The women who attended that first meeting for the orphanage adopted an organization plan. They elected Dolley as the first directress and Maria Van Ness, the wife of John Van Ness, as the second directress. They also named a treasurer, secretary, and nine trustees.
As first directress, Dolley presided over all of the meetings of the society and trustees. She also gave money, a cow, and handiwork for seamstresses to make clothing for the girls.
Soon the orphanage was open. Finding a house at 10th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, the board of women hired a governess. The plan was to educate the girls and prepare them for life. When these little ladies became of age, they were to move into the home of a respectable family to help them enter society.
The orphanage opened its doors to girls without both parents. They also agreed to consider exceptionally needy girls with one parent and would also consider extending benefits to male orphans as the organization became more established.
The orphanage would serve the children in the following ways: “The children shall be educated fed and clothed at the expense of the society and at the asylum—They must have religious instruction, moral example and habits of industry inculcated on their minds.”
Faith in God was central to the project and motivation for the ladies. “But trusting in Him who is the orphan’s help and pleading with the benevolent of Washington they cannot plead in vain.”
At least one board member visited the orphanage each week to oversee its management and interact with the girls. Perhaps Dolley brought her pet macaw with her to entertain the children. The ladies also helped to raise money for the orphanage through theatrical benefit productions at local theaters and other ventures with proceeds going to the orphanage.
The orphanage was a success. Dolley, the Quaker who was taught to see the potential for God’s grace inside every human heart, became the first president’s wife to establish a charity during her husband’s tenure. In this way, she led by doing. Average Americans, particularly the ladies of Washington, devoted themselves to others and community service. She set the model for future first ladies to use their time, treasure, and talents in service of others.
On December 6, 1815, while the orphanage was being organized, Commodore John Rodgers sent Dolley a very special gift. Because he had commanded the President during the war and captured twenty-three other vessels, he sent her a mat “composed of pieces taken from the flags of all the vessels, to the number of 23 captured by the President while under his command, and consequently belongs to the lady to whom it is now presented.”
He asked Mrs. Madison “to accept it, not only as a proof of his respectful esteem, but also that it may sometimes remind her of a glorious aerie of the country over which her husband presided with so much honor.”
From the burning of his house at Havre de Grace in May 1813 to the battlefield of Baltimore in September 1814, the war had affected Rodgers in many ways. By giving Mrs. Madison the mat, he presented her with tangible evidence of America’s renewed sovereignty. He knew that she represented what it meant to be a queen of hearts.
In February 1816, Dolley hosted a special event. One visitor described it as “the most splendid Presidential reception ever given to that date.” Once again her dress stood out: “She also wore a gold girdle and gold necklace and bracelets. This costume was completed by a turban of white velvet, trimmed with white ostrich tips, and a gold embroidered crown.”
But the reason for the occasion was more significant than any dress or turban. The new minister or top diplomat from Great Britain, Sir Charles Bagot, was the guest of honor. His presence in Washington was a symbol of many things, of the rising phoenix of Washington City and the start of America’s new relationship with Great Britain. That the Madisons could welcome him showed their strength of character and ability to let go of the past and move America forward.
Bagot’s aristocratic background was both cultured and courteous. He was “fit to conciliate the countries at the conclusion of the war.” That night he made an observation about Dolley: “She looked every inch a queen.”
She had transformed the wife of the president into a new role, now known as first lady.
Epilogue
A few years ago, I toured one of the most popular exhibits at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., the exhibit on first ladies. Featuring their many contributions to public service, political campaigns, family life, and fashion sensibilities, this exhibit has expanded over the years. Though I’d been to this Smithsonian museum several times, I saw something that Saturday afternoon that I’d never before noticed.
While walking past the gowns of first ladies, I stopped and gazed at an ivory satin gown embroidered with butterflies and dragonflies that belonged to Dolley Madison. As I read the dress’s description, my pulse quickened with excitement. Not only does the dress boast butterflies, but it also features phoenixes, the eagle-like bird symbolizing life after fire.
Obviously, this gown was not destroyed during the burning of the White House in 1814. Did Dolley purposefully add phoenixes to it as a symbol of their rise after the fire? I could only stare with wonder that day as I beheld her sly fashion statement.
At the New Year’s public reception in 1816, Mrs. Crowninshield described Dolley’s gown this way: “Mrs. Madison was dressed in a yellow satin embroidered all over with sprigs of butterflies, not two alike in her dress; a narrow border in all colors, made high in the neck; a little cape, long sleeves, and a white bonnet with feathers.”
Though Mrs. Crowningshield doesn’t mention phoenixes or dragonflies, her description does match the gown owned by the National Museum of American History.
Dolley wore that dress in 1816, the last year of her husband’s presidency. She knew the James would soon take his final bow, bid adieu, and exit the stage of public life for retirement. Though they’d seen the ashes of the White House and U.S. Capitol, they, along with a phoenix multitude, had saved Washington nonetheless.
JAMES AND DOLLEY MADISON
After his presidency, James Madison retired with Dolley to Montpelier, their Virginia home. With Dolley’s assistance, James organized his private papers from the U.S. Constitution and others with a plan to release them publicly. James died June 28, 1836, at age eighty-five. Impoverished and lonely, Dolley moved to Washington, D.C. There she lived in a row house on Lafayette Square across from the north side of the White House and became one of the most sought-after guests in Washington. In one month alone she paid sixty-five social calls. Congress also helped to alleviate her poverty by purchasing three volumes of Madison’s papers for $30,000 in 1837 and another set in 1848 for $25,000, with most of the money placed in a trust. They also gave her an honorary seat in Congress, which allowed her to watch debates from the floor of the House of Representatives.
Fulfilling her husband’s desire for a method for instant communication, she became the first private citizen to transmit a message through Samuel Morse’s new invention, the telegraph. She had her photograph taken with President James Polk and watched the laying of the cornerstone of the Washington Monument from the White House in July 1848.
Dolley Madison died on July 12, 1849. Newspapers praised her as an excellent and venerable lady who spent her life well. Sitting President Zachary Taylor led the procession at her funeral, which took place at St. John’s Episcopal Church, across the street from her row house and the White House. In his eulogy, he allegedly called her first lady. Though no written record exists of his speech, this may have been the first use of the term. Less than a decade later, the phrase first lady was used for the first time in print in a magazine to describe Harriet Lane, who fulfilled the hostess role for her uncle, President James Buchanan.
In her lifetime, Dolley directly influenced the women who later served as first lady. Wives of sitting presidents, including Julia Tyler and Sarah Polk, sought her advice and often invited her to the White House.
Mrs. Madison’s legacy and legend continues. In 2007,
Laura Bush, wife of President George W. Bush, hosted an event for the U.S. Mint in the East Room for the first spouse gold coin program. In attendance was Lucinda Frailly of the National First Ladies’ Library. Ms. Frailly gave a dramatic interpretation of Mrs. Madison.
During a 1993 White House Halloween party, First Lady Hillary Clinton dressed as Dolley Madison and President Bill Clinton dressed as James Madison. A few years later in a White House ceremony, Hillary Clinton announced the release of a silver dollar coin commemorating the 150th anniversary of the death of Dolley Madison.
HILLCREST CHILDREN AND FAMILY CENTER IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
The charity that Dolley founded in 1815 through a charter from Congress is known today the Hillcrest Children and Family Center in Washington, D.C. Hillcrest is a nonprofit behavioral healthcare and social services agency providing behavioral health treatment and prevention along with community and family support services. The center continues to promote the well-being and holistic development of children, youth, and families.
THE REBUILT WHITE HOUSE AND PRESIDENT JAMES MONROE
James Monroe took the oath of office as the fifth president of the United States on March 4, 1817. He moved into the rebuilt White House with an incomplete interior in October 1817. Instead of painting with whitewash, architect James Hoban directed workers to use white lead paint with a linseed oil base to paint the exterior stone.
Three months later, Monroe held the first public reception in the new White House, on New Year’s Day, 1818. Newspapers praised the event as a return to normalcy. With his presidency known as the era of good feelings, Monroe served two terms and was followed by War of 1812 heroes John Quincy Adams, who served one term, and Andrew Jackson, who served two.
THE WHITE HOUSE: GEORGE WASHINGTON PORTRAIT BY GILBERT STUART
Thanks to Dolley Madison, George Washington’s best painting by Gilbert Stuart still hangs in the White House. Americans have seen the portrait through photographs and television shots of the East Room, where the president hosts large events. Sometimes those moments are serious, such as when a tearful President Barack Obama announced his intent to use executive action for gun control in 2016. Other times the mood is celebratory, such as when President George W. Bush stood in front of this painting to pay tribute to Kennedy Center honorees Steven Spielberg, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Dolly Parton, Smokey Robinson, and Zubin Mehta in 2006.
THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY: GEORGE WASHINGTON PORTRAIT BY GILBERT STUART
Known as the Lansdowne portrait, Gilbert Stuart’s full-length painting of George Washington also hangs at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The painting is called the Lansdowne portrait because Senator and Mrs. William Bingham of Pennsylvania gave it as a gift to the Marquis of Lansdowne, an English supporter of American independence. Gilbert Stuart copied his work, which is why visitors to the White House and the National Portrait Gallery can see the same painting.
ADMIRAL GEORGE COCKBURN
After leaving America’s shores in 1815, Rear Admiral George Cockburn became the jailer of Napoleon, who came out of exile for one hundred days only to lose the Battle of Waterloo and submit to exile again. Cockburn transported Napoleon to one of the most remote islands in the world, St. Helena off the west coast of Africa, in August 1815. Promoted to vice admiral a few years later and eventually full admiral, Cockburn won several elections to Parliament and served on the Admiralty Board for seventeen years. He became Rear Admiral of the United Kingdom and earned the highest possible promotion as Admiral of the Fleet in 1851. He died on August 19, 1853.
SENATOR RUFUS KING
Senator Rufus King became the presidential nominee for the Federalist Party in 1816 and lost to Secretary of War James Monroe. The dissolving Federalist Party never elected another presidential candidate. King was reelected to the Senate in 1818 and died on April 29, 1827. Charles King, his grandson, published King’s correspondence, and the New York Historical Society later acquired his library.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
After resigning his position as war secretary, John Armstrong retired to private life on his farm in Red Hook, New York, where he wrote several books. He was the last member of the Continental Congress to die and the only one to have his photograph taken. He passed away in 1843.
BENJAMIN LATROBE
Benjamin Latrobe was America’s first professional architect. After working to rebuild the U.S. Capitol following the 1814 fire, Latrobe resigned his position as Capitol architect in November 1817. He continued work on a design he had started years earlier in Baltimore for the first Catholic cathedral, called the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He also worked on the Baltimore Exchange and other buildings before traveling to New Orleans, where he’d designed a waterworks project similar to his Philadelphia waterworks plan. Latrobe died in Louisiana from yellow fever on September 3, 1820.
JOSHUA BARNEY
The city of Washington presented Joshua Barney with a sword of honor for his valor at the Battle of Bladensburg. Four years later, Barney died in Pittsburgh on December 1, 1818, from complications of the wounds he received at Bladensburg.
FRANCIS SCOTT KEY
After the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key continued his career as an attorney while writing other poems. Becoming district attorney for Washington in his later years, Key died in Baltimore on January 11, 1843. A collection of his poems was later published in 1857. Although “The Star-Spangled Banner” was popular in his lifetime, Key didn’t know that the song would forever seal him as a patriotic legend. By 1917 the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy had declared it as the military’s national anthem for ceremonial occasions. After a series of campaigns from patriotic groups, Congress designated “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the nation’s official anthem and President Herbert Hoover signed it into law on March 3, 1931.
WASHINGTON IRVING
Accomplished in both fiction and biography, Washington Irving gave America its literary identity. His short stories about Rip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow became classics in America and in Europe, which made Irving the first beloved American author recognized worldwide. Irving eventually served in diplomatic posts, first as a secretary to America’s top diplomat to England in 1830 and then in 1842 as America’s lead diplomat to Spain. Not long after completing a multivolume biography of George Washington, Irving died in 1859.
JOSEPH GALES
After the War of 1812, Joseph Gales continued his career as a newspaperman, editor, and printer. He expanded his publications in 1816 by using his press to print the Annals of Congress and the Register of Debates in Congress. He operated the National Intelligencer until his death in 1860.
JOHN RODGERS
After the War of 1812, John Rodgers became the first president of the Board of Naval Commissioners, a new organization dedicated to aiding the secretary of the navy. Except for a two-year stint leading a squadron in the Mediterranean, he held the position for most of the rest of his career and retired in 1837 and died in 1838. Three ships were named after him, and five generations of his descendants served in the U.S. military.
Acknowledgments
“Allow me again, to thank you, with all my heart, for the trouble you have taken, in many instances, to oblige and accommodate me,” Dolley Madison wrote in September 1809 to architect Benjamin Latrobe for his work on her behalf.
I feel the same way about several people who have made this book possible.
I’m grateful to Jonathan Clements, my longtime agent, for representing my books and screenplays. You’re a master at building and keeping relationships in the ever-changing worlds of publishing, media, film, and entertainment. Thanks for sticking with me, this true story, and steering me aright.
A big thanks to Alex Novak and all of the unsung heroes at Regnery Publishing and Salem Communications for publishing this book. I appreciate your commitment to keeping our nation’s history alive and for passing it along to generatio
ns of readers. Thanks as well to Daniel Allott for your editorial eye, journalistic savvy, and ability to work quickly and smoothly.
I’d also like to thank the White House Historical Association, which gave me an educational research fellowship in 2003 that started my book-writing career after I left my webmaster position at the White House.
Thank you also to Monica Lee Bellais for selecting Saving Washington, my screenplay adaptation of this book, for 2015’s Spotlight on Screenwriters, a limited-edition catalog produced by Women in Film and Video of Washington, D.C. (WIFV).
Most of all, many thanks and much love to my husband, John Kim Cook, for your love and patience. You’ve driven our family to Fort McHenry in Baltimore and Montpelier, the home of James and Dolley Madison, in Orange, Virginia. There on Constitution Day, September 17, we met reenactors for James and Dolley Madison, who gave me a few tips for this book and the screenplay adaptation. On the 200th anniversary of the burning of the White House, you helped our older sons make a spyglass at the Decatur House in Washington, D.C. Later that day you helped them make Dolley Madison’s recipe for ice cream and chased our toddler on the lawn of Dumbarton (Belle Vue), the historic house in Georgetown where Dolley took refuge after she fled the White House in 1814. Today the house is a museum and headquarters of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America. This event allowed me to talk with other historians and reenactors of Albert Gallatin and Dolley Madison. Most of all, you were a good sport to don a Napoleon costume for a reenactment ball at Gadsby’s Tavern and Restaurant in Alexandria in 2015 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Madison’s signing the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812.
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