In contrast to his rather brash co-clerk, William Tudor appears to have been much more law-abiding. The irony, of course, is that John Adams wrote in his diary that he actually did not want to take on Tudor as a clerk, as he had his hands full with one of them! (If John Adams found out we were writing him with three clerks in Stubborn Things, he’d probably throw something at us from the grave.)
However, William appears to have had quite the romantic streak. In real life, he fell deeply in love with a lady called Delia Jarvis, who belonged to one of Boston’s most prominent Loyalist families. Yes, really. William, on the other hand, was staunchly pro-independence.
When war broke out at Lexington and Concord in 1775, William joined the Continental Army. Meanwhile, Delia’s family did not flee Boston during the Siege like most. The Jarvises actually took in British soldiers wounded during the Battle of Bunker Hill, and Delia took it upon herself to care for them.
Throughout this, she was still writing to William, who kept assuring her of his love. William, for his part, decided the Siege wasn’t scary enough to prevent him from seeing his Juliet and swam across the bay to reach Delia’s home on Noddles Island just to visit her. Noddles Island, at the time, was in British hands: enemy territory.
You can read some of their letters to each other here. William fittingly used the name “Crito,” likely a reference to Plato’s Crito, which is considered philosophical work that addresses the virtues of civil obedience versus civil disobedience to law (ironically considering his role in the Revolution, yet not ironically because of his devotion to law as practice, Crito thematically seems to end up supporting obedience to the law; the titular character offers to free an unjustly imprisoned Socrates and is virtuously rejected). Delia used “Felicia,” which means “happiness.”
Still, as a man of the army, William had to depart with George Washington for New York. John Adams, meanwhile, wrote to recommend William as a legal advisor for the Continental Army, a position to which he was appointed.
By 1778, however, William chose Delia first and foremost. He resigned his commission and thus the army and worked instead as a lawyer in Boston. He married Delia, and they raised eight children together. Their daughter, also named Delia, married Charles Stewart, best known as the naval commander of the U.S.S. Constitution during the War of 1812.
Later in life, William Tudor took on a clerk in his own law practice, a clerk named Josiah Quincy III–the son of the man who served as John Adams’ co-counsel during the Boston Massacre trial (during which William was clerking for Adams). Quincy III was only three when his father died, and went on to become mayor of Boston and president of Harvard.
Next week, we’ll recount the love story of Henry Knox and Lucy Flucker; in Stubborn Things, Knox has a distinct role to play.
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