THE BRONX — John Adams worried about the French Revolution, inquired about the health of Philadelphia and sharply criticized the towns of Lancaster and Trenton during his brief stay in The Bronx at the end of the 18th century.
The country's second president made a pit stop in Eastchester at his daughter and son-in-law's house on his way to Philadelphia in 1797 after hearing that the city was suffering from a yellow fever outbreak and deciding to put his travel plans on hold, according to Bronx Historian Lloyd Ultan.
The farmhouse is located near the present-day intersection of Boston Road and Conner Street, and Adams stayed in the borough for just a few weeks in October, Ultan said.
He was chiefly concerned about two things at the time, according to his correspondence: whether and where to call a session of Congress and what would become of France while it was in the midst of its revolution.
In an Oct. 12 letter to Timothy Pickering, his Secretary of State, Adams asked for advice on whether it would make sense to convene Congress somewhere outside of Philadelphia due to the sickness gripping the city, although he was not too enthusiastic about the other options.
"I have assisted in Congress at Trenton, Lancaster, Yorktown, and Baltimore, and know by experience that even tolerable accommodations are scarcely to be obtained at the three first," he wrote, "and the last is as much infected at present as Philadelphia."
Adams piled on the criticism of Trenton and Lancaster in an Oct. 26 letter to his Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott Jr., where he asked for his thoughts on whether Philadelphia would be healthy enough to host a session of Congress by mid-November.
"It is scarcely worth a question, whether they shall be convened at Trenton, Lancaster, or any other place," he wrote. "I know, from painful experience, they cannot be accommodated at any of those places. The place must be Philadelphia or New York."
He held himself personally responsible for the health of the country's Congressmen, writing in the same letter that he would care for their safety "with perfect integrity, and with more caution than I would my own."
It was typical for Congress to meet in different locations when the country was dealing with illnesses during its early days, according to Ultan.
"It was not unusual in cases of epidemics for the Congress to meet somewhere else," he said, "and that would always be a matter of discussion as to exactly where."
When he was not trying to determine how healthy Philadelphia was or calling out Trenton and Lancaster for their subpar accommodations, Adams spent his time in The Bronx analyzing the country's complex relationship with France, which was going through its revolution at the time.
One of his chief concerns about the French was the stability of the country's directory, the name of their government from 1795 to 1799. Adams did not foresee a happy ending for the institution.
"The French directory, I take it for granted, must have war," he wrote in an Oct. 27 letter to Wolcott. "War, open or understood, is their eternal doom."
He noted that there were deep divisions within the directory in an Oct. 31 letter to Pickering and described a divided executive as "the worst evil that can happen in any government."
Despite Adams temporarily setting up shop in Eastchester, The Bronx did not become the permanent home for the nation's presidents, as he did eventually make it to the City of Brotherly Love.
"When the yellow fever abated, he went back to Philadelphia of course," Ultan said. "The mosquitos stop biting, you go."
