1768-1849

Dolley Payne Todd was born in North Carolina and grew up in Virginia. Dolley’s family belonged to the religious group known as the Society of Friends, or Quakers. When the Quakers made it a church rule that owning slaves was wrong, Dolley’s family decided to free their slaves.

When she was 15 years old, Dolley moved to Philadelphia with her family. She had a big family: four brothers and three sisters!

Dolley married a young lawyer named John Todd, Jr. when she was around 20 years old. Dolley and John had two sons named John Payne and William Temple. After her first husband died during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, she married James Madison who later became president of the United States.

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