Dorothy Payne, Quakeress Part 1

Dorothy Payne, Quakeress.

by Ella Kent Barnard.

FOREWORD

There is little time in this busy world of ours for reading,--little, indeed, for thinking;--and there are already many books; but perhaps these few additional pages relating to Dolly Madison, who was loved and honored during so many years by our people, may be not altogether amiss.

During eleven administrations she was the intimate friend of our presidents and their families. What a rare privilege was hers--to be at home in the families of Was.h.i.+ngton, of Jefferson, of Madison, of Monroe; to know intimately Hamilton and Burr and Clay and Webster; to live so close, during her long life, to the heart of our nation; to be swayed by each pulsation of our national life;--to be indeed a part and parcel of it all, loved, honored and revered!

It seems almost incredible that the simple country maiden, reared in strict seclusion, by conscientious Quaker parents, should have been transformed into the queen of social life, at whose shrine the wise men of their day did homage, and at whose feet the warriors laid the flag of victory.

She has left small record of her thoughts; none of her creed, excepting in her life,--and that was pure and good. The outward symbols of her faith were laid aside, but in her daily life we see the leading of the "Inner Light."

We have searched amongst the driftwood of the century for traces of her early life, and found many records, letters and references, published and unpublished, and from them all our story has been woven.

The Friends' records of North Carolina, of Virginia and of Philadelphia have given us very accurate and definite information relating to her family, and the old letters, the cherished treasures of many homes, have given a glimpse of Dolly herself in earlier and later days;--of her Quaker girlhood in Philadelphia and of her marriage in the old Pine street meeting-house. And then of days in Was.h.i.+ngton,--brilliant days, in the full glare of suns.h.i.+ne; and finally a picture when the days were far spent and the evening shadows falling.

For much of this material I am greatly indebted to many persons, and especially to the following I wish to express my heartfelt grat.i.tude for a.s.sistance so kindly given: George J. Scattergood, Philadelphia; Edward Stabler, Jr., Baltimore; Eliza Pleasants, Lincoln, Va.; Maud Wilder Goodwin, New York City; Priscilla B. Hackney, North Carolina; Rosewell Page, Richmond, Va.; Lavinia Taylor, Hanover County, Va.; Lucia B.

Cutts, Boston, Ma.s.s.; L. D. Winston, Winston, Va.; Christine M.

Was.h.i.+ngton, Charlestown, W. Va.; George S. Was.h.i.+ngton, Philadelphia; Eugenia W. M. Brown, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.; Julia E. Daggett, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.; Lucy T. Fitzhugh, Westminster, Md.; Margaret Crenshaw, Richmond, Va.; Charles G. Thomas, Baltimore, Md.; Mrs. Moorfield Story, Boston, Ma.s.s.; Julia S. White, North Carolina; Thomas Nelson Page, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.; Richard L. Bentley, Baltimore; Thomas F. Taylor, Hanover, Va.; Mary W. Slaughter, Winston, Va.; Liza Madison Sheppard, Virginia; Samuel M. Brosius, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.; Elizabeth McKean, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.; Mrs.

William DuPont, Montpelier, Va., and Norman Penney, London, England.

ELLA KENT BARNARD.

_Baltimore, November 15, 1909._

CHAPTER I.

EARLY YEARS AND SCENES.

The girlhood of Dorothy Payne was spent on a plantation in Hanover county, Virginia. Very quiet and uneventful were the years whose "days were full of happiness," the quiet happiness of country life. For fifteen years

"She dwelt beside the untrodden ways"

where the distant echoes of the busy world, or even the great Revolutionary struggles that encompa.s.sed them round about, scarce caused a ripple on the calm surface of their daily life.

She was born, however, in North Carolina, that happy region where "every one does what seems best in his own eyes," or, better still, enjoys, as did Colonel Byrd, "the Carolina felicity of having nothing to do!" A rough people many of them still were, without doubt, when the little Dolly was born in their midst, on a plantation in Guilford county, to take charge of which her father had come a few years before from his Virginia home to where a thrifty, G.o.d-fearing colony of Quaker emigrants from New Garden, Pennsylvania, had peopled the wilderness, and in memory of the Pennsylvania home had erected a new "New Garden Meeting House" in a forest clearing. Very commodious it looked in comparison with the log cabins from which its congregation gathered to "mid-week" and "First-day Meeting," coming usually in the covered emigrant wagon that was ofttimes their only means of conveyance, but which well suited the size of the emigrant family.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Friends' Meeting House, New Garden, North Carolina.

From an old Drawing.]

Turning over their earliest book of records, still distinct but yellowed by age, the curious visitor may find a page on which is inscribed the following:

John Payne was born y^e 9 of y^e 12 m^o 1740.

Mary, his wife, was born y^e 14 of y^e 10 m^o 1743.

Walter, their son, was born y^e 15 of y^e 11 m^o 1762.

Wm. Temple, their son, was born y^e 17 of y^e 6 m^o 1766.

Dolley, their daughter, was born y^e 20 of y^e 5 m^o 1768.

"Dolley," their little daughter, was named for her mother's friend, Dorothea Spotswood Dandridge, the granddaughter of Governor Spotswood, the daughter of Nathaniel West Dandridge, a near relative of Lord Delaware. Nathaniel West Dandridge, son-in-law of Governor Spotswood, had been one of his followers on a far-famed journey of exploration, led by the Governor, beyond the Appalachian mountains, and for this exploit had been dubbed a "Knight of the Golden Horseshoe," and presented with the symbol of the order, a golden horseshoe with its glittering jewels, and the inscribed motto, "_Sic juvat transcendere montes_," made in memory of their trip.

A few years earlier a cousin of Dolly Dandridge, from her own home, the White House on the Pamunky, had been married to Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton, a gallant young officer lately elected to the House of Burgesses. A few years later Dolly Dandridge herself became the second wife of Patrick Henry, the cousin of Mary Payne, a young lawyer of Hanover county, whose eloquence had electrified the House of Burgesses, and who was now its acknowledged leader in the fight against English taxation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Patrick Henry.]

Very slight seems the connection between these events and people and the little Quaker maiden, but it was through these, her mother's friends, that she was drawn in and became one of that choice circle of Virginia's honored children in the early days of the Republic.

Though born in North Carolina she was but one year old when her parents returned to their former home in Hanover county, Virginia, and in later years Dolly always preferred to call herself a Virginian, for it was around the old Scotch Town homestead that all her loving memories cl.u.s.tered. It was in Virginia, too, that she imbibed the early training that fitted her to become a graceful, tactful leader in the nation's social life. Generations of worthy ancestors had transmitted to her the instincts of a lady, a warm and loving heart, and an appreciation of true worth, traits that were to serve her well in after years.

The grandfather, Josias Payne[1], gentleman, was the son of George Payne, justice and high-sheriff of Goochland, who was descended from one of "Virginia's Adventurers," a younger brother of Sir Robert Payne, M.P.

from Huntingdons.h.i.+re, England. Josias Payne had become the owner of thousands of acres of Virginia's richest land along the James river. He was a man of affairs, a vestryman, and a member of the House of Burgesses.

The English traveler Smythe has given a pleasing picture of the Virginia gentleman. "These in general have had a liberal education, possess enlightened understanding and a thorough knowledge of the world, that furnishes them with an ease and freedom of manners and conversation highly to their advantage in exterior, which no vicissitudes of fortune or place can divest them of, they being actually, according to my ideas, the most agreeable and best companions, friends and neighbors that need be desired. The greater number of them keep their carriages and have handsome services of plate; but they all, without exception, have studs, as well as sets of elegant and beautiful horses."[2]

The picture, too, had ofttimes another side, for not all the gentlemen could afford to send their children to England to be educated, and men of "mean understandings" were sent to the House of Burgesses, and so trying were they to the nerves of Governor Spotswood that he cuttingly observes that "the grand ruling party in your House has not furnished chairmen of two of your standing committees who can spell English or write common-sense, as the grievances under their own handwriting will manifest."

Anne Fleming,[3] the wife of Josias Payne, was the granddaughter of Sir Thomas Fleming of New Kent county, the second son of the Earl of Wigdon.

From this worldly grandmother doubtless came the present of the jewelry treasured so long by the little Dolly during her school days, and safely hid in a tiny bag around her neck, until one sad day when it disappeared, on her way to school, never to be found again.

This same Anne Fleming was also said to be the wife of John Payne (a cousin of Josias). Surely his wife's name was also Anne, for an old court record shows that "Hampton and Sambo," negroes belonging to "John Payne, gentleman," were brought to trial in 1756 for "Prepairing and administering Poysonous Medecines to Anne Payne," for which offence the said Hampton was declared guilty and sentenced to "be hanged by the neck till he be dead, and that he be afterwards cut in Quarters and his Quarters hung up at the Cross Roads." And his master was awarded the sum of 45, the "adjudged value of Hampton," according to law. The dark shadow of slavery was already gathering over the land, although scarcely perceived and yet unacknowledged by the great majority of the people.

In the vestry meetings the chief planters became the veritable rulers of the adjacent neighborhood. "The care of the poor, the survey of estates, the correction of disorders, the t.i.the rates, and the maintenance of the church and minister" came within their province. As a justice the planter was one of five to preside at all trials of the negroes, they not being allowed a trial by jury, but on the agreement of the five they were freed or condemned and sentenced. Such tasks as these, with the oversight of his estate and his duties in the House of Burgesses, made the Virginia gentleman a busy man. Still, he never allowed his life to become a strenuous one, but found ample time for his pleasures and for his social duties. Fond of good living, he was unlike the Frenchman, who "feasts on radishes that he may wear a ribbon," for the Virginian "took his ease in homespun that he might dine on turtle and venison."

John Payne received the breeding of the Virginia gentleman of the old school, and grew to manhood possessing the charms of courtly manners and of fluent speech. The early Virginia records speak of him as "John Payne, junior." In 1763 he inherited a plantation on Little Bird Creek, of two hundred acres, "on which he was then living," from "John Payne, elder." To this tract his father added a gift of another two hundred acres, likewise on Little Bird Creek, and at his death (1785) willed him four hundred additional acres of rich bottom land in "the forks of the James," with the negroes "Peter, Ned and Bob."

To this early home he brought his girlish wife, beautiful Mary Coles.

Mary Coles was the daughter of William Coles of "Coles Hill," Hanover county, a younger brother of John Coles,[4] of Richmond, Virginia, who had there as a merchant ama.s.sed a fortune, and married Mary Winston.

William Coles came later to America from Enniscorthy, Ireland, and married Lucy, the sister of his brother's wife, then the widow of William Dabney, by whom she had one son, William. William and Lucy Winston Coles had three children: Walter; Lucy, who married her cousin Isaac Winston, and Mary, the wife of John Payne, and mother of Dolly Madison.

Lucy Winston came of a Quaker family that has, perhaps, furnished more men of note than any other in our country. Her father, Isaac Winston,[5]

emigrant, was an able man of an old Yorks.h.i.+re family that had settled in Wales. He, with several brothers, came to Virginia to escape the Quaker persecution in England, settling first in Henrico and afterwards in Hanover county, where he died in 1760, at an advanced age. He had acquired a large estate, and many negroes. What a gratification it would have been to the old man had he lived a few years longer and heard his wayward grandson, Patrick Henry, argue the "Parson's cause," or make his first great speech in the House of Burgesses. As it was he died thinking the young orator unworthy even of mention in his will, but for his sisters he carefully provided. To his granddaughters Lucy and Mary Coles he willed 45, to be paid to them when they came of age or married.

ISAAC WINSTON | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | Mary=John Coles Wm. Dabney=Lucy=Wm. Coles John Syme=Sarah=John Henry | | | | | | | | ------------- Wm. Dabney | ------------- | | | | | | | John | | | | Patrick Henry | | ------------- | | | | | | | | Edward=Miss Roberts | | |-------------------- | | | | | | | | Sally[A]=A. Stevenson Walter Lucy Mary = John Payne b. 1743 | b. 1746 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Walter Wm. Temple Dolley Isaac Lucy Anna Mary John Philadelphia b. 1762 b. 1766 b. 1768

Isaac Winston's son William had wild blood in his veins, and was a great hunter and beloved by the Indians in their western wilds, where he had a hunting lodge. The elder Wirt p.r.o.nounced him an orator scarcely inferior to his nephew, Patrick Henry, who was said to have inherited his rare gift of eloquence from his Quaker ancestors. An old letter[6] from Albemarle county claims that it was to him more than to Was.h.i.+ngton that the credit of saving the day at the time of Braddock's defeat was due.

The troops had refused to move farther, and Was.h.i.+ngton's remonstrances availed not, until William Winston sprang to the front and addressed them with such stirring eloquence that each one threw up his hand and demanded to be led forward. Judge Edmund Winston, son of William Winston, read and practiced law with his cousin Patrick Henry, and the firm of Henry and Winston carried all before it. Patrick Henry died in 1799, and Judge Winston married his widow, "Dolly Dandridge," and died in 1813 in the "fifth score year of his age."