True Kelley - Who Was Abigail Adams?

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Who Was
Abigail Adams ?

By True Kelley
Illustrated by John OBrien

Grosset & Dunlap
An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

For Eloise and Charlotte LindblomTK

For my daughter TeraseJOB

GROSSET & DUNLAP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

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Text copyright 2014 by True Kelley. Illustrations copyright 2014 by John OBrien. Cover illustration copyright 2014 by Nancy Harrison.
Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group,
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a
trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-0-698-16754-4

Version_2

Contents

Who Was Abigail Adams?

On June 17, 1775, at 3:00 a.m., Abigail Adams woke up with a start. Her bed was shaking. The dull boom of cannons ten miles away in Boston shook the whole house. The British and the American colonists were at war. Abigail had almost gotten used to hearing the boom from cannons every day as the armies fought. But this time was different. The cannon fire went on and on and on.

Abigails first thoughts were for the safety of her four children. She had managed the Adamses small farm and big family by herself for months because her husband, John, was away. He had been nervous about leaving his family in a danger zone. However, he and Abigail both felt that he had to be at an important meeting in Philadelphia. John was among a growing number of people who wanted the colonies to break free from British rule. The meeting would decide the future of the thirteen American colonies.

At daybreak, Abigail and her seven-year-old son, John Quincy, climbed the hill behind their house to see what was happening. They could hear the guns roaring even louder. They stood on a pile of rocks at the top to get a better view.

What they saw was horrifying. Beyond the British warships in Boston Harbor, flames and black smoke rose above the city. Abigail and her son held hands and walked down the hill in tears.

The battle was one of the most important of the Revolutionary Warthe Battle of Bunker Hill.

Soon Abigail wrote about it to her husband. John showed her letters to General George Washington, the new head of the American army.

Abigail was living in amazing times, and she described them and her life in amazing letters: She wrote over three thousand letters in her lifetime!

Abigail and her husband, John, had a special bond. Youll see that if you read their letters to each other. They both were deeply interested in politics. Abigail always thought first of her husband and family. But she was strongly for the rights of women, for education, and against slavery. She had many ideas about what freedom meant. She made sure her important husband heard her!

---

THE RIGHT TO AN EDUCATION

ABIGAIL BELIEVED EDUCATION WAS VERY IMPORTANT. SHE SENT ONE OF HER BLACK SERVANTS, A STABLE BOY NAMED JAMES, TO SCHOOL IN QUINCY. THIS WAS NEVER DONE, AND PEOPLE PROTESTED. OTHER BOYS REFUSED TO GO TO SCHOOL IF JAMES DID. ABIGAIL TOLD THEM, BECAUSE HIS FACE IS BLACK, IS HE TO BE DENIED INSTRUCTION? JAMES ATTENDED THE SCHOOL WITH NO FURTHER PROTEST.

---

Abigail lived apart from John for many years. She suffered the hardships of war, political defeats, and the deaths of three of her children. But she stayed strong through it all, and her strength helped both her husband and her son John Quincy to become presidents of the United States.

Abigail Adams was a great woman in her own right, a woman clearly ahead of her times.

Chapter 1
Young Abigail

Abigail Smith was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, on November 11, 1744. Her mother, Elizabeth Quincy Smith, came from a respected family. Abigails father, William Smith, was a much-admired minister. Abigail had a brother, William, and two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. She was close to her sisters all her life.

Abigail was delicate and sickly when she was little. She didnt go to school. Most girls in those days didnt, even though boys did. Abigail thought it was very unfair that her brother could go to school and she couldnt. She found out early that girls in colonial America didnt have the same rights as boys.

But Abigail and her sisters were lucky. Their mother taught them reading, writing, and arithmetic, as well as how to cook and sew. Their father and grandfather both had big libraries. Abigail was a curious child, and she spent a lot of time with her nose in all those books. Abigail read Shakespeares plays, history, philosophy and law. Her mother worried that she read too much. She also worried that Abigail was too stubborn and strong-willed. Grandmother Quincy always was on Abigails side, though. She said, Wild colts make the best horses.

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