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John Quincy Adams, who was president from 1825 until 1829, was well into his post presidential life when he visited Marietta in 1843. He is one of only a handful of presidents to visit Marietta.
It became known in the summer of 1843 that Adams would be in Cincinnati later that year to lay a cornerstone for an observatory being built. An invitation was extended to him to stop in Marietta on his way back. He agreed to stop if, according to the History of Washington County, published in 1881, "if he should have no duties to perform which would conflict with him doing so." In other words, he would stop in Marietta unless something more important came up.
In 1843 riverboats had few ways to communicate with towns as they traveled up and down the river. It was understood though that he would be in Marietta sometime after his appearance in Cincinnati on Nov. 10. The town would be notified in some unmistakable manner. At 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 15, the town got the signal in the form of a cannon boom from the steamer Ben Franklin.
Two crowds began to form to see the former president. The first group was at the steamboat landing, aka, the levee. The second crowd was at the First Congregational Church. The church was an earlier wood version of the church that exists today. The original church was destroyed by fire in 1905.
Adams rode to the church in the carriage of Nahum Ward. At the church he spoke for 30 minutes about the New England men that had established Marietta more than 50 years before. He spoke of Rufus Putnam who he had known and of the others who had traveled overland and by boat in 1788 to establish the city. An account of his talk indicated that he spoke with incredible accuracy of many of the families that had arrived in Marietta first to an audience that contained many of the offspring of those who had established Marietta. This included William Rufus Putnam and William Putnam, son and grandson of Rufus Putnam. Members of the Tupper, Cutler, Barker and Dana families, all descendants of settlers, were also there to hear and meet the former president.
After the speech, he got back in the carriage for a tour of Marietta's earthworks. He visited the mound in the cemetery first and then the raised platforms on Fifth and Fourth streets before finishing his tour at Sacra Via.
Before nightfall, which given the time of year would have been at around 6:15 p.m., he was back on his boat and heading toward Pittsburgh. Taking the trip with him were Judge Ephraim Cutler and Judge Joseph Barker Jr., as well as Caleb Emerson. The men, it was reported, talked through the night as the craft headed upriver.
"Old age will love to speak of it, and the family circle will report the story of his visit with feelings of gratitude and pleasure one to the other, and those now in the happy days of innocent childhood will tell to another generation that had seen and shaken hands with the great defender of the rights of man," The Marietta Intelligencer editorialized in the next edition.
Other presidents would follow, but they, however, were trying to get elected, or reelected, and they frequently spoke about themselves and what they had or hoped to accomplish. Adams' visit was one of the few where the focus was instead on those being spoken to. Presidents' Day, a holiday to celebrate all presidents, is Monday.