Abigail Adams, Bond Speculator

Abstract

OF the thousands of soldiers and statesmen separated from their families by the American War of Independence, few were gone as long as John Adams, who spent most of the decade from 1774 to 1784 away from his wife. Like many absentees Adams asked his spouse to manage his finances as well as his farm. And that led to one of their few great quarrels. In the fall of 1783, still in Europe after helping negotiate the Paris Peace Treaty that secured American independence, Adams instructed his wife to find out what price two of his neighbors would take for their farms. Responding in January 1784, Abigail Adams agreed to sound the two men out. But she added, There is a method of laying out money to more advan tage than by the purchase of land's, namely State Notes.1 Speculators were buying a Massachusetts government security called the Consolidated Note at about one-third of its face value. Bondholders received the standard