Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-03-25
PAYNE TODD.
The ProAigate Son Of Famous
Dolly Madison.
Received in European Courts as Of
Royal Blood.
The Sad Story of Wrecked Life That
Had Much Promise.

by old Washingtonians)
left the home of her sister, Mrs. George
Steptoe Washington, near Harpers
Ferry, where the wedding knot was
tied, and began the journey of hum
bred miles to her husbands home, an
atom of humanity nestled at her feet
in the old fashioned barouche, peering
out with great, wondering black eyes
at the strange scenes through which
they passed. This was Payne Todd,
the son of her first marriage, destined
to infuse into her life an ingredient so
bitter that those aware of its presence
marveled at the smiling face with
which it was quaffed. To the little
Philadelphia, who knew the world
only in it's brick and mortar aspect, the
freedom and expanse of Virginia
plantation was a delight, and during
his parents visits to town he always
begged to be allowed to remain with
his Grand mamma Madison" who at
ter her sons marriage removed to
wing of the building. where she main
tanned a separate establishment.
The 5000 acres attached to Mont
pelier belonged to the original Madison
estate, taken up three years after set
Element of Jamestown, and everything
within doors and without was of in
terest. The Declaration of Independ-
ence hung for years upon its walls
and the tiger lilies on the lawn grew
from seeds sent from La Grange by
Lafayette On this lawn the little boy
romped with his young aunt. Anna
Payne, then only IL years old, the sis
ter child" of Mrs. Madison and the
grandmother of Mrs. General Williams,
who died three years ago in Washing
ton, and who as Addie Cults and later
as Mrs. Stephen A. Douglas had a
national reputation for her beauty and
charm. There was q fascinating gar
den, too, at Montpelier, laid off by
Madison in imitation of the hall OF
Representatives, with horseshoe ter
races and parallelogram below. which
furnished an inexhaustible field for
Payne's explorations. 1t was fragrant
in season with the double pink OLE
ander blossoms, with which Mrs. Madi-
son loved to decorate her young
friends, and full of lucious fruit; and,
ingratiating himself with the French
gardener, the little boy fell heir to the
choicest specimens of these.
A negro butler more than 80 years
old with hair like well-carded lamb s
fleece who stood behind his grand
mothers chair, was another source OF
interest while the quarters, separated
from the dwelling by a leafy screen
where he heard weird songs and stories
and where colored mammies roasted
yams for him on cabin hearths, were
a powerful agent, drawing him often
down the woody path which led to
them.
The rigorous methods then employed
in the management of children made
the pendulum of maternal authority
swing too far in the opposite direction
and Payne, who soon exhibited the
faults which afterward assumed such
overweening proportions, was gen.
orally permitted to follow his own
sweet will. His stepfather, too, was
far more lenient to him than he would
have been to an own son, often quot
ing to his mother, when results were
beginning to sum up:
Errors, like straws, upon the surface
fow
Those who would seek for pearls must
dive below.
The grandmother alone seemed fully
to realize the importance of his plastic
period, and beguiling him into her
apartment set daily lessons for him to
learn, endeavoring to instruct him
further by reading aloud to him.
Payne, however. possessed a curious
mental sieve, which separated the
amusing and entertaining from the
dry and didactic, and the bear and In
dian stories and the boyish escapades
of his cousin, Patrick Henry. were re-
tanned, while the historical events and
their teachings, which these were
meant to season, passed quickly away.
After a time he was sent to school to
the bishop of Baltimore, where he was
associated with Mime. Bonaparte and
the members of the distinguished cir
Gle in which she moved, but with the
ease and polish which he thus ac-
uuired he contracted habits of ex-
travagance and dissipation which
chung to him through life, and eventu-
ally proved his ruin.
When his parents were installed at
the White House he Joined them there,
and, singularly handsome, with his
mothers magnetism, and the glamor
surrounding him as the Presidents son,
ne was sought after and fiattered, and
soon lost all taste for the simple pleas
ures at Montpelier, only going there
during the hunting season with parties
Of fashionable friends. ]
Aroused to the danger of his situa-
ton. Madison prevailed upon him to-
accompany the embassy to Europe to
treat for peace with the British repre-
sentatives at Client. There, however,
he was regarded as the prince of
America, the heir-apparent to foreign
throne, and admitted to royal circles,
from which the ambassadors were ex-
cluded. and fresh adulation was heaped
upon him.
Years afterward, when dissipation
had set it's stamp upon him, Henry
Clay met him on the streets of Wash
ington one morning, and, fixing a
keenly scrutinizing look upon his face,
said:
do you remember, when we were in
Russia together, how John Quincy
Adams and all the rest of us sat apart
in gallery and watched you dance
with the cars sister, we being de-
barred because we were not of the
blood royal?"
Upon his return from this foreign So
journ his mother fondly expected that
he would settle down to some useful
occupation, but he idled away his time,