ABIGAIL ADAMS .

Inheriting New England's strongest traditions, Abigail Smith was born on November 11, 1744 at Weymouth, Massachusetts. On her mother's side she was descended from the Quincys, a family of great prestige in the colony.

Like other women of the time, Abigail lacked formal education, but curiosity spurred her keen intelligence, and she read avidly the books at hand. Reading created a bond between her and the young John Adams and they were married in 1764. It was a marriage of the mind and of the heart, enduring for more than half a century.

In ten years she bore three sons and two daughters. Abigail looked after family and home when John went traveling to serve the country they loved. Her letters - pungent, witty, and vivid, spelled just as she spoke - detail her life in times of revolution. They tell the story of a woman who struggled with wartime shortages and inflation, ran the farm with a minimum of help and taught four children when formal education was interrupted. They tell of her loneliness without her "dearest Friend."

In 1784, she joined him at his diplomatic post in Paris. After 1785, she filled the role of wife of the first United States minister to Great Britain. They returned to Massachusetts in 1788, to the handsome home they had just acquired at Braintree, later called Quincy.

As wife of the first vice president, Abigail became a good friend to Martha Washington and a valued help in official entertaining, drawing on her experience of courts and society abroad. After 1791, however, poor health forced her to spend as much time as possible in Quincy. Illness found her resolute. She once declared, she would "not forget the blessings which sweeten life."

When John Adams was elected President, she continued a formal pattern of entertaining--even in the primitive conditions she found at the new capital in November 1800. The city was wilderness, the President's House far from complete, but for her three months in Washington she duly held official dinners and receptions.

The Adamses retired to Quincy in 1801, and for 17 Years enjoyed the companionship that public life had long denied them. Abigail Adams died in 1818, and is buried beside her husband in United First Parish Church. She leaves her country a most remarkable record as patriot and first lady, wife of one president and mother of another.

Martha 'Patsy'Jefferson Randolph

MARTHA JEFFERSON .

At age 22, Martha Wayles Skelton was already a widow, an heiress, and a mother whose firstborn son would die in early childhood. Family tradition says she was accomplished, beautiful and wooed by many. When Thomas Jefferson came courting, perhaps a love of music cemented the romance. Jefferson played the violin, and he ordered his new bride a "forte-piano" for the home he was building at Monticello.

Martha was born on October 31, 1748. She married Jefferson at her childhood home near Williamsburg, Virginia, on New Year's Day, 1772. Reaching Monticello in a snowstorm after dark, the couple toasted their new house with a leftover bottle of wine and "song and merriment and laughter." That night, on their own mountaintop, the love of Martha and Thomas Jefferson seemed strong enough to endure any adversity.

The birth of their daughter Martha in September increased their happiness. In ten years the family gained five more children. Only two lived to grow up: Martha, called Patsy, and Mary, called Maria or Polly.

The strain of frequent pregnancies weakened Martha so gravely that Thomas curtailed his political activities to stay near her. He refused an appointment as a commissioner to France. Just after New Year's Day, 1781, a British invasion forced Martha to flee the capital in Richmond with an infant girl - who died in April. In June the family barely escaped an enemy raid on Monticello. She bore another daughter the following May, and never regained strength. Jefferson wrote on May 20 that her condition was dangerous. After months of tending her devotedly, he noted in his account book for September 6, 1782 "My dear wife died this day at 11-45 A.M."

For three weeks he shut himself in his room, pacing back and forth until exhausted. Slowly that first anguish spent itself. In November he agreed to serve as commissioner to France, eventually taking "Patsy" with him in 1784 and sending for "Polly" later.

When Jefferson became president in 1801, he had been a widower for 19 years. He had become as capable of handling social affairs as political matters. Occasionally he called on Dolley Madison for assistance. His daughter Patsy served as the lady of the President's House in the winter of 1802-1803. She was there again in 1805-1806, and gave birth to a son named for James Madison, the first child born in the White House. It was Patsy Randolph with her family who shared Jefferson's retirement at Monticello until he died there in 1826.

DOLLEY MADISON .

For half a century she was the most important woman in the social circles of America. To this day she remains one of the best known and best loved ladies of the White House.

She always called herself Dolley, and by that name her birth was recorded on May 20, 1768 by the Society of Friends, in Guilford County, North Carolina. In 1783 her father took the family to Philadelphia, city of the Quakers.

Dolley married John Todd, Jr., a lawyer, in 1790. Three years later he died in a yellow-fever epidemic, leaving her with a small son. By this time Philadelphia had become the capital city. The young widow attracted distinguished attention. Dolley reported to her best friend that "the great little Madison has asked.... to see me this evening."

Although James Madison was 17 years her senior, and Episcopalian, they were married in September 1794. The marriage, though childless, was notably happy. Madison was even patient with Dolley's son, Payne, who mishandled his own affairs - and, eventually, mismanaged their estate.

Discarding the somber Quaker dress after her second marriage, Dolley chose the finest of fashions. A chronicler wrote: "She looked a Queen.... It would be absolutely impossible for any one to behave with more perfect propriety than she did."

Dolley made her home the center of society. She assisted at the White House when the President Jefferson asked her help in receiving ladies, and presided at the first inaugural ball in Washington when James Madison became chief executive in 1809. Although Dolley's social graces made her famous, her husband prized her political acumen. Her gracious tact smoothed many a quarrel.

During the War of 1812, Dolley was forced to flee from the White House by the British army. Her quick thinking saved a portrait of George Washington from being destroyed by fire. Upon returning to the capital, she found the Executive Mansion in ruins. Undaunted by temporary quarters, she entertained as skillfully as ever.

The Madisons lived in pleasant retirement at their plantation Montpelier in Virginia until he died in 1836. She returned to the capital in the autumn of 1837, and friends found tactful ways to supplement her diminished income. She remained in Washington until her death in 1849, honored and loved by all. The delightful personality of this unusual woman is a cherished part of her country's history.