Dolly
Madison
Dolly Payne Madison was born in Guilford County, North
Carolina on May 20, 1768.
Dolly was born the first girl in a family of
several children to Quaker parents,
John Payne and Mary Coles. She spent
her childhood in Scotchtown, Virginia.
"The Paynes were well connected and
sufficiently prosperous, small planters
in Hanover County."1 The Quaker house
forbade festivity, shunned amusement
and frowned upon the world's vanities.
After a preliminary visit to
Philadelphia, John Payne returned to Hanover
County to dispose of his property
and free his slaves and in July 1783 he
settled with his family in the pleasant
city of Philadelphia. In Philadelphia
Dolly brought loveliness and charm to the
Quaker Evening Meetings. In her
mind, however, there were other things in
Philadelphia more engrossing
than the routine of meetings. Under her Quaker gown
Dolly's heart
yearned, frankly and without any shame, for these things. Yet,
when her
family told her to marry John Todd, she stood up dutifully at first
and
second meeting and proclaimed her willingness to do so. His father was
an
eminent Quaker schoolteacher; John was a prominent young lawyer,
twenty-seven
years old. She did not contend against John Todd. "Dolly had the
ability to
accept whatever fate might have to offer and make the very best of
it."2
They were married on January 7, 1790, at the Friends' Meeting House
on Pine
Street. In the summer of 1793 there came the yellow plague. Dolly
was struggling
with her children along the crowded road to Gray's Ferry, one
of the panic
driven throngs escaping from the stricken city. John Todd stayed
behind to give
his able bodied and courageous help, and before the winter was
over Dolly had
lost her husband and her baby. Dolly herself was desperately
ill for she had
caught the fever from John when he came staggering out at
last to Gray's Ferry.
She recovered to find herself a widow at
twenty-five, and executrix of her
husband's will. In the fall Dolly returned
to her mother's house, which was now
a boarding house. At all events, the
Senator from New York, Colonel Aaron Burr,
lodged at the Madison Lodging
House. He told everyone about the pretty widow
Todd. He finally told his
friend Congressman Madison of Virginia. The
Congressman, however,
disliked women after Catherine Floyd had ended their long
engagement. One day
James Madison saw the widow driving by and began pestering
Colonel Burr
for an introduction. In the spring of 1794 Dolly and James were
introduced
for the first time. It was not long before their engagement was
rumored all
over Philadelphia. John Todd had not been dead a year when, on
September
15, 1794, James and Dolly were married at Harewood. Now there was a
new
Philadelphia for Quaker Dolly, the Philadelphia she had always longed
for.
"The town had never been more gay, a continually changing pageant
of
foreign guests and ministers."3 A brilliant scene graced by the presence
of
many of the emigrated nobility of France. In her new role, as Mrs. Madison
of
Montpellier, Dolly plunged into these festivities with all the
stored-up zest of
her restrained girlhood. For three years Dolly brought a
fresh, bright
personality to enliven Lady Washington's somewhat stuffy levees
in the old brick
house on Market Street. Dolly Madison adored the
Washington's. Dolly made
friends in all camps for James Madison, which
probably helped him win
presidency. He did not care for all the routs and
levees so he retired to his
beloved town of Montpellier, to his solitude and
his books. On the morning of
March 4, 1801 the Federalists were defeated,
and Thomas Jefferson was to take
his place as President of the United States.
Soon secretary of state Madison and
his wife were dragged away from
Montpellier again and came to reside in
Washington. "Present me
respectfully to Mrs. Madison," Mr. Jefferson
wrote, "and pray her to keep you
where you are, for her own satisfaction
and for the public good."4 Since Mr.
Jefferson was fond of them both, and
because he was a widower, Mrs. Secretary
of State Madison found herself
presiding at the head of the Executive board.
For eight years, "Queen
Dolly," as they called her, ruled over the social
destinies of the
Executive Mansion in spite of the demands upon her
strength and the humidity of
the malarial marshes, which crippled her with
inflammatory rheumatism from which
she suffered for the rest of her life. In
March, 1809, Mr. Jefferson retired,
smiling to Monticello; Mr. Madison
inevitably became President, and Dolly moved
into that Great House of which
she had already been mistress so long. After
Madison became president
official functions became more elaborate. The inaugural
ceremonies were none
the less brilliant and impressive. The President's House
became known as the
"castle" in the Madison era. "Washington was
coming into its own, blessed
with more attractions than any other place in
America."5 Tuesday, August
23, 1814, Mrs. Secretary of the Navy Jones found
it necessary to write to
Dolly that, "I am packing with the possibility of
having to leave, for the
British are near." There was suppose to be a big
dinner for all the Cabinet
at the Madison's but the British fleet was in the
Chesapeake. British
troops were marching through the woods to Washington and the
Cabinet
officers were with the President at General Winder's camp. The British
kept
right on marching by the Bladensburg road which no one had thought
to
obstruct, and instead of dining at Dolly's, the Cabinet went streaming
across
the country to Bladensburg with the army. On Wednesday, August 24,
there was a
battle. An unfortunate battle in which the base British fired
rockets at the
astonished militia, so that they departed in some confusion to
their homes. At
Washington that afternoon there was tumult and clamor in
the streets. Dolly
scanned the horizon with a spyglass and saw nothing to
encourage her. There was
a dust of departing family coaches. Dolly is best
known for her flight from
Washington in 1814, when the British invaded
the city during the War of 1812.
She saved many state papers and a
portrait of George Washington. At three
o'clock a messenger came galloping up
and told Dolly that she must leave. For
the second time in American history,
the British were coming! At Dolly's
suggestion, "French" John Siousa and
Magrau, the gardener, broke the
frame containing Gilbert Stuart's portrait of
Mr. Washington and gave the
picture to some gentlemen for safe keeping. Dolly
herself passed through the
dining room, crammed some things into her
reticule, and was then driven to
Georgetown in her carriage. The Castle
was abandoned; to be raided, first, by
American stragglers, and then to
be burned by the British who conflagrated it
after marching fifty sailors and
marines silently through the avenue. Mrs. Smith
wrote to Dolly, "How gloomy
is the scene, I do not suppose Government will
ever return to Washington."6
The Castle was conflagrated, only it's
blackened walls remained, and Dolly
established herself in the Tayloe mansion,
the famous brick "Octagon." On
February 4, 1815, there was news in the
streets of victory at New Orleans,
and the name of President-to-be on every
tongue. On February 13, Mr.
Gallatin, Mr. Adams, Mr. Clay, Mr. Bayard, and Mr.
Russell had made a
treaty. The whole town went to Mrs. Madison's; someone was
ringing a dinner
bell. It was a gay winter; the "Peace Winter of
1815." On March, 1817 Mr.
Monroe won Presidency and the play was done for
Dolly. Now there was
noting but Montpellier and the calm monotonous beauty of
the Blue Ridge.
Dolly was now forty-nine. After the Castle and the Octagon,
there was a
quiet, slightly dilapidated, colonnaded mansion against a background
of
unchanging trees. Dolly was to spend the next twenty years, quite
cheerfully
and serenely in her native state. She still received a succession
of visitors.
Then the accumulating years brought separation and sorrow,
Mr. Monroe died in
1831, Dolly's sister, Anna Cutt, in 1832, and at last,
in 1836, Madison himself.
Dolly was very sick afterwards, however, a
visit to the White Sulphur in 1837
did her good. She found something to
occupy her in editing and publishing her
husband's Reports of the
Constitutional Congress. She was sixty-nine now and for
Dolly nothing
remained but the lonely contemplation of fading scenes. Dolly
returned to
Washington in 1837 with her niece. It was a new Washington in many
ways, but
turned to her with respectful attention. Montpellier had to be sold
because
her son, John Payne Todd, who neglected his mother, was in
debt.
Washington, however, never neglected Dolly, and often sent her
baskets of fruit
and provisions. Congress did not forget Dolly either, and
gave her a seat on the
floor of the House during her lifetime. Congress also
paid for Mr. Madison's
Reports. "It was February 7; Dolly was at the
close of her eightieth year,
she was in white satin with the inevitable
turban-and on July 12 she
died."