Soldiers were going to and from the camps around Boston; people were leaving Boston, often without being able to take much with them; and all of them needed a place to stay the night or get a meal while they were traveling. John and Abigail Adams’ house was along the road in nearby Braintree, Massachusetts, and many people — total strangers — stopped there for a few minutes, or hours, or days. John was in Philadelphia as a member of the Continental Congress; Abigail was managing the household and taking care of her young children, but still she willingly did what she could for the people who came to her door. Their house was a “Scene of confusion”, she wrote:
Soldiers comeing in for lodging, for Breakfast, for Supper, for Drink &c. &c. Sometimes refugees from Boston tierd and fatigued, seek an assilum for a Day or Night, a week—you can hardly imagine how we live.
“Yet to the Houseless child of want
our doors are open still.
And tho our portions are but scant
We give them with good will.”
Abigail Adams certainly was not the only one who helped out the soldiers and refugees who needed it. Many people gave a meal, a drink of water, a place to spend the night, and so on. It pays to remember that women played just as important a role in the Revolution as men did, and that soldiers were not the only heroes.
Notes
The word “assilum” was a misspelling of “asylum”, meaning a place to stay.
The verse that Abigail Adams quoted in her letter was adapted from The Hermit, a poem by Oliver Goldsmith, in which a hermit invites a traveler to stay the night with him:
Here to the houseless child of want
My door is open still;
And though my portion is but scant,
I give it with good will.
Source
“Abigail Adams to John Adams, 24 May 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed April 11, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-01-02-0136. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 1, December 1761 – May 1776, ed. Lyman H. Butterfield. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 204–206.]
You can view images of the actual letter on the Massachusetts Historical Society website.