Daguerreotype circa 1850 of John Quincy Adams, artists, Albert S. Southworth, Josiah J. Hawes, and Philip Haas. Metropolitan Museum
Are you expecting a crowd on New Year’s Day? Is your home the epi-center of your family’s festivities on January 1st?
Be happy that the following did not happen to you. It did to John Quincy Adams in 1827.
NEW YEARS DAY–On Monday last, according to established usage on New Years day, the President’s house was open for the reception of visiters, [sic] when, notwithstanding the day was extremely cold, the President received the congratulations of a larger number than it is believed was ever assembled on any similar, or other occasion, in the Executive mansion: all the rooms, including the great eastern room, as well as the great Hall, were crowded to excess, for several hours, although there was a constant change of the company, occasioned by the retiring of some, and the entrance of others. The foreign ministers generally were present, with the members of their respective legations; all the Heads of Departments, the members of both Houses of Congress, the principal and other officers of the government, civil, military, and naval, besides an immense number of strangers, amounting to seven thousand. National Journal.
[from Saturday, January 13, 1827, Portsmouth Journal of Literature and Politics, Portsmouth NH, page 2]
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