Long before air conditioning, we’ve been complaining about sultriest of days.

By now, summer has lost some of its charm. The gardens are tired. The grass is tired. We are tired. The novelty of long, warm evenings has given way to humidity, mosquitoes, and the unmistakable sense that autumn cannot arrive soon enough. If that sounds like a modern complaint, take heart. We are in very good historical company.

More than two centuries ago, John Adams was having much the same reaction. Writing to Abigail from Philadelphia on August 15, 1777, Adams had apparently reached the limits of his endurance.

“The Weather continues, as hot as ever,” he complained. “Upon my Word I don’t know how to sustain it.”

Adams attempted to cope by drinking water mixed with vinegar, which he pronounced “a great Refreshment.” But what really lifted his spirits was the sight of gathering clouds and the sound of approaching thunder. After days of oppressive heat, the possibility of a storm produced such happiness that Adams told Abigail she could have “no adequate Idea of the Joy” it brought him. Two days later, rain finally arrived, bringing cooler temperatures and, as Adams put it, restoring everyone “to some Comfort.” The heat had been more than inconvenient. Adams reported that a number of people in Philadelphia had died from it.

George Washington was equally attentive to summer weather. Washington kept detailed weather observations throughout much of his life, and August repeatedly earned some variation of the same verdict.

“Exceeding hot and Sultry,” he recorded on August 10, 1769.

A year later, another August evening was “Very Hot & even Sultry.” And on August 23, 1786, at Mount Vernon, Washington recorded a temperature of 86 degrees at midday and 84 degrees at night. His assessment? “Quite calm and exceedingly Sultry.” Washington's use of the word “exceedingly” seems remarkably restrained.

The next generation didn’t fare much better. John Quincy Adams spent years in Washington as diplomat, secretary of state, senator, representative, and president. He knew the capital well—and he knew its summers. In August 1820, while serving as secretary of state, Adams wrote that he and others in Washington were “suffering” from “the great heat of the Season.” Two years later, writing to his wife Louisa, he admitted that he had “suffer[ed] much for some time from excessive heat.” His solution was considerably more appealing than his father's vinegar water. He went swimming.

Adams regularly bathed in the Potomac, and during that hot summer of 1822 he told Louisa that bathing in the river had been “very refreshing and useful” for both himself and their son George. One can only imagine what today's Secret Service would make of a future president wandering down to the Potomac for a morning swim.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, escaping Washington altogether had become an attractive summer strategy—at least for those who could afford to leave. In 1860, a newspaper correspondent described summertime Washington as practically deserted once Congress had adjourned. Politicians had gone home. Lobbyists had disappeared. Fashionable society had scattered to cooler destinations. What remained was a capital marked by hot sunshine, dust, and the unfortunate souls who had no choice but to endure it. 

Perhaps that is what I enjoy most about encountering weather in old letters and diaries. It shrinks the distance between us and people who otherwise seem impossibly remote.  

History may change. But people?  Not so much.

So if August finds you lingering a little longer in the shade, watching hopefully for afternoon thunderstorms, complaining about the humidity, or wondering just how many days remain until the first cool morning of autumn, remember:

George Washington thought it was sultry.

John Adams could hardly sustain it.

Quincy Adams jumped in a river.

Welcome to August.  

How do you cool off in the hot summer months?