Abigail Amelia ADAMS

Other Events and Attributes:

• Death: 15 Aug 1813

Notes:

Name:
Nabby Adams Smith was the eldest child and only surviving daughter of John and Abigail Adams and the sister of John Quincy Adams. She married William Stephens Smith in London on June 12, 1786 while her parents were in residence there but the marriage was not a happy one. Abandoned on numerous occasions while her husband went "seeking his fortune", Nabby showed herself to be a true child of her parents, strong-willed, uncomplaining and able to keep herself and her children together under one roof, earning the unstinting respect of John and Abigail and of John Quincy, who loved her dearly ... one of the few people he did love dearly.

In October of 1811, Nabby discovered a lump in her breast and a mastectomy was performed without any anesthesia. Her parents were holding her hands during the brutal surgery and, according to John, she never cried out once. After recuperating at the Adams homestead in Quincy, she returned to her dreary life in New York. But the cancer proved too much for even Nabby's resilient spirit and, in the summer of 1813, in agony, she returned to her parents in Quincy and died in The Old Homestead. The elderly John Adams grieved in a letter to his old friend Thomas Jefferson: "Your friend, my only Daughter, expired, Yesterday Morning .... in the 49th Year of her age, 46 of which She was the healthiest and firmest of Us all: Since which, She has been a monument to Suffering and to Patience." It has been said that neither John nor Abigail ever truly recovered from her death.

Cause of death: Breast cancer



Posted on find A Grave created by: Kathleen

Family/Spouse: Col. William Stephens SMITH. William (son of John SMITH and Margaret STEPHENS) was born on 08 Nov 1755 in Long Island City, Queens, New York, USA; died on 10 Jun 1816 in Lebanon, Madison Co., New York; was buried in Sherburne West Hill Cemetery, Sherburne, Chenango Co., New York. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]