New England, 1775-1826

My vicarious travels this week have taken me all over the world and more than two centuries into the past.

In the seven-part series on John Adams, I've followed John and Abigail Adams from their youth to their deaths.  The last episode is unforgettable.

After the deaths of two of their children and after many years apart due to John's travels abroad, John and Abigail are the dearest of friends in their old age, as they always were.  "I am amazed that I am the first to go," Abigail says to John as she is dying.

After she dies, he says, "I wish I could lie down with her and go, too. I cannot conceive that God would create a creature such as her, to simply live and die on the earth. The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, the more the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know."

When asked whom he would like to notify, Adams says, "There are so few alive who know either one of us."

Adams and Jefferson were close friends in their youth, but had long since fallen apart over political differences.

"What about Mr. Jefferson?" Adams' friend asks.  "Surely he will wish to share your sorrow."

Adams replies, "If I should receive a letter from him, I would not fail to answer it." But then he remembers all the "insults" from his former friend.

"That is why it is you who should show the magnanimity of great minds....I always considered you and him as the North and South Poles of our Revolution...."

One of the most poignant moments of the story come after these words, as Adams begins a letter: "My dear friend..." He tells Jefferson that his "wife of 54 years" has been taken away.

Jefferson's reply also begins, "My dear friend...." and we hear excerpts from their letters to each other.    They come to the end of their lives friends again. "Mr. Jefferson knows my heart as well as any man living," Adams says.

On his 90th birthday, we see John Adams on the porch, toasting his son, John Quincy, the newly-elected 6th President.

Shortly thereafter, ironically on July 4th, 1826 (the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence), Adams died at his home in Quincy and Jefferson died, miles away, on the same day.