Adams Papers Digital Edition

Diary of John Adams, volume 3

Notes on a Tour of English Country Seats, &c., with Thomas Jefferson, 4–10? April 1786.

Ap. 18. Tuesday.
188 Saturday Ap. 15. JA Saturday Ap. 15. Adams, John
Saturday Ap. 15.

Dined with Mr. Brand Hollis in Chesterfield Street.1 His Mantle Trees are ornamented with Antiques. Penates. Little brazen Images of the Gods. Venus, Ceres, Apollo, Minerva &c. Hollis is a Member of the Antiquarian Society. Our Company were Price,2 Kippis, Bridgen, Romilly, and another besides Jefferson, Smith and myself.

 1.

Thomas Brand (1719–1804), who had in 1774 assumed the name Hollis upon inheriting the estate of Thomas Hollis, the well-known benefactor of Harvard College. Brand Hollis was a wealthy dissenter, political radical, and antiquarian. In July the Adamses were to visit his country seat in Essex (see entries of 24–27 July, below), and for some years thereafter they corresponded with him. Some of their letters are printed in John Disney's Memoirs of Thomas Brand-Hollis, Esq., London, 1808, p. 30–40. See also Caroline Robbins, “Thomas Brand Hollis (1719–1804), English Admirer of Franklin and Intimate of John Adams,” Amer. Philos. Soc., Procs., 97 (1953):239–247.

 2.

Richard Price (1723–1791), of Newington Green, dissenting minister, writer on government and finance, and friend of America ( DNB ). JA and Price had been correspondents for some years and continued to be so until the latter's death. During their stay in London the Adamses regularly attended Price's religious meeting at Hackney.