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John Adams had one of the longest retirements of the former presidents. At a time when the life expectancy in America was somewhere between 36 and 39 in Massachusetts, Adams lived to the ripe old age of 90. No doubt Abigail had something to do with that, though he lived longer than she did. After leaving office in March of 1801, Adams did not remain in Washington, not even for his successor's inauguration. The election of 1800 had been a bitter contest, with a lot of libelous rhetoric published on both sides. Adams went home to his farm that he called "Peacefield" in the town of Quincy, and took up the life of a farmer. He was 65 years old at the time. He also began work on his autobiography, one which he never finished. In those days, correspondence by letter writing was a big thing, and Adams resumed his with many of his old friends. Two who were prominent correspondents with Adams were Benjamin Waterhouse (the physician who founded the Harvard Medical School and discovered a vaccine for smallbox and who had been Adams' roommate in Holland) and Benjamin Rush (also a physician, and a founding father who had been critical of George Washington).
Adams remained quiet publicly during Jefferson's presidency, but after Jefferson's retirement from public life in 1809, Adams became more vocal. He published a three-year marathon of letters in the Boston Patriot newspaper, which contained a line-by-line defense of an 1800 pamphlet written by Alexander Hamilton which attacked Adams' conduct and character. Hamilton had been dead for five years by this time. He had died in 1804 in a duel with Aaron Burr, but that was irrelevant to Adams, who felt the need to vindicate his character against Hamilton's slanderous charges.
Adams suffered some financial setbacks in his early retirement. In 1803 the bank holding his cash reserves of about $13,000 collapsed. Adams would have had to sell his home were it not for his son John Quincy, who came to his parents' rescue. John Quincy Adams purchased from his parents' properties in Weymouth and Quincy, including Peacefield, for the sum of $12,800, allowing them to recover most of what they had lost in the bank collapse.
Though John Quincy Adams would go on to make his father proud, his other children would bring sadness, grief and disappointment in some cases. His beloved daughter Abigail (known as "Nabby") was married to Representative William Stephens Smith, but she returned home to live with her parents' home after the failure of her marriage. Nabby had undergone a painful mastectomy and in 1813, she died in her parents' home from breast cancer in 1813. His son Charles had died from alcoholism in 1800 (cirrhosis of the liver) and his son Thomas also experienced problems with alcoholism.
For Adams, the greatest blow he suffered in his retirement was almost certainly the death of his wife Abigail from typhoid fever on October 28, 1818. In an era when women were expected to be subservient to men, theirs was a true partnership that had endured many of his absences from home. John Adams frequently sought the advice of Abigail on many matters, and their letters are filled with intellectual discussions on government and politics. Her last words were said to be, "Do not grieve, my friend, my dearest friend. I am ready to go. And John, it will not be long."
After Abigail's death, Thomas Adams and wife Ann, came to Peacefield to live with their father, along with seven children. Also living in the home was Louisa Smith (Abigail's niece by her brother William). Sixteen months before John Adams' death, his son, John Quincy Adams, became the sixth president of the United States in 1825, the only son to succeed his father as President until George W. Bush in 2001.
In early 1812, Adams reconciled his friendship with Thomas Jefferson. The two had been close friends when in Philadelphia in 1776, and grew apart during their time in France and during Washington's administration. Their mutual friend Benjamin Rush, a fellow signer of the Declaration of Independence who had been corresponding with both, and he encouraged them to reach out to one other. On New Year's Day of 1812, Adams sent a brief, friendly note to Jefferson. Along with it were sent "two pieces of homespun," a two-volume collection of lectures on rhetoric by John Quincy Adams. Jefferson replied immediately with a cordial letter, and the two men revived their friendship, which they sustained by mail. The correspondence that they resumed in 1812 lasted the rest of their lives. (Both men died on the same day, Independence Day of 1826).
The letters letters that passed between Adams and Jefferson reveal and preserve for history much about both the era, and the what was in the minds of these two great revolutionary leaders and Presidents. Their correspondence continued for fourteen years. Adams wrote 109 letters to Jefferson, and Jefferson wrote 49 to Adams. The subjects discussed between the two men include "natural aristocracy", a topic on which Jefferson wrote: "The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of society. May we not even say that the form of government is best which provides most effectually for a pure selection of these naturals into the offices of government?" Adams replied that he wondered if it ever would be clear who exactly these people were. He wrote back: "Your distinction between natural and artificial aristocracy does not appear to me well founded. Birth and wealth are conferred on some men as imperiously by nature, as genius, strength, or beauty. When aristocracies are established by human laws and honor, wealth, and power are made hereditary by municipal laws and political institutions, then I acknowledge artificial aristocracy to commence." Adams argued that fate would bestow influence on some men for reasons other than true wisdom and virtue. He believed that such "talents" were natural and therefore a good government had to take this into account.
John Adams was nearly 89 when in 1823, at the request of his son, John Quincy Adams, he posed a final time for portrait artist Gilbert Stuart (shown below). Less than a month before his death, as the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration approached, Adams issued a statement about the destiny of the United States. He wrote: "My best wishes, in the joys, and festivities, and the solemn services of that day on which will be completed the fiftieth year from its birth, of the independence of the United States: a memorable epoch in the annals of the human race, destined in future history to form the brightest or the blackest page, according to the use or the abuse of those political institutions by which they shall, in time to come, be shaped by the human mind."
July 4, 1826, was the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. It was also a day on which the nation lost two of its greatest founders. John Adams died at his home in Quincy, at approximately 6:20 PM. Thomas Jefferson had died earlier the same day. Adams' crypt lies at United First Parish Church in Quincy, Massachusetts, with his wife Abigail and son John Quincy Adams. When Adams died, his last words contained an acknowledgement of his longtime friend and rival. Unaware that his successor as President had predeceased him earlier in the day, Adams famously said: "Thomas Jefferson survives" before breathing his last breath.