Existing comment:
"I Pray Heaven to Bestow
The best of blessings on
This House
And All that shall hereafter Inhabit it.
May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule
under This Roof.
From a letter of
John Adams
November
MDCCC (???)"
In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt directed that the frieze panel on the State Dining Room mantel, blank since it was installed in 1902, be carved with an inscription from President John Adams' letter to his wife Abigail on November 2, 1800. These thoughts of the first White House occupant thus became a visible part of the history of the building.
Casting of inscription on the State Dining Room mantel, plaster, circa 1940, New York, from model... |