What do you think?
Rate this book
Dolly Madison
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
306 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1896
1 person is currently reading
5 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 24, 2016
In a historical moment from the past, First Lady Dolly Madison, fled the White House in a disguise to escape an enemy army
This was before it was torched by this enemy army. This book furnishes this glimpse of the building of a nation.
Book Review
Posted by Anna Patterson. Writer, Journalist, Book Reviewer
DOLLY MADISON by Maud Wilder Goodwin. Publisher by Charles Scribner’s Sons of New York, Copyright 1896.
The book is made available by the Internet Archive, as Number 5 in a series of reprints on early Virginia History, basically concerning the original colonies of the United States. The Virginia Heritage Series, Women of Colonial and Revolutionary Times.
* * *
My own thoughts about this book after reading it:
Powerful and enlightening look back in history
Attention to real details of the period
Thoughtful biography of woman called by some in history because of her help with First Lady duties when her husband was serving as Secretary of State; and then her own duties as the President’s wife during two terms: United States of America’s First Lady
I would give it Five Stars, as a good book to read, to keep, and to share.
This book was gleaned from information available from sources including dairies, memoirs and autobiographies. It not only stressed the political and public life of this famous person, but also domestic and social elements as well. The people featured in this book came from the people of that period classified as Puritans, Knickerbocker and also Cavalier sections of the country.
Because of her very public role in history, “her life touched many others”, including Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Somers and Paul Jones, Lafayette, and Jefferson.
Her name was Dorothy Payne, born in an American Province owned by King George III. This was the Colony of North Carolina, but she was able to also claim roots from Virginia. The book tells of the marriage to John Todd of Dorothea Payne, leaving a very strict Quaker childhood. When Yellow Fever struck her husband decided she must leave the death stricken town of Philadelphia and he arranged for her to do so in a small carrier called a litter, “bearing a young mother, the wife of John Todd, and her newborn child.”
Her husband tried to see that his wife and two little children escaped, but John Todd returned to help others with the plague-stricken town. His father and mother died. Later John Todd followed his wife to Gray’s Ferry, but died. After embracing her husband, Dolly fought the disease for three weeks and nearly died. During that time her baby died. She was left a widow with one child.
She was twenty-five. In some historic biographies, she was a wealthy widow who Madison married. In the old fashioned way of the time, Madison sought an introduction to Mrs. Todd when he was at the age of forty-three. President Washington’s wife, Martha, assured Dolly, James Madison was a good catch.
By the Summer of 1814, James Madison was serving a second term as President. The city of Washington had eight thousand citizens and a small group of untrained militia when they found themselves challenged by a British Army of a thousand Marines challenging their city.
People were leaving basically everything, At the President of the United States residence, a dinner party had been planned that afternoon, but it was left to the advancing British and The Capital was then burned.
Long before this, at the Inaugural Ball at Long’s Hotel, President James Madison’s wife, Dolly, led a display of gorgeousness of the ball’s guests, “Dorothy attired in a robe of yellow velvet, her bare neck and arms hung with pearls, and her head nodding beneath a Paris turban with a bird of paradise plume.”
In this book a friend looking at the former First Lady’s grave saw that wildflowers, periwinkles, had “ran riot above her grave.” But this visitor wrote, “I seemed to hear once more Dolly Madison’s soft southern voice saying soothingly, “Nothing in this world is at much moment, my dear.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------
EDITOR’S NOTE:
This historical Volume series also has biographies of Eliza Pinkney, Martha Washington, Margaret Winthrop, Catherine Schuyler and Mary Warren.
This was before it was torched by this enemy army. This book furnishes this glimpse of the building of a nation.
Book Review
Posted by Anna Patterson. Writer, Journalist, Book Reviewer
DOLLY MADISON by Maud Wilder Goodwin. Publisher by Charles Scribner’s Sons of New York, Copyright 1896.
The book is made available by the Internet Archive, as Number 5 in a series of reprints on early Virginia History, basically concerning the original colonies of the United States. The Virginia Heritage Series, Women of Colonial and Revolutionary Times.
* * *
My own thoughts about this book after reading it:
Powerful and enlightening look back in history
Attention to real details of the period
Thoughtful biography of woman called by some in history because of her help with First Lady duties when her husband was serving as Secretary of State; and then her own duties as the President’s wife during two terms: United States of America’s First Lady
I would give it Five Stars, as a good book to read, to keep, and to share.
This book was gleaned from information available from sources including dairies, memoirs and autobiographies. It not only stressed the political and public life of this famous person, but also domestic and social elements as well. The people featured in this book came from the people of that period classified as Puritans, Knickerbocker and also Cavalier sections of the country.
Because of her very public role in history, “her life touched many others”, including Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Somers and Paul Jones, Lafayette, and Jefferson.
Her name was Dorothy Payne, born in an American Province owned by King George III. This was the Colony of North Carolina, but she was able to also claim roots from Virginia. The book tells of the marriage to John Todd of Dorothea Payne, leaving a very strict Quaker childhood. When Yellow Fever struck her husband decided she must leave the death stricken town of Philadelphia and he arranged for her to do so in a small carrier called a litter, “bearing a young mother, the wife of John Todd, and her newborn child.”
Her husband tried to see that his wife and two little children escaped, but John Todd returned to help others with the plague-stricken town. His father and mother died. Later John Todd followed his wife to Gray’s Ferry, but died. After embracing her husband, Dolly fought the disease for three weeks and nearly died. During that time her baby died. She was left a widow with one child.
She was twenty-five. In some historic biographies, she was a wealthy widow who Madison married. In the old fashioned way of the time, Madison sought an introduction to Mrs. Todd when he was at the age of forty-three. President Washington’s wife, Martha, assured Dolly, James Madison was a good catch.
By the Summer of 1814, James Madison was serving a second term as President. The city of Washington had eight thousand citizens and a small group of untrained militia when they found themselves challenged by a British Army of a thousand Marines challenging their city.
People were leaving basically everything, At the President of the United States residence, a dinner party had been planned that afternoon, but it was left to the advancing British and The Capital was then burned.
Long before this, at the Inaugural Ball at Long’s Hotel, President James Madison’s wife, Dolly, led a display of gorgeousness of the ball’s guests, “Dorothy attired in a robe of yellow velvet, her bare neck and arms hung with pearls, and her head nodding beneath a Paris turban with a bird of paradise plume.”
In this book a friend looking at the former First Lady’s grave saw that wildflowers, periwinkles, had “ran riot above her grave.” But this visitor wrote, “I seemed to hear once more Dolly Madison’s soft southern voice saying soothingly, “Nothing in this world is at much moment, my dear.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------
EDITOR’S NOTE:
This historical Volume series also has biographies of Eliza Pinkney, Martha Washington, Margaret Winthrop, Catherine Schuyler and Mary Warren.
Displaying 1 of 1 review