FOURTH PRESIDING LADY 1809-1817 Dorothy Paine, a Quaker, first married at nineteen, John Todd, a young lawyer of Philadelphia. One year after his death, when twenty-two, she married James Madison. Her kind heart, frank, cordial manners, and personal beauty made her very popular. When she presided at the White House her tact, ready recognition of every one, and her remembrance of events concerning them increased this feeling. Although her entertainments lacked the ceremony of past administrations, “Dolly” Madison was considered a charming hostess. While she was extremely charitable, she always dispensed her husband’s wealth with prudence and judgment. The war of 1812 showed her true nobility in many ways, and it was she who saved the Stuart portrait of Washington when the British were about to pillage and burn the White House. The Government bought from her Madison’s Record of the Debates in Congress from 1782-1787, for $30,000. Copyright 1903, by Bureau of National Literature & Art. |