A Founding Mother: A Novel of Abigail Adams (2026)

5 Stars · Linda’s Rating
Page Count
452 pages
Release Date
2026-05-05

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⚠ Full Spoilers Ahead. This page contains complete plot summaries, the ending, and all major reveals. Turn back if you don’t want to be spoiled.
  • Child death / infant loss
  • Stillbirth
  • Death of adult children
  • Graphic medical procedures
  • Unanesthetized surgery / mastectomy
  • Smallpox inoculation / variolation
  • Bloodletting and painful medical treatments
  • Epidemics / infectious disease
  • Terminal illness / cancer
  • Graphic illness and physical deterioration
  • Slavery
  • Racism
  • Sexual exploitation of enslaved women
  • War violence
  • Graphic injuries / gore
  • Corpses / mass graves
  • Arson / destruction
  • Domestic violence / spousal abuse
  • Physical assault
  • Mob violence / political violence
  • Alcoholism / substance abuse
  • Gambling addiction
  • Bankruptcy / financial ruin

The novel opens in 1814, with an elderly Abigail Adams living in Quincy with her husband, former president John Adams. Four of their six children are dead, their surviving sons are far away, and the British have just burned Washington during the War of 1812. As the country they helped create once again seems dangerously fragile, Abigail looks back over the life that brought her here.

Her story begins in 1765, when twenty-year-old Abigail is pregnant with her first child. She has married John, a country lawyer nine years older than she is, partly because he treats her as an intellectual equal. They soon have daughter Abigail Amelia (“Nabby”), followed by John Quincy (“Johnny”), Susanna (“Suky”), Charles, and Thomas. Motherhood brings devastating losses almost immediately: little Suky dies during the British occupation of Boston, and years later Abigail suffers a stillbirth while John is away.

As tensions with Britain intensify, John becomes increasingly involved in colonial politics. He controversially defends the British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre, then becomes a delegate to the Continental Congress. Abigail is repeatedly left to manage their children and farm alone through shortages, disease, and war. During a terrible dysentery epidemic, Abigail and her children become dangerously ill, while her mother and numerous neighbors die. She watches the Battle of Bunker Hill from a distance with young Johnny and later writes John her famous plea to “remember the ladies” while new American laws are being created.

The Revolution separates the couple for years. John travels to Europe as a diplomat, taking Johnny and Charles with him for part of the journey. Abigail builds a small import business from goods John sends home and secretly invests her earnings in land through their relative Dr. Cotton Tufts, giving herself a measure of financial independence despite laws that give married women little control over property.

After the war, John repeatedly asks Abigail to join him in Europe. When Abigail’s father, Parson William Smith, dies, he gives Abigail’s longtime enslaved nurse Phoebe the choice of freedom in his will, and she accepts it. Abigail finally sails for Europe with Nabby in 1784. Reunited with John, she enters the diplomatic world of France and Britain, befriending Thomas Jefferson and witnessing John become the first American minister to Great Britain.

Nabby marries Colonel William Stephens Smith, but his disastrous financial speculation eventually leaves the family bankrupt. Abigail and John return to America, where John becomes George Washington’s vice president and then the nation’s second president. Their own family is increasingly troubled. Charles becomes reckless, loses money, develops severe alcoholism, and eventually dies of liver failure after John angrily disowns him. Nabby’s marriage remains financially disastrous, while John Quincy builds a diplomatic career of his own.

As First Lady, Abigail strongly supports John during the political turmoil of his presidency, including the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts and the conflict with France. John eventually breaks with Alexander Hamilton and other Federalists by pursuing peace with France. He loses the election of 1800 to Jefferson, and Abigail and John retire to their farm at Peacefield.

Retirement brings more grief. Abigail’s friendship with Mercy Otis Warren collapses after Mercy publishes a history Abigail believes diminishes John’s role in the Revolution. Abigail and Jefferson also exchange bitter letters after she sends condolences following the death of his daughter Polly. John, however, eventually renews his correspondence with Jefferson.

The greatest blow comes when Nabby develops breast cancer. She undergoes a brutal mastectomy without anesthesia, but the cancer returns, and she dies in 1813. By then Abigail has buried four children. The following year, as British forces burn Washington, she and John celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Abigail presents him with her will, insisting on her right to control the property she earned herself and asking him to recognize her as his equal. John promises that he will.

By 1817, Abigail is seventy-two and John is eighty-one. Their son John Quincy Adams finally returns from Russia before leaving again to become Secretary of State under President James Monroe. After decades of revolution, political battles, separations, financial disasters, and devastating family losses, Abigail gives her surviving eldest son her blessing as he prepares to continue the family’s role in the government she and John helped build.

Abigail Looks Back

In August 1814, nearly seventy-year-old Abigail Adams is tending family graves in Quincy, Massachusetts. Four of her six children are already dead, her two surviving sons are far away, and her elderly husband, former president John Adams, arrives with frightening news: British forces have captured Washington and burned the President’s House. President James Madison has fled, American finances are collapsing, and Massachusetts is even threatening to make a separate peace.

For Abigail, the crisis brings back memories of another time when America’s survival seemed far from certain. She begins looking back over the decades in which her marriage, family, and personal struggles became inseparable from the birth of the new nation.

Marriage, Motherhood, and Revolution

Abigail’s memories begin in April 1765, when she is twenty years old and pregnant with her first child. She has married John, a country lawyer nine years older than she is, because unlike many men around her, he welcomes her intelligence and enjoys arguing ideas with her. Their first child, Abigail Amelia, known as Nabby, is born with help from Abigail’s enslaved nurse Phoebe.

More children follow: John Quincy, called Johnny, Susanna, known as Suky, and later Charles and Thomas. Yet family life is repeatedly interrupted by the growing conflict with Britain. By 1770, the Adamses are living in Boston amid a heavy British military presence. During this period, little Suky becomes ill and dies in Abigail’s arms.

Soon afterward, John makes an unpopular but principled decision to defend the British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre. The Adams family becomes a target of local anger, even finding a flaming bag of manure left at their doorstep. Abigail nevertheless supports John’s belief that the soldiers deserve a lawful defense. He secures acquittals for Captain Preston and most of the soldiers, although the strain leaves him exhausted and the public backlash eventually sends the family back to Braintree.

As John’s reputation recovers, his political involvement grows. Abigail also develops a close friendship with patriotic playwright Mercy Otis Warren, giving her an intellectual companion during the increasingly turbulent years ahead.

After the Boston Tea Party in 1773, Britain tightens its control over Massachusetts. John accepts a position as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, despite knowing his political activities could destroy the family financially. His departure establishes a pattern that will define much of their marriage: John goes where politics requires him, while Abigail remains behind to keep their household, farm, finances, and children functioning.

When fighting breaks out at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, war is no longer theoretical. Abigail and young Johnny later watch the distant inferno of the Battle of Bunker Hill from Penn’s Hill. The battle becomes personal when close family friend Dr. Joseph Warren is killed.

Abigail Holds the Family Together

John helps nominate George Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, and Washington later visits Abigail in Braintree, praising the sacrifices colonial women are making for the Patriot cause. Abigail begins using the name “Portia” in her correspondence with John and finds small ways to generate income, including selling sewing pins.

Then disease becomes as dangerous as war. A severe dysentery epidemic sweeps through Braintree in 1775. Abigail and her children become seriously ill, while eighteen neighbors, their servant Patty Copeland, and Abigail’s mother die.

By March 1776, British troops finally evacuate Boston after Henry Knox brings cannons to Dorchester Heights. As John and the Continental Congress consider the political future of the colonies, Abigail sends him her famous request to “remember the ladies” when creating new laws. Her concern is personal as well as political: she has seen how little legal protection women possess, even when their husbands are abusive or irresponsible.

That summer, she takes the children to Boston for smallpox inoculations and witnesses a public reading of the Declaration of Independence. Yet independence does not bring her husband home. John returns only briefly in late 1777. Abigail becomes pregnant again after he promises to be present for future births, but political duties call him away once more. She suffers a traumatic stillbirth without him.

Years of Separation

After the American victory at Saratoga, Congress sends John to France as a diplomat. Abigail wants to accompany him, but John refuses because of the danger and expense of an Atlantic crossing. He leaves in February 1778 with Johnny and Charlie, giving Abigail a gold-rimmed pendant before departing.

The separation becomes one of the most difficult periods of their marriage. False reports circulate that John has been captured, while Abigail struggles to run the farm and support the family. She develops an import business using French goods John sends home, but their correspondence becomes strained. When trunks of merchandise arrive alongside letters in which John criticizes her earlier messages, Abigail is devastated.

Phoebe advises her to put aside her pride while also protecting herself financially. Abigail follows that advice in her own way. Working through their relative Dr. Cotton Tufts, she invests the money she has earned and purchases land in John’s name, quietly creating financial security for herself despite the restrictions placed on married women.

Their sons are scattered as well. John sends teenage Johnny to Saint Petersburg as secretary to diplomat Francis Dana, while Charlie is sent home aboard a frigate. Charlie disappears for months when the captain turns privateer in Spain before finally reaching America safely in January 1782.

Nabby, meanwhile, falls in love with young lawyer Royall Tyler, but John strongly opposes the relationship from overseas.

Abigail Goes to Europe

With the Revolutionary War finally over, John repeatedly asks Abigail to join him in Europe. Then Abigail’s father, Parson William Smith, dies. His will gives Phoebe the choice of remaining enslaved or taking her freedom, and she joyfully chooses freedom.

Abigail finally decides to cross the Atlantic. She leaves Charles and Thomas with her sister Elizabeth Shaw and Reverend Shaw and sails from Boston with Nabby in July 1784.

After a grueling month at sea, mother and daughter reach England. Abigail reunites first with seventeen-year-old John Quincy and then with John, arriving from The Hague. After years of separation and difficult correspondence, Abigail and John passionately reconnect.

The family moves to an enormous estate in Auteuil, France, where Abigail becomes friendly with Thomas Jefferson and his daughter Patsy. In 1785, John is appointed the first American minister to Great Britain, bringing the Adamses back to London. John formally appears before King George III, while Abigail and Nabby receive a distinctly colder reception from Queen Charlotte.

Nabby’s romantic life changes as well. John Quincy brings troubling reports that Royall Tyler has been dishonest, negligent, and unfaithful, convincing Nabby to end the engagement. She is soon courted by Colonel William Stephens Smith, John’s diplomatic secretary and a former Washington aide. They marry in 1786 and eventually give Abigail her first grandson, William.

In 1787, Jefferson’s young daughter Polly arrives in London accompanied by fourteen-year-old enslaved servant Sally Hemings. Abigail cares for Polly while also confronting yet another reminder of the contradiction between America’s rhetoric of liberty and the continued existence of slavery.

From Vice President to President

The Adamses return to America in 1788 and settle at a large Quincy estate they call Peacefield. The following year, John becomes the country’s first vice president under President George Washington.

Their children’s lives increasingly become sources of worry. Charles studies law with Alexander Hamilton but develops a reckless, pleasure-seeking lifestyle. Nabby’s husband launches disastrous land speculations that eventually bankrupt his family. John Quincy, in contrast, begins building a diplomatic career and is appointed minister to the Netherlands in 1794, taking his younger brother Thomas with him.

When Washington retires, John wins the presidential election of 1796 and becomes the second president of the United States, defeating Jefferson, who becomes vice president.

Abigail enters the presidency while dealing with chaos inside her own family. Colonel Smith has left Nabby in financial ruin, while Charles has lost both his own money and John Quincy’s savings through failed investments.

International tensions are equally severe. The XYZ Affair pushes America into the undeclared Quasi-War with France. Abigail supports the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts passed during John’s presidency. She also nearly dies from a severe fever in 1798 before slowly recovering.

John eventually breaks with Hamilton and the more aggressive Federalists by sending a peace mission to France. Then the family suffers another devastating blow. Charles’s alcoholism worsens until his wife leaves him. After Charles is discovered in a brothel, John angrily renounces his son as a “beast.”

Abigail cannot abandon him so completely. In 1800, she visits thirty-year-old Charles in New York and finds him dying from liver failure and filled with remorse.

That November, Abigail becomes the first First Lady to live in the unfinished White House in Washington, famously using the enormous East Room to dry laundry. John soon loses the election of 1800 to Jefferson after Hamilton helps fracture the Federalist vote. Charles dies shortly afterward.

Before leaving office, John completes peace with France, appoints John Marshall chief justice, and finds a government position for the financially ruined Colonel Smith. Then he and Abigail leave public life behind and return to Peacefield.

Retirement Brings More Loss

Retirement does not end the Adamses’ conflicts or tragedies. When newspaperman James Callender exposes Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings, the political and personal worlds Abigail encountered in Europe collide again.

After Jefferson’s daughter Polly dies in childbirth in 1804, Abigail sends him a condolence letter. Their exchange quickly expands into old political grievances and accusations, ending their contact again. John eventually takes a different path, resuming his celebrated correspondence with Jefferson in 1812.

Abigail also loses her friendship with Mercy Otis Warren after Mercy publishes a history of the Revolution that Abigail believes unfairly minimizes John’s contributions.

The family continues scattering across the world. In 1809, President Madison appoints John Quincy minister to Russia, forcing Abigail to say goodbye to her eldest son yet again.

Then Nabby comes home.

In 1811, she returns to Quincy with a cancerous breast tumor. Surgeons perform a horrifying mastectomy without anesthesia, and Nabby endures the operation without crying out. The surgery fails to save her. Her cancer returns, and after an agonizing 300-mile journey home, she dies surrounded by her family in 1813.

Abigail has now buried four of her six children. Her grief becomes so overwhelming that she struggles even with the religious faith that has sustained her through decades of death and separation.

Fifty Years Together

The narrative returns to the crisis of 1814. British forces have burned Washington, once again making the future of the country uncertain. Yet Abigail and John have survived long enough to see the nation endure crises that once appeared impossible to overcome.

In October, they celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

Abigail marks the occasion by presenting John with her Last Will and Testament. Throughout their marriage she has earned, invested, and accumulated property of her own despite living under laws that severely restrict a married woman’s financial independence. Now she insists upon her right to determine what happens to that property.

More importantly, she asks John to acknowledge her as his equal.

After half a century of marriage—through revolution, political battles, repeated separations, parenthood, the presidency, financial disasters, and the deaths of four children—John lovingly promises that he will.

John Quincy Comes Home

By the summer of 1817, Abigail is seventy-two and John is eighty-one. Their surviving eldest son, John Quincy Adams, finally returns from Russia.

But his homecoming is temporary. President James Monroe has selected him to become Secretary of State, meaning he must leave his parents once again and return to Washington.

This departure is different from all the others Abigail has endured. The young boy she once watched beside her as the Battle of Bunker Hill burned in the distance has become a statesman in the government born from that revolution.

Abigail gives John Quincy her blessing before he leaves. Her own life has carried her from a young wife arguing ideas with a country lawyer through revolution, independence, diplomacy, the presidency, war, and unimaginable family loss. Now, with John beside her at Peacefield, she watches their surviving eldest son leave to take his own place in the nation that shaped nearly every part of their lives.

How A Founding Mother Ends

The ending of A Founding Mother brings Abigail Adams’s story full circle, turning her lifelong struggle for recognition, independence, and purpose into something tangible.

In October 1814, on Abigail and John Adams’s 50th wedding anniversary, the country is finally receiving hopeful news after the destruction and uncertainty of the War of 1812. American forces have repelled British attacks at Lake Champlain and Baltimore. Against that backdrop, seventy-year-old Abigail gives eighty-year-old John an unusual anniversary present: her Last Will and Testament.

The document carries enormous significance because Abigail technically has very little legal power to make such a will. Under the laws of coverture, a married woman’s property belongs to her husband. Yet Abigail has quietly accumulated considerable wealth of her own over the years. During John’s long absences, she traded imported European goods, managed property, invested in land, and turned her so-called “pin money” into a personal fortune.

Now she wants that money to go where she believes it can do the most good.

Rather than leaving it to the men of the family, Abigail directs her wealth, possessions, and land shares primarily to women—granddaughters, daughters-in-law, nieces, female servants, and widowed neighbors. These are precisely the people who have the least financial protection under the laws governing Abigail herself.

Because Abigail cannot fully guarantee that her wishes will be legally respected, she asks John to use the authority the law gives him to make sure her wishes are carried out.

And John agrees.

His promise is more than a legal favor. After fifty years of marriage, separation, arguments, sacrifice, ambition, and loss, he acknowledges Abigail as the partner she has always understood herself to be: his intellectual, moral, and financial equal.

The anniversary also echoes an earlier moment in their marriage. When John left for France in 1778, he gave Abigail a gold-rimmed pendant bearing the words “I yield—whatever is—is right.” Now Abigail gives him a matching watch fob. What once suggested Abigail enduring and yielding to circumstances becomes something shared between them. After half a century, both have yielded, both have sacrificed, and both have sustained the other.

The Epilogue

The novel then jumps forward to summer 1817.

Abigail is seventy-two and John eighty-one, living at Peacefield in Quincy, Massachusetts. Their bodies are aging, the house itself shows the wear of time, and the stone wall remains unfinished. But their eldest son, John Quincy Adams, finally comes home after eight years abroad.

He returns having helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, and having been unanimously confirmed as Secretary of State under President James Monroe.

John Quincy spends a month at Peacefield with his wife, Louisa Catherine, and their children before leaving for Washington.

For Abigail, watching him depart becomes the final answer to the question that has haunted her life.

She has endured war, epidemics, political upheaval, long separations from her husband, and the devastating loss of four children. Again and again, public duty has demanded private sacrifice from the Adams family. Yet now she can see another generation carrying forward what she and John helped begin.

Her final reflection is therefore one of acceptance rather than regret:

“It is all for a purpose. None of it for naught. Not a single moment for naught.”

What the Ending Means

At its heart, the ending makes Abigail’s will her final political statement.

Decades earlier, she asked John to “remember the ladies.” The political system did not grant women the equality she imagined. By the end of her life, Abigail still cannot simply overturn those laws. Instead, she works within the limited power available to her and creates her own small redistribution of economic power.

That is why leaving her fortune specifically to women matters so much. She cannot change the law, but she can change what happens to the women within her reach. Her private wealth becomes a practical version of the principles she has argued for throughout her life.

John’s reaction completes the marriage arc. His willingness to honor the will effectively means using the legal authority granted to him as a husband to undermine the very inequality that gives him that authority. Symbolically, he finally “yields” to Abigail as an equal.

The matching pendant and watch fob reinforce that idea. Earlier in their marriage, yielding could look like Abigail accepting John’s absences and ambitions. Fifty years later, the concept has changed. Their marriage has become defined by mutual sacrifice rather than female submission.

Peacefield works similarly. The aging house and unfinished stone wall are not signs that Abigail and John have failed. They suggest that neither families nor nations are ever truly “finished.” The republic they helped establish remains an ongoing project, just as the wall remains incomplete.

That makes John Quincy’s departure for Washington especially important. Abigail and John are reaching the end of their lives just as their son moves toward the center of national political life. His appointment as Secretary of State points toward his eventual presidency and turns the Adams legacy into something generational.

The ending is therefore triumphant, but deliberately quiet rather than celebratory. Abigail does not receive sweeping public recognition or see women granted legal equality. Her victory is more intimate: she has created something lasting through her marriage, her children, her money, her ideas, and the women she chooses to protect.

Most importantly, the epilogue answers the novel’s larger question: Was all that sacrifice for nothing?

For Abigail, the answer is finally no. The losses cannot be undone, but she can see continuity beyond them. Her children and grandchildren remain. The republic survives. John Quincy carries the family’s public service into another generation. And Abigail herself leaves behind resources that give other women a measure of the independence the law denied her.

That is why “not a single moment for naught” is such a fitting final thought. Abigail’s life may have been constrained by the world she was born into, but the ending argues that she nevertheless found ways to shape what came after her.

🔶 Main Characters

Abigail Adams (née Smith)
Abigail Adams (née Smith) — Protagonist, Narrator, & First Lady
Role: Central character, narrator, farm manager, merchant, First Lady, and influential advisor to John Adams and John Quincy Adams.
Personality: Fiercely intelligent, outspoken, rebellious, pragmatic, stoic, deeply religious, independent.
Significance: She anchors the Adams family financially and emotionally, manages their farm and secret import business, writes “Remember the Ladies,” and pushes her husband and sons toward public greatness.
John Adams
John Adams — Founding Father & 2nd U.S. President
Role: Abigail’s husband, lawyer, Continental Congress delegate, diplomat, Vice President, and second President of the United States.
Personality: Irascible, vain, principled, legalistic, hardworking, patriotic, tender-hearted with family.
Significance: He helps drive American independence, secures crucial European support, helps shape Massachusetts government, and preserves peace with France during his presidency.
Abigail Amelia "Nabby" Adams
Abigail Amelia “Nabby” Adams Smith — Eldest Daughter
Role: Abigail and John’s eldest daughter, companion, wife of Colonel William Stephens Smith, and mother.
Personality: Dutiful, reserved, grave, loyal, stoic, dignified.
Significance: Her troubled marriage, financial ruin, and illness embody the sacrifices and limited choices faced by women of her era.
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams — Eldest Son & Future 6th U.S. President
Role: Abigail and John’s eldest son, scholar, diplomat, senator, and future President.
Personality: Brilliant, grave, fiercely independent, principled, hardworking, dutiful.
Significance: The family’s “golden child,” he enters diplomacy extraordinarily young and carries the Adams political legacy into the next generation.
Charles Adams
Charles Adams — Middle Son
Role: Abigail and John’s second son, student, and lawyer.
Personality: Handsome, charming, sweet-natured, softhearted, impulsive, vulnerable.
Significance: His downfall illustrates the devastating personal consequences of parental absence, addiction, financial recklessness, and the immense expectations placed on the Adams children.
Thomas Boylston Adams
Thomas Boylston Adams — Youngest Son
Role: Abigail and John’s youngest son, diplomatic secretary, farmer, and judge.
Personality: Plainspoken, hardworking, loyal, troubled, depressed, heavy-drinking.
Significance: The often-overlooked Adams son, he serves John Quincy abroad before returning home and eventually reveals the childhood abuse he suffered while boarding with Reverend Shaw.
Phoebe Abdee
Phoebe (later Phoebe Abdee) — Enslaved Nurse & Lifelong Family Companion
Role: The enslaved woman who helps raise Abigail, later becoming a freedwoman, domestic manager, and Abigail’s lifelong confidante.
Personality: Wise, spiritual, pragmatic, outspoken, independent, resilient, loving.
Significance: She becomes one of Abigail’s strongest moral influences, particularly regarding slavery, women’s legal dependence, freedom, and human dignity.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson — Founding Father, Diplomat, & Political Rival
Role: Author of the Declaration of Independence, diplomat, Secretary of State, Vice President, President, and eventual political rival of John Adams.
Personality: Cultured, brilliant, soft-spoken, sentimental, secretive, politically wily, ideological.
Significance: He begins as a close friend of the Adamses but becomes John’s chief political rival as partisan divisions fracture their relationship.

🔷 Supporting Characters

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Parson William Smith — Abigail’s Father
Role: Congregational minister in Weymouth and father of Abigail Adams.
Personality: Pious, learned, traditional, cautious, loving.
Significance: His library provides Abigail with much of her education, although he initially opposes her marriage to John and owns Phoebe despite Abigail’s objections to slavery.
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Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody — Abigail’s Younger Sister
Role: Abigail’s younger sister, poet, minister’s wife, and caretaker of Charles and Thomas during the war.
Personality: Bright, precocious, poetic, affectionate, spirited.
Significance: She provides crucial family support by raising Abigail’s younger sons during their parents’ prolonged absences.
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Mary Smith Cranch — Abigail’s Older Sister
Role: Abigail’s eldest sister, neighbor, confidante, and surrogate caregiver to the Adams children.
Personality: Motherly, steady, practical, obedient, supportive.
Significance: She becomes Abigail’s primary domestic confidante and helps care for the children during Abigail’s years abroad.
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Susanna “Suky” Adams — Deceased Infant Daughter
Role: Abigail and John’s second daughter.
Personality: Sickly, vulnerable.
Significance: Her death becomes one of Abigail and John’s earliest devastating experiences of parental grief.
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Dr. Cotton Tufts — Physician & Financial Manager
Role: Adams family physician, relative, and manager of Abigail’s investments.
Personality: Eccentric, bookish, benevolent, trustworthy, single-minded.
Significance: He treats the family through childbirths, epidemics, and inoculations while helping Abigail secretly invest her “pin money.”
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Mercy Otis Warren — Patriot Playwright & Intellectual
Role: Political writer, historian, playwright, and longtime friend and mentor to Abigail.
Personality: Formidable, intellectual, proud, outspoken, uncompromising.
Significance: She strengthens Abigail’s political confidence and introduces her to an influential intellectual circle.
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Dr. Joseph Warren — Physician & Patriot Martyr
Role: Boston physician, Patriot leader, and Adams family friend.
Personality: Handsome, gentle, brave, compassionate, charismatic.
Significance: He treats Abigail’s children and supports John during his 1770 nervous breakdown before becoming a Revolutionary martyr.
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Colonel William Stephens Smith — Son-in-Law & Diplomatic Secretary
Role: Former Washington aide, John Adams’s diplomatic secretary, and Nabby’s husband.
Personality: Dashing, confident, ambitious, military-minded, financially reckless.
Significance: His marriage to Nabby and disastrous speculation repeatedly destabilize the Adams family and help ruin Charles financially.
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Royall Tyler — Lawyer & Playwright
Role: Boston lawyer, Nabby’s former fiancé, playwright, and jurist.
Personality: Charming, witty, persistent, unreliable, dishonest, financially negligent.
Significance: His betrayal ends his engagement to Nabby, while his abandoned Braintree estate eventually becomes the Adams family’s Peacefield.
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Patty Copeland — Servant Girl
Role: Orphaned teenage servant taken into Abigail’s household.
Personality: Dutiful, hardworking, quiet.
Significance: She helps Abigail manage the household while John is away at the Continental Congress.
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George Washington — Commander-in-Chief & 1st U.S. President
Role: Commander of the Continental Army and first President of the United States.
Personality: Stately, imposing, dignified, stoic, revered.
Significance: John nominates him for military command, and Washington subsequently leads the Revolution and becomes the new nation’s first president.
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Martha Washington — 1st First Lady
Role: George Washington’s wife and the first First Lady of the United States.
Personality: Plainspoken, hospitable, dignified, warm, pragmatic.
Significance: She develops a warm relationship and mutual respect with Abigail during their years as presidential wives.
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Alexander Hamilton — Federalist Leader & Cabinet Rival
Role: Revolutionary officer, Federalist leader, first Treasury Secretary, and Charles Adams’s legal mentor.
Personality: Brilliant, ambitious, arrogant, charming, vain, manipulative.
Significance: He establishes the nation’s financial system but becomes a powerful internal enemy of John Adams and helps fracture the Federalist Party.
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Sally Smith Adams — Daughter-in-Law
Role: Colonel Smith’s sister and Charles Adams’s wife.
Personality: Mild, sweet, patient, dignified, firm.
Significance: She endures Charles’s escalating alcoholism and infidelity while raising their daughters.
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Sally Hemings — Enslaved Servant at Monticello
Role: Light-skinned enslaved woman belonging to Thomas Jefferson who accompanies Polly Jefferson to Europe.
Personality: Demure, quiet, reserved, observant.
Significance: Abigail meets her in London, while Sally’s time in France becomes crucial because she is temporarily on free soil.
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Polly (Mary) Jefferson Eppes — Jefferson’s Younger Daughter
Role: Thomas Jefferson’s younger daughter, whom Abigail temporarily cares for in London.
Personality: Delicate, affectionate, sweet, sensitive.
Significance: She develops a powerful mother-daughter-like bond with Abigail that survives the later political rupture between their families.
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Patsy (Martha) Jefferson Randolph — Jefferson’s Older Daughter
Role: Thomas Jefferson’s eldest daughter and Nabby’s friend.
Personality: Devoted, intelligent, loyal, freckled.
Significance: She befriends Nabby in Paris and becomes her widowed father’s primary female companion and later White House hostess.
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William “Willy Magpie” Smith — Grandson
Role: Nabby and Colonel Smith’s eldest son and Abigail’s first grandson.
Personality: Adventurous, cheerful, curious, undisciplined.
Significance: He represents the next Adams generation and becomes entangled in his father’s disastrous Venezuelan military adventure.
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Reverend John Shaw — Brother-in-Law
Role: Severe Calvinist minister, Elizabeth’s first husband, and teacher of Charles and Thomas.
Personality: Dogmatic, austere, severe, physically abusive.
Significance: He educates the Adams boys in New Hampshire but secretly traumatizes them through physical abuse and also strikes Elizabeth.
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King George III — British Monarch
Role: King of Great Britain during the American Revolution.
Personality: Formal, majestic, proud, diplomatically polite.
Significance: He represents the monarchy against which the colonies rebel, yet formally receives John Adams as the first American minister to Britain.
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Queen Charlotte — British Queen Consort
Role: Queen consort of George III.
Personality: Cold, haughty, disdainful, stiff.
Significance: Her icy treatment of Abigail and Nabby during their 1785 court presentation reinforces their uncomfortable status as representatives of the former colonies.
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Francis Dana — Diplomatic Mentor
Role: American diplomat to Russia and mentor to the teenage John Quincy Adams.
Personality: Formal, demanding, grave, patriotic.
Significance: He takes fourteen-year-old John Quincy to Saint Petersburg as his private secretary, accelerating the boy’s extraordinary diplomatic education.
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Henry Knox — Revolutionary General & Secretary of War
Role: Boston bookseller turned artillery general and first U.S. Secretary of War.
Personality: Boisterous, jolly, massive, brave.
Significance: His transport of captured cannons from Ticonderoga to Dorchester Heights helps force the British evacuation of Boston.
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James Callender — Muckraking Journalist
Role: Political pamphleteer and scandal writer.
Personality: Vicious, mercenary, resentful, unscrupulous.
Significance: Jefferson pays him to attack the Adams administration, but Callender later retaliates against Jefferson by publicly exposing his relationship with Sally Hemings.
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Aaron Burr — Vice President & Political Maverick
Role: Revolutionary veteran, senator, vice president, and political rival.
Personality: Suave, ambitious, cynical, rakish, opportunistic.
Significance: His Electoral College tie with Jefferson throws the 1800 presidential election into the House of Representatives.
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James Madison — 4th U.S. President
Role: Virginia statesman, political organizer, Secretary of State, and fourth President.
Personality: Wily, intellectual, methodical, partisan, diminutive.
Significance: He helps Jefferson build the Democratic-Republican opposition and later leads the country through the War of 1812.
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Louisa Catherine Adams (née Johnson) — Daughter-in-Law & Future First Lady
Role: English-born wife of John Quincy Adams and future First Lady.
Personality: Delicate, quiet, romantic, cultured, resilient.
Significance: Her marriage links John Quincy to the Johnson family, and she accompanies him through the hardships of his diplomatic career.
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Captain Preston — British Officer
Role: Commander of the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre.
Personality: Beleaguered, defensive.
Significance: His murder trial becomes an important demonstration of John Adams’s commitment to legal principle despite intense anti-British sentiment.
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William “Bill” Smith — Abigail’s Wayward Brother
Role: Abigail’s only brother, nicknamed “The Affliction” because of the chaos his behavior causes the family.
Personality: Reckless, alcoholic, irresponsible, gambling-prone, occasionally brave.
Significance: His failures force Abigail and their father to support the wife and children he abandons despite his brief military service at Lexington and Concord.
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Mr. Abdee — Merchant & Husband of Phoebe
Role: Black Boston merchant and Phoebe’s husband after her emancipation.
Personality: Hardworking, protective, practical.
Significance: His marriage to Phoebe gives her an independent family life after decades spent enslaved in the Smith household.
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Caroline Smith DeWindt — Granddaughter
Role: Daughter of Nabby and Colonel William Stephens Smith and granddaughter of John and Abigail.
Personality: Sweet, devoted, practical, flame-haired.
Significance: She helps nurse Nabby through her brutal mastectomy and terminal recurrence of breast cancer.
John Adams’s European Voyages Are Combined

John’s 1778 trip to Europe with John Quincy is portrayed as one continuous diplomatic absence. Historically, John returned to Massachusetts in 1779, drafted the Massachusetts Constitution, and then sailed back to Europe with John Quincy and Charles. The novel deliberately combines the two trips to simplify the timeline.

The 1775 Dysentery Deaths Occur in the Wrong Order

The novel has Patty Copeland die before Abigail’s mother during the 1775 dysentery epidemic. Historically, Abigail’s mother died shortly before Patty. This is a minor chronological change rather than a true plot hole, apparently made to shape the sequence of Abigail’s losses.

Parson Smith Lives Longer Than He Did Historically

Parson William Smith’s death is shifted later even though he actually died in September 1783. The novel postpones his death and the reading of his will, including Phoebe’s opportunity to claim her freedom, to fit the book’s narrative structure.

John and Abigail Confront Charles’s Downfall Together

The novel places John’s discovery of Charles Adams’s severe alcoholism and his renunciation of his son in Philadelphia in December 1799, with Abigail present. Historically, John learned the extent of Charles’s problems while traveling separately in New York and communicated his decision to Abigail by letter. The relocation allows the novel to dramatize their reaction together.

Louisa Smith Is Missing From Abigail’s Household

Abigail promises to care for the children of her troubled brother William, yet Louisa Smith never appears. Historically, Louisa became an important member of Abigail’s household, remained closely connected to the Adams family, and received the largest bequest in Abigail’s will. Her absence is a deliberate simplification of the novel’s already large cast rather than an unexplained plot hole.

Abigail’s Search for Charles Is Dramatized

When eleven-year-old Charles disappears during his voyage home from Europe, Abigail personally travels to the Boston docks and questions sailors until she discovers that he was left behind in Spain. Historically, Abigail did not conduct this investigation herself; the information was brought to her by a rider sent by her uncle. The novel turns a passive historical event into a more active role for Abigail.

Mr. Abdee Survives Years Longer Than He Did Historically

The novel keeps Phoebe’s husband, Mr. Abdee, alive into the 1800s. Historically, he died before 1798 and Phoebe subsequently remarried. This appears to be a deliberate simplification that avoids introducing another husband and additional secondary characters late in the story.

Q : How does Abigail’s famous “Remember the Ladies” letter change the way you see her marriage to John? Does his joking response suggest that he respects her ideas but cannot imagine putting them into practice, or does it reveal a deeper limit to their partnership?
A : John clearly values Abigail as an intellectual partner, but his reaction shows that there are boundaries to that equality. He treats her demand for women’s legal rights as playful “saucy” banter rather than a serious political proposal. Abigail’s willingness to challenge him is still significant, though: she takes the same arguments the colonists are making against British tyranny and applies them to women who have little legal power of their own. Their exchange shows a marriage that is unusually intellectually equal in private while still shaped by the assumptions of its time.
Q : Abigail gradually becomes a capable businesswoman while John is away, earning and investing her own “pin money.” How do you think having financial independence changes Abigail’s understanding of what women are capable of—and why is her 1814 will such an important final statement?
A : Abigail’s financial success gives her practical proof that women can manage money, property, and business decisions just as effectively as men. She does not simply argue for greater independence; she lives it. Her will becomes especially meaningful because she deliberately directs the wealth she accumulated toward women, including female relatives and widows. It allows her to create, within her own family, some of the economic independence that the law generally denied married women.
Q : John and Abigail sacrifice years of family life for the revolutionary cause and public service. How much responsibility, if any, do you think they bear for Charles’s troubled adulthood and early death?
A : Charles ultimately makes his own choices, so it would be difficult to place all the responsibility on his parents. At the same time, the novel makes it hard to ignore what the Adams children sacrifice for their parents’ public lives. Charles experiences separation, instability, and long periods without his father during important developmental years. John tends to interpret Charles’s failures as failures of character, while Abigail seems more aware that their family paid an emotional price for John’s political career.
Q : Abigail and Thomas Jefferson go from genuine friendship to bitter political estrangement. What do you think their relationship says about whether close friendships can survive major political disagreements?
A : Their friendship suggests that political disagreement becomes especially destructive when it begins to feel like personal betrayal. Abigail can tolerate differences of opinion, but Jefferson’s political actions and his association with attacks on John make those differences personal. Their correspondence after Polly’s death briefly creates an opportunity for reconciliation because Abigail’s affection for Jefferson’s daughter transcends politics. Instead, old grievances quickly return, showing how difficult it can be to restore trust once political conflict has become intertwined with personal hurt.
Q : How does Abigail’s relationship with Phoebe influence the way she thinks about slavery? What contradictions does the novel expose between the Revolution’s language of liberty and the continued existence of slavery?
A : Phoebe makes slavery personal for Abigail rather than abstract. Abigail grows up knowing and loving an enslaved woman, and she challenges her own father about the contradiction between his religious beliefs and his ownership of another person. The larger contradiction becomes even more striking when the country’s leaders speak of natural rights while slavery continues. The novel particularly contrasts Abigail’s opposition to slavery with slaveholding Founders such as Jefferson, highlighting how selectively revolutionary ideals of liberty could be applied.
Q : Nabby endures an agonizing mastectomy with extraordinary composure. What does that scene reveal about Nabby’s character, and do you think the novel presents her stoicism entirely as a strength?
A : Nabby’s composure demonstrates enormous courage, but it can also be read as the culmination of a lifetime spent quietly enduring suffering. She has already faced romantic disappointment, financial problems, the loss of a child, and other hardships without publicly collapsing. Her silence during the operation is heroic, but it also raises an interesting question about how much women were expected to endure without complaint. Abigail sees tremendous strength in her daughter, even as the scene exposes the terrible cost of that strength.
Q : Abigail supports the Alien and Sedition Acts because she believes the country faces a genuine threat. How does this episode complicate her image as a woman who argues so strongly for liberty and individual rights?
A : It reveals one of the novel’s most interesting contradictions in Abigail. She passionately argues for rights when she believes people are being unfairly denied them, yet fear of French interference and attacks on John leads her to accept restrictions on political expression. From her perspective, the measures protect a fragile young country during a dangerous period; critics see them as an abuse of government power. The episode shows how easily principles about liberty can become complicated when people believe security is at stake. Pasted text
Q : Abigail and Mercy Otis Warren begin as close friends and intellectual companions but eventually become bitterly estranged. Why do you think Mercy’s criticism of John feels like such a personal betrayal to Abigail?
A : Abigail does not see Mercy merely as another political writer; she sees her as someone who knows the Adams family personally and understands what John sacrificed. That makes Mercy’s portrayal of John as having monarchical tendencies feel like a betrayal from inside their circle rather than ordinary political criticism. Their conflict also shows how deeply political identity has become intertwined with friendship, reputation, and family loyalty. Two women who once supported one another intellectually end up divided by the same factional politics consuming the men around them.
Q : The title A Founding Mother deliberately challenges the familiar idea of America’s “Founding Fathers.” After following Abigail’s life, what kinds of contributions does the novel suggest have traditionally been left out of the story of the nation’s founding?
A : The novel broadens the idea of what “founding” a country actually requires. Abigail does not vote in Congress, command an army, or sign a founding document, but she manages farms, finances, children, shortages, illness, and family crises while John serves the country. She also acts as his political sounding board and intellectual partner. The title suggests that the Revolution depended not only on the men whose names entered textbooks, but also on the largely invisible domestic, economic, and emotional labor that made their public service possible.
Q : At the beginning of the novel, Abigail looks at everything she has lost and wonders, “Was it all for naught?” By the end, she reaches a very different conclusion. What changes her perspective, and did you find that resolution convincing?
A : Abigail’s question comes from a moment when the personal cost of history seems overwhelming: she has buried children, endured decades of separation, and now watches Washington burn. By 1817, however, she can see beyond those individual losses to what survived. John Quincy’s return as Secretary of State becomes tangible evidence that the family’s commitment to public service continues into another generation. Her conclusion that none of it was “for naught” does not erase her losses; it gives them a larger meaning that allows her to make peace with them.
Q : John Quincy is raised from childhood with the expectation that he will accomplish something important. Do you think John and Abigail give their son extraordinary opportunities, place an unfair burden on him, or both?
A : Probably both. John Quincy receives experiences and an education almost unimaginable for most children, including traveling through Europe and serving as a teenage secretary in Saint Petersburg. But those opportunities come with an enormous expectation that he devote himself to public service and uphold the Adams family legacy. His later career suggests that his parents successfully prepared him for public life, yet the financial and marital strains he experiences also show that fulfilling those expectations comes at a considerable personal cost.
5 / 5 Stars · Linda’s Rating

This was absolutely fantastic. A Founding Mother is easily one of the best historical fiction books I’ve read.

I’ll admit that I don’t know nearly as much about American history as I probably should, so I was a little worried that all the politics and Revolutionary War history would lose me. It didn’t. Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie make the history incredibly accessible while keeping Abigail Adams—and her marriage, children, friendships, losses, and ambitions—at the center of the story.

And WOW, did this book make me grateful for modern medicine.

Childbirth. Smallpox inoculation. Dysentery. Cancer. And especially that mastectomy! Reading about a mastectomy performed without anesthesia is one of those things that makes you want to put the book down for a minute and appreciate every medical advancement made in the last 250 years. 😂

But what I loved most was Abigail herself. The book doesn’t turn her into some flawless historical heroine. She can be stubborn, judgmental, reckless, and difficult, but she’s also incredibly intelligent, resilient, politically engaged, and financially savvy. I had no idea how much she managed on her own while John was away—or how independently she built wealth through trading and investments.

Her relationship with John was another highlight for me. Their years-long separations, their letters, their arguments, and the enormous sacrifices they both made give the book so much emotional weight. And then there are the children. Susanna. The stillbirth. Charles. Nabby. 😭 This family goes through SO MUCH.

I also loved that the authors don’t stop with the Revolution. We follow Abigail through John’s diplomatic years in Europe, the vice presidency, his presidency, the political battles with Jefferson and Hamilton, their retirement at Peacefield, and the devastating losses that follow. It really feels like you’ve lived an entire lifetime with her.

And the ending! Abigail presenting John with her will after quietly accumulating her own fortune and wanting that money to go to the women in her life was such a satisfying culmination of everything the novel had been saying about her independence and the limitations placed on women.

This is a long book, and some of the presidential politics get a little dense, but I honestly didn’t care. I was completely invested.

I finished it feeling grateful for modern medicine, grateful for women’s rights, and VERY grateful that I was born in the 1980s instead of the 1700s. 😂

Absolutely loved it. 5 stars.

5 out of 5 stars -- Behind one founding father stood a woman building a legacy of her own.

Screen Adaptation

As of October 2026, no film or television adaptation of A Founding Mother: A Novel of Abigail Adams has been announced.

The book was published by William Morrow on May 5, 2026, and was selected as Reese’s Book Club’s July 2026 pick.

Abigail Adams has, of course, been portrayed on screen before. Most notably, Laura Linney played Abigail opposite Paul Giamatti’s John Adams in HBO’s 2008 miniseries John Adams. Authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie have said that the existing miniseries initially made them hesitant to tackle Abigail’s story. They ultimately felt that much of Abigail’s life while John was away—including the years in which she managed the family, farm, finances, and wartime hardships largely on her own—had not been explored in depth on screen.

For now, A Founding Mother remains unadapted, with no announced screen project based specifically on the novel.

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