DOROTHY PAYNE MADISON.
There are few figures; on the canvas of American history that stand out with such undimmed charm as that of beautiful Dolly Madison. Certainly no one of its kerchiefed dames of the early Republic made their public and private life a better example of American womanhood to American girls of the succeeding generation than the bright-eyed Quaker girl-widow, who became hostess of the White House in 1809.
By the chance of a parental visit, it was in the province of North Carolina, under the reign of King George III, that Dorothea Payne was born, on the 12th of May, 1768. By lineage and residence, however, she had a good right to call herself "A Daughter of Virginia," for her parents returned to their Hanover county plantation when she was an infant, and it was at the old school in Hanover that she learned her first lessons. Her grandfather, John Payne, was an English gentleman, who came to Virginia, and married Anna Fleming, a lady of Scottish birth, and who was descended, it is claimed, from the Earl of Wigton, a Scottish nobleman. Her father, John Payne, Jr., married Mary Coles, the daughter of an Irish gentleman from Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland. This Mary Coles was descended from the Winstons, of Virginia, a family known for its aristocratic lineage. Indeed, it is reasonable to suppose that much of Dolly Payne's conversational gift was a legacy from these Winstons. Her mother's uncle, Patrick Henry, the orator, was said to have inherited his talent' from his brilliant mother, Sarah Winston, while another cousin, Judge Edmund Winston, was a local celebrity.
Of the three strains of blood, English, Irish and Scotch, that flowed in Dolly Payne's veins, the Irish appears to have predominated. The roseleaf complexion, the laughing eyes, the clustering curls of jet-black hair, the generous heart and
