John Adams: Four Months in the White House

On November 1, 1800, 65-year-old President John Adams took up residence in the unfinished Executive Mansion in Washington, DC, only a few days before the quadrennial election.

The White House…

…was neither “white” (it was sandstone), nor would it be formally called The White House for another century.

Nevertheless, it was the largest private residence in the country at the time, and despite the mud and the bricks and the wood and the workmen and the dogs, cats and pigs roaming about, a leaky roof and drafty fireplaces, it promised to be a very nice place. But not then.

President John Adams had been temporarily living at Tunicliffe’s City Hotel in Washington for a few months, punctuated by several weeks back in Massachusetts. On his second lonely night in the President’s Mansion, JA wrote to his wife Abigail (due to arrive sometime later), ”I pray Heaven to…