“Mr. Adams was always the first man in the House, and the last man out of it; and, as I usually detained myself an hour or more after adjournment, in writing up my notes, I often came in contact with him.  He was pleased to call at my desk very often, before he went home, and indulge in some incidental, unimportant conversation.  On the day referred to, just as the sun was setting, and was throwing his last rays through the murky hall, I looked up, and saw Mr. Adams approaching.  He had almost reached my desk, and had uplifted his hand in friendly salutation, when he pitched headlong, some six or eight feet, and struck his head against the sharp corner of an iron rail that defended one of the entrance aisles leading to the circle within the bar, inflicting a heavy contusion on his forehead, and rendering him insensible.  I instantly leaped from my seat, took the prostrate sufferer in my arms, and found that he was in a state of utter stupor and insensibility.  Looking around for aid, I had the good fortune to find that Col.  James Munroe, of the New York delegation, had just returned to his desk to procure a paper he had forgotten, when, giving the alarm, he flew to the rescue, manifesting the deepest solicitude for the welfare of the venerable statesman.  Follansbee, the doorkeeper, with two or more of his pages, came in next; and after we had applied a plentiful supply of cold water to the sufferer, he returned to consciousness, and requested that he might be taken to his residence.  In less than five minutes, Mr. Moses H. Grinnell, Mr. George H. Profit, Mr. Ogden Hoffman, and Col.  Christopher Williams, of Tennessee, were called in, a carriage was procured, and Mr. Adams was being conveyed to his residence in President Square, when, it being ascertained that his shoulder was dislocated, the carriage was stopped at the door of the private hotel of Col.  Munroe, in Pennsylvania Avenue, between Eleventh and Twelfth streets; the suffering, but not complaining statesman, was taken out, and surgical aid instantly put in requisition.  Doctor Sewall was sent for; when it was ascertained that the left shoulder-joint was out of the socket; and, though Mr. Adams must have suffered intensely, he complained not—­did not utter a groan or a murmur.

“More than an hour elapsed before the dislocated limb could be adjusted; and to effect which, his arm endured, in a concentrated and continued wrench or pull, many minutes at a time, the united strength of Messrs. Grinnell, Munroe, Profit, and Hoffman.  Still Mr. Adams uttered not a murmur, though the great drops of sweat that rolled down his furrowed cheeks, or stood upon his brow, told but too well the physical agony he endured.  As soon as his arm was adjusted, he insisted on being carried home, and his wishes were complied with.

“The next morning I was at the capitol at a very early hour, attending to some writing.  I thought of, and lamented the accident that had befallen Mr. Adams, and had already commenced writing an account of it to a correspondent.  At that instant I withdrew my eyes from the paper on which I was writing, and saw Mr. Adams standing a foot or two from me, carefully examining the carpeting.  ‘Sir,’ said he, ’I am looking for that place in the matting that last night tripped me.  If it be not fastened down, it may kill some one.’  And then he continued his search for the trick-string matting.”