and she even explicitly brings it up is The government's not strong enough to deal with the situation. Also, I like that she says like the people have the excess of liberty which we've given people, which is just delightful. It's ruined to them. But,

Rachel Steinberg

It's just ruined to them.

Kathryn Gehred

Sorry, people that they used to just stay in their place. So when when people started just not paying their taxes or just not paying lawyers or rebelling in sort of an organized way, the state didn't have any sort of method of putting this down other than local militias. Well, who's in the local militias, the poor people, so poor people, so they're gonna arm these people that are then like, 'Oh, screw you.' And that was Shays' Rebellion. And that was when the whole state eventually actually like opens fire, and they fire like actual cannons, on the people to try to get everybody back in line, but this is such a classic example of like, state violence versus the violence of the people. And, she is she's almost right to be afraid of anarchy, because the the government is not functioning as it should. It cannot take care of the people and something needs to change. And there were good consequences from Shays' Rebellion in that if you look at the Constitutional Convention, which has not happened yet, America is still under the Articles of Confederation at this point, the Constitutional Convention is very inspired by all of the the drama that's been going on with this rebellion. And that helps form the type of government that they create, in a way that they'll be able to address some of these concerns. So, the governor that fired on his people is voted out in a democratic election, and people take the place who actually like do things to make things better. 

Rachel Steinberg

And, I would just add to that some of what goes into the Constitution is also reflecting some of the things that caused Shays' Rebellion, you know dealing with idea that like, you know, the states individually couldn't force Britain to put trading agreements into place to start trade back up with the West Indies, but a consolidated federal government could put that pressure.

Kathryn Gehred

Yeah.

Rachel Steinberg

And also, they were like, We need to regulate interstate commerce. Everybody can't be printing their own money, going to work like things like that. They've learned some lessons. So, I think it's just so interesting she says she'd rather be poor than in debt, like, like living says that.

Kathryn Gehred 

And that is very interesting, because it's definitely not most of the farmers fault that they're in debt, people imagine leaving your farm to go fight the American Revolution, and then coming back and having the state take your farm because you haven't been able to make money. That's just insulting. Alright, so that was the political section.

Rachel Steinberg

Should we talk about the baby, she just she frames this whole paragraph so beautifully, you know, really builds up to it.

Kathryn Gehred 

I just I did want to, again, give some kudos to Mrs. cranch here because she knew she had something really good. And she waited to the end of the letter. So, she could just really relish it. Like she ends that letter with a bang. And I think this is somebody who knows how to she's she's written some correspondence. 

Rachel Steinberg

I just, I mean, it's amazing to me that this you can overshadow Shays' Rebellion. But

Kathryn Gehred 

Yes, just opening it with "We live in an age of discovery." Beautiful.

Rachel Steinberg

Did you know that it only takes five months like

Kathryn Gehred 

Oh, and so we have a um, so she writes this letter first. She leaves a conspicuous blank for the people's names, but she knows that Abigail is going to know who these people are.

Rachel Steinberg

I wonder if why she did that. It's like did she think this letter was gonna get handed around? And she didn't want to be pointed out as a source of like, serious gossip?

Kathryn Gehred 

That is a very interesting question. Because I know that a lot of people do this and John Adams, the Adams Family does this quite a lot where they will just write like the first initial of somebody's name and then like a line through if they're saying something mean about them.

Rachel Steinberg

That's like it makes it okay.

Kathryn Gehred

I mean, they've got some plausible deniability, I guess, but at some people do different things. They say burn this letter at the bottom, something like that. We have a follow up letter where she describes the situation that here's another letter from Mary Smith Cranch. She says she's writing to Abigail. She says,

"What? What should you think if you should pick up a letter from a married lady whose husband is absent, directed to a gentleman with such sentences as these in it? I am distressed, distressed by many causes. What can we do? I know you would help me if you could come to me immediately." Or

"Oh, think of me and think of yourself. It alarms me. It was mysterious, but is no longer so what will or can be done? I know not. I was yesterday at Germantown. They seem all of them to be very sensible of the injury that has been done the family. It is a serious affair to break up such a large one. Besides the disgrace that will forever attend even the innocent ones of it. A man looks very silly with a pair of horns stuck in his front, and yet to suffer the enemy of one's peace to be under the same roof and to see dividing her leering. I will not say tender looks between himself and her paramore is too much for human nature to bear."

Rachel Steinberg

So did that letter, say burn this letter?

Kathryn Gehred 

I'll have to double check. But again, she's not saying their names. "A man looks very silly with a pair of horns stuck in his front."

Rachel Steinberg

I mean, it's just such a. Yeah, everybody knows what she's talking about. So,

Kathryn Gehred 

So, writing a letter from England, to America would at best arrive two months, like maybe if you had, like you caught like, really good weather and everything was like a super straight shot. It might be like a month and a half. But it could be as long as three months before you get a letter. I did want to point out that when Mary Cranch mentions that she's just found out that Nabby is married, Nabby actually got married in June.

Rachel Steinberg

Yes, she did.

Kathryn Gehred

And then this letter was in September, and this isn't September, and she just found out so trying to write these hot gossip letters, like by the time at Abigail Adams gets this letter and response that baby's six months old. And so in a Jane Austen situation, this is like heavy drama peak, Elizabeth is pacing and can't read the letter out loud because she's crying so hard, type situation, is just like worst case scenario is something like this. But this is real life. And so what has happened is a woman has had an affair, she's had a baby, that cannot be her husband's, and her husband just decides, let's pretend everything's fine. They have the man apparently living in their house, from what I can gather from the situation. They're like living in the same area. And they just pretend you know what, we're just going to live with this. Because in real life, this stuff happens. And sometimes you just have to deal with it. So I think probably worse. The worst case scenario is people like Abigail Adams, and everybody gossiping about them behind their backs. But like, really, you just sort of have to deal with it.

Rachel Steinberg

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a very interesting way to in which this Mrs. Palmer does deal with it, which is just sort of insist on this medical impossibility. Everybody knows is a medical impossibility. And be like, 'Oh, I didn't have any clothes ready for this baby? Because early like'

Kathryn Gehred 

'I was so surprised.' Yes. But like, what else can you do? It's like unacceptable, but divorce would also be unacceptable. And apparently the the dads fine with it not fine. But like the dads willing to live with it. So I just think that sort of an interesting situation of how some sort of scandalous situation was actually in reality handled at this time. Like, you know, she wasn't shunned out of the family. People were still acknowledged, they just raise this girl. And everybody knew the open secret. And they just lived with it. Yeah.

Rachel Steinberg

I mean, it is pretty interesting. I feel like people probably imagine there's more shunning in history. Yeah. But there's probably just more of this. The big message of this letter is, life is vastly more dramatic than fiction.

Kathryn Gehred

It's dramatic, and it's messier and people are sick, and things are gross, but it happened and people survived.

Rachel Steinberg

Mostly, some didn't, vaccinate your children,

Kathryn Gehred 

A small percentage of people survived. Rachel, this was a delight. Thank you so much for agreeing to be on the podcast.

Rachel Steinberg

I had a great time this very good use of my Friday evening. Thank you.

Kathryn Gehred 

Alright, so I will, as usual, have some notes and some additional readings if you're interested in the show notes. But until next time, I just want you to know that I am as ever, your most obedient and humble servant. Thank you for listening