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Dolley Payne was born on May 20, 1768, in
the Quaker settlement of New Garden, North
Carolina, British America.
In 1769, the Paynes moved to Virginia and
young Dolley grew up at her parents' plantation
in rural eastern Virginia and became deeply
attached to her mother's family.
Eventually she had three sisters and four
brothers.
In 1783, following the end of the American
Revolutionary War, John Payne emancipated
his slaves, as did numerous slaveholders in
the Upper South.
When Dolley was 15, Payne moved his family
to Philadelphia, Pensylvania, United States
of America where he went into business as
a starch merchant, but the business had failed
by 1791.
This was seen as a "weakness" at his Quaker
meetings, for which he was expelled.
He died in October 1792 and Mary Payne initially
made ends meet by opening a boardinghouse,
but the next year she took her two youngest
children, Mary and John, and moved to western
Virginia to live with her daughter Lucy and
her new husband, George Steptoe Washington,
a nephew of George Washington.
In January 1790, Dolley Payne had married
John Todd, a Quaker lawyer in Philadelphia.
They quickly had two sons, John Payne and
William Temple.
In August 1793, a yellow fever epidemic broke
out in Philadelphia, killing 5,019 people
in four months.
Dolley was hit particularly hard, as her husband,
son William, mother-in-law, and father-in-law
all died.
In addition to her grief, Dolley experienced,
as many women did, the compounding effects
of coverture law to her time of mourning.
While her husband had left her money in his
will, only men could be the executor of that
money and, as such, her husband's brother
was the executor.
Like many women, Dolley experienced this injustice
as her brother-in-law withheld the funds that
her husband had left to her.
Despite Dolley's weakened position after the
death of most of her male relatives, she was
still considered a beautiful woman and was
living in the temporary capital of the United
States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Dolley caught the eye of James Madison, who
then represented Virginia in the U.S. House
of Representatives.
In May 1794, Aaron Burr made the formal introduction
between the young widow and James Madison.
A brisk courtship followed and, by August,
Dolley accepted his marriage proposal.
They were married on September 15, 1794, and
lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the
next three years.
In 1797, after eight years in the House of
Representatives, James Madison retired from
politics.
He returned with his family to Montpelier,
the Madison family plantation in Orange County,
Virginia.
There they expanded the house and settled
in.
When Thomas Jefferson was elected as the third
president of the United States in 1800, he
asked James Madison to serve as his Secretary
of State.
James Madison accepted and moved Dolley, her
son John, her sister Anna, and their domestic
slaves to Washington D.C. on F Street.
They took a large house, as Dolley believed
that entertaining would be important in the
new capital.
Dolley worked with the architect Benjamin
Henry Latrobe to furnish the President's House,
the first official residence built for the
president of the United States.
Dolley would become a crucial part of the
Washington social circle, befriending the
wives of numerous diplomats.
In the approach to the 1808 presidential election,
with Thomas Jefferson ready to retire, the
caucus nominated James Madison to succeed
him.
He was elected President, serving two terms
from 1809 to 1817, and Dolley became the first
presidential wife to be called the First Lady.
Dolley helped to define the official functions
by welcomeing visitors in her drawing room
and by decorating the Executive Mansion, as
it was no longer called the President's House.
She was the only First Lady given an honorary
seat on the floor of Congress, and the first
American to respond to a telegraph message.
In 1812, James Madison was re-elected.
This was the year that the War of 1812 began
against Great Britain.
After the United States declared war in 1812
and attempted to invade Canada in 1813, a
British force attacked Washington D.C. in
1814.
As it approached the Executive Mansion staff
hurriedly prepared to flee.
Dolley Madison hurried away in her waiting
carriage, along with other families fleeing
the city.
They went to the Georgetown neighborhood and
the next day they crossed over the Potomac
River into Virginia.
When the danger receded after the British
left Washington D.C. a few days later, she
returned to the capital to meet her husband.
However, the rampant pillaging and systematic
destruction had desolated much of the new
city.
As Congress began discussions over the construction
of a new capital, Dolley and James moved into
The Octagon House, located in the Foggy Bottom
neighborhhod of Washington D.C. Dolley would
then establish the Washington City Female
Orphan Asylum.
On April 6, 1817, a month after his retirement
from the presidency, Dolley and James Madison
returned to the Montpelier plantation in Orange
County, Virginia.
James Madison died at the Plantation on June
28, 1836.
Dolley remained at Montpelier for a year.
Her niece Anna Payne moved in with her, and
Todd came for a lengthy stay.
During this time, Dolley organized and copied
her husband's papers.
Congress authorized $55,000 as payment for
editing and publishing seven volumes of the
Madison papers.
In the fall of 1837, Dolley returned to Washington
D.C.
She and her sister Anna moved into a house,
bought by Anna and her husband Richard Cutts,
on Lafayette Square.
While Dolley Madison was living in Washington
D.C., she tried to raise money by selling
the rest of the president's papers.
Unable to find a buyer for the papers, she
sold Montpelier plantation, its remaining
slaves, and the furnishings to pay off outstanding
debts.
In 1848, Congress agreed to buy the rest of
James Madison's papers for the sum of $22,000.
On February 28, 1844, Dolley Madison was with
President John Tyler while aboard the USS
Princeton when a cannon exploded in the process
of being fired.
While six were killed, President Tyler and
Dolley Madison escaped unharmed.
She died at her home in Washington D.C. in
1849 at the age of 81.
She was first buried in the Congressional
Cemetery but later was re-interred at Montpelier
next to her husband.
