Abigail Adams, First Lady of Faith and Courage

The Bible tells the story of Lydia, the first European convert to Christianity (Acts 16). A wealthy businesswoman who sold luxury purple cloth, she confessed her faith in Jesus Christ and was baptized by Paul. The Gospel planted in Europe moved the Chain of Christianity^® westward.Conversion to Christ elevated women from paganism to their true role, which found its full flowering in the United States of America.

Christianity Liberates Women

Abigail Smith Adams impressed that elevation of womanhood upon the young Republic. Born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, to The Reverend William and Elizabeth Smith, she was raised in a home where her mother taught her to love God and to serve others. She received lessons grounded in principles from her grandmother and a thorough study of the Scriptures under the direction of her Father. His rich New England sermons sank into her heart and formed the ingredients and character of her life.

In 1764, she married John Adams, a young lawyer from Braintree. During their two-year courtship, they were often apart, relying on letters to communicate. They would endure long periods of separation during the war and afterward, when they again relied on letter writing to stay in touch. As a result, Abigail produced a unique record through letter writing and is considered one of the finest correspondents of the Revolutionary period.

American Christian Womanhood

Abigail’s letters reveal the American spirit of the time: strong intelligence, deep faith, courage, and her lifelong power as her husband’s intellectual and spiritual companion. She followed political events while managing the family farm when John was away, lived in isolation due to the war, and suffered the effects of the severe depreciation of the currency. Through it all, she remained a woman of courage, tenderness, patriotism, and devotion to the Christian principles on which liberty depended.

She was the wife of the second president of the United States and the mother who shaped the character and thinking of her son, John Quincy Adams, the sixth president.

Charles Francis Adams wrote of his mother:

“In the midst of public or private troubles, the buoyant spirit of Mrs. Adams never forsook her. ‘I am a mortal enemy,’ she wrote to her husband, ‘to anything but a cheerful countenance and a merry heart, which Solomon tells us, does good like a medicine.’ This spirit contributed greatly to lift up his heart when surrounded by difficulties and danger.”

Learn more about Abigail Adams by reading Abigail Adams, First Lady of Faith and Courage, by Evelyn Witter. You can order it here.

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