Old Chamber of the House Speaker by David Barton

The sofa was then taken up and borne out of the Hall into the Rotunda, where it was set down, and the members of both Houses, and strangers, who were fast crowding around, were with some difficulty repressed, and an open space cleared in its immediate vicinity; but a medical gentleman, a member of the House, (who was prompt, active, and self-possessed throughout the whole painful scene,) advised that he be removed to the door of the Rotunda opening on the east portico, where a fresh wind was blowing. This was done; but the air being chilly after being taken to the Speaker’s room, Mr. Adams sank into a state of apparent insensibility, gradually growing weaker and weaker, till on Wednesday evening, February 23, at a quarter past 7 o’clock, he expired without a struggle. and loaded with vapor, the sofa was, at the suggestion of Mr. Winthrop, once more taken up and removed to the Speaker’s apartment, the doors of which were forthwith closed to all but professional gentlemen and particular friends. While lying in this apartment, Mr. Adams partially recovered the use of his speech, and observed in faltering accents, “This is the end of earth;” but quickly added, “I am composed.” . . .

“This is the end of earth. I am composed.” These were the last words of John Quincy Adams, and they were uttered in a room adjoining the Old House Chamber, a room now called the Lindy Boggs Reading Room. At the time that Mr. Adams was carried there, however, that room was the chamber of Speaker of the House Robert Winthrop. It was in the Speaker’s chamber that Adams died; that room still contains the actual couch on which he died as well as a bust of him on the wall, recording what occurred in that room.

 

---