He moved in on 1st November 1800. Soon after, he wrote a letter to his wife Abigail, a fragment of which became a blessing, engraved on the mantelpiece in the State Dining Room during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It reads as follows:
“I Pray Heaven To Bestow The Best Of Blessings On This House And All that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof.”
