I always knew John Quincy Adams was one of the cool presidents. How could you not be if your Dad was a founding father and the sixth president. Apparently his journal entries are all under 140 characters in length.. making him one of the very first Tweeters.

Today, the Massachusetts Historical Society began to post these journal entries to John's own Twitter feed.

JQA's first post finds him on his way to Russia:

"8/5/1809: Saturday. Diary Vol. 3. begins: Sailed in Ship Horace, Benjamin Beckford, from Charlestown to St. Petersburg."

The key to good tweets? Details people! No one cares if you went to the store, but we might care if you bought purple potatoes and a square watermelon. Now that'd be a Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet Tweeeeeeeeeet! 

Granted Adams wasn't the only 19th century dude to write this way. When my parents re-did the bathroom in their ancient Maine home, they found a handful of journals hidden in the walls. The books were preserved with a gold dust and are still very legible. This Mainer, also wrote in short snippets, usually about the weather and his health.

So I guess Twitter didn't revolutionize the way we communicate quite as much as we thought. But why write a page on your day when you fit the important stuff in 140 characters?