3 Trouble Brewing

Chapter 3 Trouble Brewing John and Abigail were happy about the Boston Tea Party. They could see that it was a turning point. More and more colonists wanted freedom from England, even if it meant war. In 1774, John was elected to go to

Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress. Men from the different colonies were to decide what America should do. Again, Abigail was left to run the household. She wrote to John, but it took two weeks for her letters to reach him. Her letters were full of news and advice. She reported the movements of the British troops. John's letters to her complained about how little was getting done at the Congress. Abigail always called John "dearest friend" in her letters. They missed each other terribly. John missed his children, too. Abigail wrote in a letter to her friend Mercy Warren that she could see no way to avoid war. She was right. Shortly after that letter, in April 1775, the British and colonists fought battles in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, twenty miles from Braintree. The Revolutionary War had begun. George Washington was put in command of the new Continental Army. From Philadelphia, John wrote to Abigail, "In case of real danger... fly to the woods with our children."

In June, after the Battle of Bunker Hill took place across the bay from the farm, Abigail wrote to John. She said, "The constant roar of the cannon is so distressing that we cannot eat, drink, or sleep." Later she found out that one of their closest friends had been killed in the battle.

Can you imagine what it was like to be living in the middle of a war? Abigail sheltered people fleeing Boston and Continental soldiers on their way into the city. The house was full of friends and strangers. Abigail fed everyone. They would

sleep in the parlor, the attic, and the barn. Abigail described it as a "scene of confusion." Because nothing was coming from England, people in Boston were running out of things they needed. Abigail made soap and spun cloth. She made ink from ashes and berries! She even melted down pewter spoons to make bullets for the soldiers.

Money was short. Abigail asked John to send her six thousand pins. They weren't for her to use. She wanted to sell them. In the midst of all the upheaval, she was going into business! In the summer of 1775 there was a dysentery epidemic. Dysentery is caused by unclean food or water, and it hits a person's stomach. Eight of the Adamses' neighbors died of dysentery in one week alone. John's brother died, and so did the Adamses' servant Patty. John and Abigail's three- year-old son, Thomas, and another servant also got very sick. Abigail's mother came to help nurse everyone. In October, she caught dysentery herself and died.