Abigail Adams Smith

Adams was born in Braintree, Massachusetts on July 14, 1765. She was the earliest born of any confirmed biological child to the President of the United States, and the first to be a part of the First Family in life. At the age of 18, she met and fell in love with Royall Tyler, who addressed her as "Amelia", a name she used with suitors. Her father thought she was too young to be courted, but he eventually accepted it. At one point the two were even engaged to be married. But John Adams, then the U.S. minister to the Kingdom of Great Britain, eagerly called for his wife and daughter to join him in London. For a time, Adams maintained a long-distance relationship with Tyler, but eventually broke off the engagement, leaving Tyler depressed. Adams's observations of European life and customs, and of many of the distinguished statesmen of the day, were later published. Their courtship was thought to be too short by Adams's parents, and historians have not considered it to be a good marriage. While Colonel Smith was kind to his family, he never settled, continually seeking a better lot in life. He spent more money than he earned and lost everything to real estate speculation in the early 1800s. This left them on a small farm along the Chenango River in central New York. Their children were: == Diagnosis of breast cancer ==

In 1810, Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her mother, husband, and daughter Caroline were also on hand to assist. The surgery The exact details of the surgery are not known but it was described as a typical 19th-century operation. The instruments used during the surgery consisted of a large fork with a pair of six-inch prongs sharpened to a needle point, a wooden-handled razor, a small oven filled with heated coals, and a thick iron spatula. Before the surgery began Dr. Warren strapped Smith into a chair to restrain her, and then began to remove the clothing to expose the area on which he would operate. Once the diseased breast was exposed, other physicians held her left arm back so that Warren would have better access to the diseased tissue. He began the surgery by thrusting the large fork into her breast and lifting it from the chest wall. He then sliced at the base of the breast until it was completely severed from her chest. After removing the breast, he saw that the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes under Smith's arms, and he worked to remove those tumors as well. To stop Smith's bleeding, Warren applied the heated spatula to cauterize the open cuts, and then sutured the wounds. The surgery took around 25 minutes, and dressing the wounds took more than an hour. Warren and his assistants later expressed astonishment that Smith endured the pain of the surgery and cauterization without crying out, despite the gruesomeness of the operation, which was so horrifying it caused her mother, husband, and daughter to turn away. == Death ==

In 1812, Smith finally started to feel well and returned to the family farm in New York. She was buried at Hancock Cemetery in Quincy. == Depictions in popular culture ==

Smith's death is a poignant part of the 2008 John Adams miniseries, in which she is played by Sarah Polley; Smith as a young girl was played by Madeline Taylor in the first three episodes of the same series. The series took artistic license by shifting Smith's cancer diagnosis to 1803, and changing many other aspects of her life. == Family tree ==