James and Dolley Madison (26 page)

At her dinner parties, Dolley made certain that her husband's talkative and charming secretary, Edward Coles, her cousin, sat across the table from her so that the two of them could keep the conversation flowing. When Coles was not there, she made certain she sat a personable wife of a guest in that seat to achieve the same purpose. Everything about Dolley's balls, parties, and dinners was carefully orchestrated.

Coles helped the Madisons in many ways, in addition to working as the president's secretary. He stayed close to the president during parties and brought him over to people Madison needed to see for political purposes, making the meeting seem very casual. Coles was sent to parties at foreign ministries to mingle with guests and pick up political news. He was asked to befriend as many important people in the capital as he could to gather information for the Madisons and to spread it for them. Some men kept Coles on their
regular, once-a-week dinner list, and others had his name on their regular party list. Young Coles, aged twenty-three, also worked with Madison in patronage appointments and was befriended by many congressmen because of his power to find jobs for their friends and relatives. He met famous men, such as steamship inventor Robert Fulton, who fumed to him about his woes with the US Patent Office. Coles was “a thorough gentlemen and one of the best-natured and most kindly affectioned men it has ever been my fortune to know,” wrote William Preston, a guest at the White House, as a young man.
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The president liked Coles. He decided early on to use him as a liaison between political foes and allies in different states. He sent him on one trip to Philadelphia and another to Boston to listen to political figures and give them presidential messages. On his Boston trip, at the special behest of Madison, he even visited former president John Adams in Quincy to give him a message from his enemy, Jefferson, about the disputed election of 1800. Adams then wrote Jefferson. The two became friends, and their famous correspondence began. Later, Madison sent Coles on a sensitive mission to Russia.

All of the guests at the White House noted that the guest list had grown considerably since Madison was inaugurated and the parties were far larger than those when Jefferson was president and those at Madison's private home when he served as secretary of state. Before Madison became president, Dolly hosted two or three parties a week at their home or at the White House and attended three or four more at the homes of friends or at foreign embassies. It was not unusual to attend six or seven parties in a single week. Many residents called Dolley's White House parties her “squeezes” because of the size of the crowds (you had to “squeeze” your way in). Phoebe Morris and her brother went to a party there in 1812 when they arrived in town and were startled at the number of people in attendance, all dressed in their finest clothes. “It was a great day there. The house was crowded with company from top to bottom, the chambers and every room was occupied with Ladies and Gentlemen and all descriptions of persons,” said Phoebe.
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William Preston, who lived in the White House for a while, had the same impression. He wrote that “there was a multitude of carriages at the door. Many persons were going in and coming out, and especially many in grand regimentals. Upon entering the room there were fifteen or twenty people…around the room was a blaze of military and naval officers in brilliant uniforms.”
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Dolley's social life extended to the Washington racetrack, built by her friend the architect William Thornton. He and her husband were the co-owners of a horse named Wild Medley. Other Washingtonians owned horses, too, some of which cost them $10,000 to purchase. The racing season took place in the
autumn, as in other major cities. Thousands of people gathered for the races and bet heavily on the outcomes. Many parties were held around the racetrack, where fans gathered on horseback and in carriages. Evening parties were held at the clubhouse at the racetrack, too. The Madisons thoroughly enjoyed each racing season. “The whole ground within the circus was spread over with people on horseback, stretching round full speed, to different parts of the circus, to see the race…between 3,000 and 4,000 people…black and white and yellow, of all conditions, from the President of the United States to the beggar in his rags, all ages and both sexes,” wrote one regular race goer.
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The First Lady was seen as a literary light, and authors continually sent first editions of their works to her at the White House. Writers dedicated books and poems to her. “Your character was not unknown to him. Of the greatness of your heart, he has heard much; but of the faculties of your mind he has heard much more. Always an admirer of intellectual worth and mental excellence, he would experience an unspeakable gratification in having an opportunity to evince the admiration he feels for your character,” wrote one poet to her of a friend.
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Writer David Warden not only dedicated his new book to the First Lady but also sent over a copy for her library. One playwright dedicated his latest drama to her.
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Her husband had been absorbed with books all of his life, but few knew of Dolley's own passion for reading. She had her own library when she was married to John Todd, and she brought all of her books with her to Montpelier. Over the years, she and her husband had expanded their library into one of the largest private libraries in the country. Her sister Mary wrote that the Montpelier library was not “only lined with bookcases, but the center so filled with them that there was only just room enough to pass among them. Books and pamphlets were piled up everywhere, on every available chair and table.”
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Dinner guests and friends were always surprised at the number of books Dolley had read at Montpelier and in the White House, in addition to all the newspapers she consumed. Dozens of people in Washington had loaned her books and had notes back from her that showed she had read them. She was, by the time she became First Lady, one of the best read people in the country. Sarah Gales Seaton, whose husband followed Samuel Smith as the coeditor of the
National Intelligencer
, pulled women aside at White House dinner parties to tell them about lengthy conversations she had had with Dolley about books.
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Joseph Dennie, a magazine editor, put Dolley on one of his covers and told a friend that he could not believe the easy way that she slid into conversations on any topic about books. Guests at the White House always noticed that when she arrived at a party, she always had a book in her hand (
Don Quixote
was her favorite).
Later, a statue erected in her honor at the Smithsonian Institution showed Dolley holding a book. Dolley also was a member of a small book club with her sisters and relatives. They exchanged favorite volumes with each other all of their lives. She asked her son, who traveled extensively, to buy books for her in European capitals, and sometimes she sent him a list of specific titles she was interested in. She asked friends to do the same.

The First Lady was the recipient of an enormous string of gifts from public figures, Washington residents, merchants, and their wives. Interior decorator Latrobe's wife was always buying Dolley new turbans in whatever city she visited and mailed them to her in Washington. Betsy Patterson Bonaparte, one of her social friends, bought hats, stockings, and dresses and sent them to the White House as gifts. Dolley received gifts from very prominent people, too, such as John Jacob Astor, who forwarded to her expensive fur hats. One of the strangest gifts she received was a fourteen-pound beetroot plant from France stuffed in a wooden crate, which was sent by Ambassador Joel Barlow, who called it her “oddest present ever.” People did not give her gifts for favors; they did it because they liked her. A woman who gave her a cap told her that “I hope that you will wear it if only once & think of one that always thinks of you with great affection.”
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She also became famous for always carrying snuff with her. It annoyed many, though. “Mrs. Madison is still pretty, but, oh, that unfortunate propensity to snuff-taking!” complained Aaron Burr.
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That combination of intellectual achievement, ebullient personality, and social graces made Dolley an extraordinarily successful First Lady. Harriet Martineau wrote that “for a term of eight years she administered the hospitalities of the White House with such discretion, impartiality and kindliness that it is believed she gratified every one and offended nobody. She is a strong minded woman, fully capable of entering into her husband's occupations and cares; and there is little doubt that he owed much to her intellectual companionship, as well as to her ability in sustaining the outward dignity of his office.”
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One problem Dolley encountered in 1809 was her weight. After eight years as both hostess for her husband and the president, she had wined and dined guests at well over a thousand parties and dinners, all featuring gourmet meals and a never-ending stream of exotic desserts, such as multiflavored ice creams. She had put on twenty pounds or so in those years and now, in 1809, found herself more careful in picking out clothing that hid her weight. Two years later, she started to lose some of her hearing. In a panic, she wrote her sister that “the deafness continues & distresses me beyond anything that ever ailed me.”
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Mrs. Madison stayed clear of any public connections to politics, preferring
to lobby for her husband and his causes at home. She told a friend, “the mornings are devoted to Congress. where all delight to listen to the violence of evil spirit. I stay quietly at home (as quietly as one can be who has so much to feel at the expression for and against their conduct).”
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At home, though, behind the closed doors of the White House, Dolley was a full participant in national politics. She advised her husband on the issues of the day and, more important, helped him pick cabinet members and government workers, always reminding him to look at a man's total background, not just his political bent. Thanks to her, Madison wound up with a hardworking team that did not stir much controversy in the early years of his term. James Blaine, who would later become secretary of state, wrote “Mrs. Madison saved the administration of her husband, held him back from the extremes of Jeffersonism and enabled him to escape from the terrible dilemma of the War of '12.”
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Dolley always knew what was going on in the political world through her husband. She often asked him to tell her more about politics in his letters to her and, in nearly all of them, reminded him that she would not reveal anything he said—and as far as one can tell, she was true to her word. “I wish you would indulge me with some information respecting the war with Spain and the disagreement with England which is so generally expected,” she wrote. Then she added in the next breath, “you know I am not much of a politician, but I am extremely anxious to hear (as far as you think proper) what is going forward in the cabinet,” she wrote the Madison in 1805. She wrote about politics to sister Anna, too, and Anna kept her views secret. For instance, at the end of the summer of 1808, when the embargo against England was a hot national issue, Dolley wrote her sister, “the President and Madison have been greatly perplexed by the remonstrances from so many towns to remove the Embargo. You see they refer to Congress, and the evading it is a terrible thing. Madison is uneasy.”
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Dolley smiled broadly to all, but behind that smile could be petty grudges that she held against people, even longtime friends. For example, there was a feud she and her husband tumbled into with architect Thornton, who sold them their first house in Washington, introduced them to the capital social scene, and for a time co-owned racehorses with the president. The Madisons drifted from him, though. In March 1817, just after the Madisons left the capital when James's second term ended, Thornton wrote the president that “I have long had to lament a marked distance and coldness towards me, for which I cannot account, and am the more affected by it, because we once enjoyed the happiness of being considered as among your friends. It would have been kind to have mentioned any cause of dissatisfaction rather than wound us by exhibiting to the world our misfortune in the loss of your friendship and esteem.”
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Sometimes Dolley snapped responses to questions and let her true feelings out. At one party, she was involved in a discussion with several women about the character of a woman no one seemed to like. Something was said to Dolley and she sneered, “Oh, she's a hussy.” She would tell others that certain people were dull, were tedious, or bored you with endless “instructions” on how to live. She said of one woman that “it is in her power to be kind and perhaps useful to you, but if she is ever offended in any way she is bitter. It is best for us, my dear, to beware of ‘most everybody' as I have often said.”

Dolley could be biting. She had a sharp tongue, and pen, and she had used them since she was a teenager. In 1788, as a young woman, she wrote a friend about Philadelphia that “this place is almost void of anything novel.” She told Anna Thornton of Thomas Jefferson's grandson that he was “a fine one, but as cross as you could wish anything to be.” She wrote her husband in 1805 from Philadelphia that the impression of French ambassador Louis-Marie Turreau “was a sad one. He is the fighting husband. [Friends] said the Americans hate him.”
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The gossip of her friends was just as scathing as her own. Sally McKean, who married the Spanish ambassador, told Dolley that “Harper has made the most ridiculous speech in the world…the fool.” About President Adams, she wrote that “old Adams' speech, or rather Old Beelzebub's, many people who went to hear him were so amazed at it that they scarce believed their own ears.” McKean could be acidic. She said of an acquaintance, “that old, what shall I call her, with her hawk eyes, gave out that the weather was too warm and it would affect her nerves…she is not young and confounded ugly.” She added that the woman's family was eager to have a fuss made over them in Boston, “for, dear knows, they have had none made over them here.” Another friend of Dolley's, Dolley Cole Beckwith, told Mrs. Madison that “I can almost see and hear Mrs. Duvell set shuffling her cards with her turban and frieze slipped to the back of her head and her false jaws working.”
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