Dorothy Payne, Quakeress: A Side-Light Upon the Career of 'Dolly' Madison

by Ella K. Barnard

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 tithe 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 amassed 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 Yorkshire 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.