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 and buildings of the city were so overcrowded that few of the members could secure quarters nearer than Georgetown, three miles away through mud and forest. Streets existed for the most part only on paper, and Pennsylvania Avenue, the principal thoroughfare, was really a bog lined with bushes. The only sidewalk, that from the Capitol to the Treasury, being made of stone chippings, so wounded the feet and tempers of pedestrians as to make the mud of the street preferable.

One of the few ladies to follow their husbands into "the wilderness" at this time was Mrs. Adams. To her belongs the distinction of being the first mistress to grace the President's house. The house itself was but partially finished, and, though Congress had appropriated $6000 with which to furnish it, but little of the furniture was in place when she arrived. Mrs. Adams, however, seems to have been of a bright and cheerful disposition, for, in her letters to her daughter, she gives a more lenient account of the inconveniences and a more just view of the possibilities of the city than many of the new residents. During the short remaining period of President Adams's term, Mrs. Adams assisted her husband to