Exhibit presents love letters of Abigail and John Adams (1/2ページ)

There is little doubt that more than 200 years ago, some of the letters of John and Abigail Adams passed through New York's mid-Hudson Valley, most likely on horseback, perhaps in the care of a friend.

Last week, they arrived here again, this time by automobile, in the care of a special courier.

"This one looks important," says Ron Patkus, Vassar College's head of archives and special collections.

Patkus carefully removed a letter from a box.

The date: July 3, 1776.

The author: John Adams, writing from Philadelphia to his wife, Abigail, back home in Massachusetts.

The subject: the vote the previous day by the Continental Congress to declare "indepedency" from England.

"... The day is past," Adams wrote. "The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable ... in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival."

Adams was off by a couple of days (another formal vote was taken July 4 after Congress reviewed and approved the language of the declaration). However, his view of the reverence that would attend the event was prescient, especially given the uncertainty of the times.

History in the making

Indeed, it is clear from that letter, and from hundreds of others, Adams and his wife knew history was being made, and that they were part of it.

Poughkeepsie, N.Y.-area residents and visitors are able to examine a small sampling of these firsthand accounts of the birth of America at an exhibit that opened Monday.

Vassar College in Poughkeepsie is presenting "My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams" at the college library. The nearly monthlong event will mark the first time the letters are on display as a collection outside of their home at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

"This is a very unusual exhibition," says John Mihaly, Vassar's director of regional programs. "This collection has never left Massachusetts. We're thrilled that Vassar is the first place they chose to bring this."

The collection comes at a time when Adams is receiving more attention - and credit - for his role in the founding of the United States.

HBO is airing its seven-part miniseries "John Adams," based on the best-selling and Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by David McCullough.