Person Page - 137

     Rebecca married Francis Conway, son of Edwin Conway Jr. and Elizabeth Thornton, in 1718.¹

Rebecca Catlett died in 1760.¹

     Eleanor Rose Conway, daughter of Francis Conway and Rebecca Catlett, was born on 9 January 1731 in Caroline County, Virginia.^1,2 She was also known as Nelly.

Eleanor married Col. James Madison Sr., son of Ambrose MADISON and Frances Taylor, on 15 September 1749 in Caroline County, Virginia.^1,2

Eleanor Rose Conway died on 11 February 1829 in Montpelier, Orange County, Virginia, at age 98.^1,2 She was buried in Madison Family Cemetery.

     Col. James Madison Sr., son of Ambrose MADISON and Frances Taylor, was born on 27 March 1723 in King and Queen (now Caroline) County, Virginia.²

James married Eleanor Rose Conway, daughter of Francis Conway and Rebecca Catlett, on 15 September 1749 in Caroline County, Virginia.^1,2

Col. James Madison Sr. died on 27 February 1801 in Montpelier, Orange County, Virginia, at age 77.²

     Pres. James Madison, son of Col. James Madison Sr. and Eleanor Rose Conway, was born on 15 March 1751 at at the home of Nelly Conway Moore in Port Conway, King George County, Virginia.¹

James married Dolley Todd on 15 September 1794 in Virginia. He was President of the United States between 1809 and 1817. At his inauguration, James Madison, a small, wizened man, appeared old and worn; Washington Irving described him as "but a withered little apple-John." But whatever his deficiencies in charm, Madison's buxom wife Dolley compensated for them with her warmth and gaiety. She was the toast of Washington.

Madison was brought up in Orange County, Virginia, and attended Princeton (then called the College of New Jersey). A student of history and government, well-read in law, he participated in the framing of the Virginia Constitution in 1776, served in the Continental Congress, and was a leader in the Virginia Assembly.


When delegates to the Constitutional Convention assembled at Philadelphia, the 36-year-old Madison took frequent and emphatic part in the debates.

Madison made a major contribution to the ratification of the Constitution by writing, with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the Federalist essays. In later years, when he was referred to as the "Father of the Constitution," Madison protested that the document was not "the off-spring of a single brain," but "the work of many heads and many hands."

In Congress, he helped frame the Bill of Rights and enact the first revenue legislation. Out of his leadership in opposition to Hamilton's financial proposals, which he felt would unduly bestow wealth and power upon northern financiers, came the development of the Republican, or Jeffersonian, Party.

As President Jefferson's Secretary of State, Madison protested to warring France and Britain that their seizure of American ships was contrary to international law. The protests, John Randolph acidly commented, had the effect of "a shilling pamphlet hurled against eight hundred ships of war."

Despite the unpopular Embargo Act of 1807, which did not make the belligerent nations change their ways but did cause a depression in the United States, Madison was elected President in 1808. Before he took office the Embargo Act was repealed.

During the first year of Madison's Administration, the United States prohibited trade with both Britain and France; then in May, 1810, Congress authorized trade with both, directing the President, if either would accept America's view of neutral rights, to forbid trade with the other nation.

Napoleon pretended to comply. Late in 1810, Madison proclaimed non-intercourse with Great Britain. In Congress a young group including Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, the "War Hawks," pressed the President for a more militant policy.

The British impressment of American seamen and the seizure of cargoes impelled Madison to give in to the pressure. On June 1, 1812, he asked Congress to declare war.

The young Nation was not prepared to fight; its forces took a severe trouncing. The British entered Washington and set fire to the White House and the Capitol.

But a few notable naval and military victories, climaxed by Gen. Andrew Jackson's triumph at New Orleans, convinced Americans that the War of 1812 had been gloriously successful. An upsurge of nationalism resulted. The New England Federalists who had opposed the war--and who had even talked secession--were so thoroughly repudiated that Federalism disappeared as a national party.

In retirement at Montpelier, his estate in Orange County, Virginia, Madison spoke out against the disruptive states' rights influences that by the 1830's threatened to shatter the Federal Union. In a note opened after his death in 1836, he stated, "The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated."

Pres. James Madison died on 28 June 1836 in Montpelier, Orange County, Virginia, at age 85.¹ He was buried in Madison Family Cemetery.

     Dolley Payne was born in 1768.

Dolley married John Todd Jr. in 1790.

Dolley married Pres. James Madison, son of Col. James Madison Sr. and Eleanor Rose Conway, on 15 September 1794 in Virginia.

Dolley Payne died in 1849.

     Jennet McPherson was born in 1764 in Glen Orchy, Argyllshire, Scotland.

Jennet married Thomas Brown Jr., son of Thomas Brown Sr., on 21 October 1815 in Richmond County, North Carolina. Daniel Snead was the bondsman. They married "late in life". Her parents immigrated from"Glenurcha" (Glen Orchy in Argyllshire) in 1774 aboard the ship Ulysses and landed at Wilmington with their two young children, William aged 9 and Janet aged 10. They bought land and settled next to Alexander McPherson on Beaver Creek in Cumberland county.

Jennet McPherson was the administrator of Thomas Brown Jr.'s estate on 26 December 1816 in Richmond County, North Carolina. We the under assigners being appointed a committee to lay off an allowance to JENNET BROWN, widder of THOMAS BROWN deceased, do report as follows. Nineteen and one half bushels corn, 250 lbs. of good pork, one bushel of salt, six lbs. of coffee and twenty five of sugar thirty lbs. of neat cotton, twenty five lbs. soap, one prime cow and calf, one large top-stack and shucks, one small pot and skillett, one washing tub and washing pale, one bread tray and sifter & two knives and forks, two plates, two cups and saucers, one tin cup and coffee pot, one spinning wheel and cards, one small tin pan & pitcher, two teaspoons, one small pewter dish, two tablespoons, a wether, & two hoggs, year olds. This is 26 Dec. 1816. THOMAS PATE, D. SNEAD & ISAAC WILLIAMSON.¹