Читать книгу Dorothy Payne, Quakeress: A Side-Light Upon the Career of 'Dolly' Madison - Ella K. Barnard - Страница 6

Table of Contents

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 encompassed 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, God-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.

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 Washington, 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.

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 clustered. 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 Huntingdonshire, 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 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.

* Sally Coles Stevenson's letters from England have been recently published in the "Century Magazine." She was the sister of Edward Coles, Secretary of President Madison and second Governor of Illinois.

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 pronounced 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 Washington that the credit of saving the day at the time of Braddock's defeat was due. The troops had refused to move farther, and Washington'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."

"Dolly Dandridge" died in 1831. "Cousin Dolly" she always was to her namesake, Dolly Madison.

Colonel William Byrd.

Colonel William Byrd of Westover, a polished gentleman and wit (but, alas! also a "spendthrift and gambler"), in his "Progress to the Mines" called on Sarah Syme,[7] then a widow, formerly "Sarah Winston, of a good old family." "This lady, suspecting I was some lover, put on a gravity which becomes a weed, but as soon as she learned who I was brightened up into an unusual cheerfulness and serenity. She was a portly, handsome dame, of a lively, cheerful conversation, with much less reserve than most of her countrywomen. It became her very well, and set off her other agreeable qualities to advantage." "The courteous widow invited me to rest myself there that good day, and go to church with her, but I excused myself by telling her she would certainly spoil my devotions. Then she civilly entreated me to make her house my home whenever I visited my plantations, which made me bow low and thank her very kindly. She possessed a mild and benevolent disposition, undeviating probity, correct understanding and easy elocution." For his supper Colonel Byrd writes that he was served with a "broiled chicken" and a "bottle of honest port," and no doubt he came again!

Sarah Winston afterward married John Henry,[8] a man of Scotch ancestry and sterling worth, who for some time represented his county of Hanover in the House of Burgesses, where later the three brothers, John Syme, and William and Patrick Henry, sat year after year.

The name of one more member of this family will occur in later pages:—William Campbell Preston, M.C. from South Carolina, the opponent of John C. Calhoun in "nullification days" (1832).

Other branches of the family furnished men of great ability, congressmen, senators, governors, warriors. To-day the United States Senate mourns the vacant seat of that "grand old man" Edmund Winston Pettus,[9] who died recently in his eighty-seventh year, the oldest man in public life in the United States, and Alabama loved him as a father.

The daughters of the family, too, inherited the ready flow of language, the quick wit and pleasing address characteristic of the family, and which, added to good looks, made them much sought in marriage. In after years these same qualities made them worthy helpmates in smoothing out the social tangles of official life.

In an old letter found amongst some Quaker manuscripts from Virginia, bearing date of 1757, was found the statement that "Thomas Cole and William Cole have both made open confessions of truth." This William Cole, or Coles, was probably the husband of Lucy Winston, of whom a sweet picture in Quaker dress is preserved.

Soon after their marriage John and Mary Payne made application for membership with the Quakers of Cedar Creek, in which neighborhood they were then living, as shown by the minutes of Cedar Creek Monthly Meeting, dated 5th month 30th, 1764. In 11th month 30th, 1765, they were already settled in North Carolina. In 4th month, 1769, they with their three children were again living in Hanover county, Virginia. During these and the few following years three children who were probably theirs were buried at South River, "Mary, William and Ruth Paine."

In 1775 Patrick Henry, the newly-appointed Governor of Virginia, sold his farm called "Scotch Town" to John Payne. It was considered a valuable tract of land, and a bargain when it came into the hands of Henry in 1771 for £600. It had been literally "Scotch Town" in earlier colonial days, the center of a Scotch settlement of which it was the "great house." Here John Payne brought his rapidly-increasing little family, but in its nineteen rooms there was room and to spare for them all, and for the guests who so often sought its hospitable shelter.

Scotch Town, Hanover County, Virginia. Photographed by Samuel M. Brosius.

This house, with its quaint hipped roof, is standing to-day, and it needs only a thatched covering, and the peaked dormer windows that were perhaps there in earlier days, to make it a typical old English cottage. The two great chimneys have been much changed. In olden times each served for the four rooms clustered about it, and from which it took generous corners. Above the great open fire-places were mantels of black marble, one of which was supported by white figures. These mantels and the three granite porticos, with their carved steps, were brought from Scotland by Mr. Forsythe, the builder, as was also the brick for the lower half-story. The house, too, boasts a dungeon that may have been used for protection or for the punishment of offenders two hundred years ago, about which time its building dates. A broad hall ran through the house, and above either wide doorway the portico roof was supported by iron brackets. The back door opens on the old garden, where the box trees still flourish, but the ancient trees around the lawn are veterans hoary and maimed by the storms of many years.

Here Patrick Henry, already famous, lived, and Dolly Payne, a blue-eyed, merry little lassie, sat beside her mother in the family room, "the blue room," with its walnut wainscoting trimmed with pine, and solid walnut doors, and learned to sew and read. Scotch Town stands on high ground, and for miles around you can see an unbroken stretch of country. In colonial days about it were clustered numerous outbuildings, fine stables and the negro quarters, of which there is now no trace.

Happy days were spent here by the little Dolly. Surely they had few cares for the little daughter so carefully guarded by "Mother Amy," her much-loved colored nurse; and there were other slaves to do her bidding. It was through them, doubtless, that she first heard the horrible story of the crime of "Negrofoot," now the name of the post-office on an adjoining plantation. The stranger naturally queries, Why Negrofoot? and is told the old story of an African slave, a cannibal, owned by a Mr. Jarman:—how, when the master and mistress were at church one day, he took the little two-year-old child from its nurse, killed it, and partly devoured it before its parents returned. The retribution was swift and terrible. A wild horse was brought, the slave tied to it, and the horse started on a mad run. Before it had ended, the slave, too, was dead. His body was then dismembered, and portions nailed up in different parts of the country. The foot put up here gave the name to Negrofoot-house, and to the post-office; and doubtless weird stories were told by the superstitious negroes, who shunned the scenes of the double crime.

Negrofoot House. Photographed by Samuel M. Brosius.

Coles Hill was but nine miles off, one of those low story-and-a-half Virginia houses, built of frame, whose timbers were probably cut by the family servants. Two rooms, one on either side the wide hall, sufficed, with the broad porch, for summer living, and the quaint bedrooms peered out through dormer windows from the roof above. There were outbuildings, too, on the north and east sides, and a few cabins for the negroes. (The residence has long ago disappeared, and the land is owned by George Doswell).

It was but a pleasant drive from Scotch Town on a "First-day after meeting" for John and Mary Payne, and the children loved to gather around the dark-eyed young grandmother, whose Quaker cap would not quite conceal the stray curls that refused to be confined by its sheer crispness. To her Irish grandsire Dolly owed much. From him she had inherited a fine clear complexion, whose worth was appreciated by her mother, and guarded by the linen face-mask carefully sewed in place, and the long gloves always to be drawn on ere she dared venture into the sunshine, a preparation that must have been trying indeed to the impatient little girl. Her Irish blood, too, had added warmth to her loving heart, and given her the quick wit and smooth tongue that caused her to be accused, in later days, of a "knowledge of the groves of Blarney."

On their return to Virginia John and Mary Payne both became zealous workers in the Society of Friends, or Quakers. John Payne was for many years clerk of Cedar Creek Monthly Meeting, while Mary Payne was from time to time clerk of the women's meeting. They were also "elders," and it is likely that John Payne became a "minister," for as early as 1773 we find he is reported as "desiring to visit friends in Amelia, and also at Pine Creek." In 1777 and 1779 "John Payne requests a certificate to attend North Carolina Yearly Meeting," then held at Old Neck, Perquimans county. For years, too, there is scarcely a committee appointed of which he is not a member, and the carefully-written pages of the record books, as clear and distinct as when first recorded, show that both he and his wife were beautiful penmen. In Dolly's early signatures her last name is almost a facsimile of her mother's writing, but her spelling never equalled that of her parents for correctness. Papers like the following, signed by both John and Mary Payne, were of frequent occurrence.

"Whereas Milley Hutchings, Daughter of Strangeman Hutchings, of Goochland County, was Educated in the profession of us the people Call'd Quakers, but for want of living agreeable to the principles of Truth hath suffered herself to be Joined in marriage to a man of a different persuasion from us in matters of Faith, by an Hireling priest, contrary to the known rules of our discipline, therefore we think it our duty, for the clearing of our profession of such libertine persons, publickly to disown the said Milley from being a Member of our Society, untill she give satisfaction for her outgoing, which we desire she may be enabled to do. Signed in and on behalf of our Monthly Meeting held at Cedar Creek in Hanover County the

13th of 3^d m 1779 by John Payne Clerk Mary Payne Clerk[10]

Was it well that they could not see far into the future?

The great problem of the Friends during these years, the one in which John Payne was most vitally interested, was the freeing of their negroes or "black people," as (when assembled in Yearly Meeting) they had gravely decided to call them. Years before, the Quakers had crossed the seas in search of civil and religious liberty, and while they believed in each man's "inalienable right" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," they could not seek them by a resort to arms. In the Revolution they could take no part, but there was sufficient work for them at home. Before slavery, even in their own midst, could be abolished, the members of the legislature must be convinced, and new state laws framed. Of this work in the South, Thomas Nelson Page says: "The movement was largely owing in its inception to the efforts of the Quakers, who have devoted to peace those energies which others had given to war, and who have ever been moved by the Spirit to take the initiative in all action which tends to the amelioration of the human race." In his own state he considered the "problem stupendous, but it was not despaired of. Many masters manumitted their slaves, the example being set by numbers of the same benevolent sect [Quakers] to which reference has been made."

Already in 1769 the members of Cedar Creek Monthly Meeting had been "unanimously agreed that something be done." The laws of Virginia threw many obstacles in their way, and it was not until the law passed in 1782 that the right of emancipation was given to the owners of slaves. For this tardy permission they could not wait, and Robert Pleasants[11] in a letter dated "Curles,[12] 3d month 28th, 1777," wrote to the Governor, Patrick Henry, Jr., " ... It is in respect to slavery, of which thou art not altogether a stranger to mine, as well as some others of our Friends' sentiments; and perhaps, too, thou may have been informed that some of us, from a full conviction of the injustice, and apprehension of duty, have been induced to embrace the present favorable juncture when the Representatives of the people have nobly declared all men free, without any desire to offend, or thereby injure any person, to invest more of them with the same inestimable privilege. This I conceive was necessary to inform the governor...."

The Friends were tolerably sure of Patrick Henry's support, as in a letter to Edward Stabler in 1773 he said: "It would rejoice my very soul that every one of my fellow-beings was emancipated. We ought to lament and deplore the necessity of holding our fellow-men in bondage. Believe me, I shall honor the Quakers for their notable efforts to abolish slavery."