Note 13 — LETTER XXIII. HENRY FLOYD-JONES, ESQ., FORT NECK.
Reading edition
The intelligence of the death of this gentleman has reached America, while this book is printing. John Loudon McAdam was a native of Scotland, of the proscribed family of McGregor. He was in the line of descent to a small estate called Waterhead; but being cut off from his natural claims, by the act of attainder, he came early to America, as the adopted son and successor of an uncle, who had married and established himself in New York. Here he received his education, and continued seventeen years, or down to the period of the peace of 1783. Returning to Great Britain, he established himself at Bristol, near which town he commenced his experiments in roads, more as an amateur, than with any serious views of devoting himself to the occupation. Meeting with unlooked for success, he gradually extended his operations, until he finally transformed most of the highways of the island, into the best of the known world. For the last five-and-twenty years, his whole time, and all his studies were directed to this one end.
Mr. McAdam was twice offered knighthood, and once a baronetcy; distinctions that he declined. His second son, however, has recently received the former honour, and is the present Sir James McAdam. As this gentleman is much employed about London, he is usually mistaken for the father.
Mr. McAdam was twice married. His first wife was a daughter of William Nicoll, proprietor of the great manor of Islip, Suffolk county, Long Island, the collateral representative of Col. Nicoll, who took the colony from the Dutch, in 1663, and its first English governor; his second wife was the eldest daughter of John Peter De Lancey, of Mamaroneck, West Chester, New York.
Mr. McAdam was a man of a singularly calm and contemplative mind, mingled with an unusual degree of practical energy and skill. Quiet, modest, intelligent, and upright, few men were more esteemed in private life; and while few men have conferred more actual benefit on Great Britain, scarcely any man has been less rewarded. Conscientious and proud, he was superior to accepting favours that were beneath his claims, or to soliciting those which were his due.