Diary of John Adams, volume 1
Satt out from Mr. Bishops, oated, at Norwoods alias Martins, and reached Brother Cranches at 12 o Clock1 —dined and drank Tea, and then rode down to the Neck Gate, and then back thro the common and down to Beverly Ferry, then back thro the common and round the back Part of the Town Home. Then Walked round the other Side of the Town to Coll. Browns, who not being at Home, we returned. The Town is situated on a Plain, a Level, a Flat—scarce an Eminence can be found, any where, to take a View. The Streets are broad, and strait and pretty clean. The Houses are the most elegant and grand, that I have seen in any of the maritime Towns.
The Cranches had recently moved from the Germantown district of Braintree to Salem, where Richard Cranch established a watch and clockmaking business. Probably during either this first visit of the Adamses to the Cranches, or during a second visit in November of this year (see 3 Nov., below), JA and AA sat for their earliest known portraits, by Benjamin Blyth, a young and relatively little-known painter then working in Salem; see Henry Wilder Foote,“Benjamin Blyth of Salem: 18th Century Artist,” MHS, Procs.
, 71 (1953–1957):69–71, 81–82. It is curious that JA says nothing in his Diary of these portraits, which now hang in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society.