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The first girl in her family, Dolley Payne was born on May 20, 1768, in the Quaker settlement of New Garden, North Carolina, in Guilford County to Mary Coles Payne and John Payne Jr, both Virginians who had moved to North Carolina in 1765.[2] Mary Coles, a Quaker, had married John Payne, a non-Quaker, in 1761. Three years later, he applied and was admitted to the Quaker Monthly Meeting in Hanover County, Virginia, where Coles' parents lived, and they reared their children in the Quaker faith.

By 1769, the Paynes had returned to Virginia,[2] and young Dolley grew up in comfort at her parents' plantation in rural eastern Virginia and became deeply attached to her mother's family. Eventually she had three sisters: Lucy, Anna, and Mary; and four brothers: Walter, William Temple, Isaac, and John.

In 1783, following the American Revolutionary War, John Payne emancipated his slaves,[2] as did numerous slaveholders in the Upper South.[3] Some, like Payne, were Quakers, who had long encouraged manumission; others were inspired by revolutionary ideals. From 1782 to 1810, the proportion of free blacks to the total black population in Virginia increased from less than one percent to 7.2 percent, and more than 30,000 blacks were free.[4]

Payne moved his family to Philadelphia, where he went into business as a starch merchant, but the business had failed by 1789. He died in October 1792 and Mary Payne initially made ends meet by opening a boardinghouse, but the next year she took her two youngest children, Mary and John, and moved to western Virginia to live with her daughter Lucy and her new husband, George Steptoe Washington, a nephew of George Washington.

In January 1790, Dolley Payne had married John Todd, a Quaker lawyer in Philadelphia. They quickly had two sons, John Payne (called Payne) and William Temple (born July 4, 1793[5]). After Mary Payne left Philadelphia in 1793, Dolley's sister Anna Payne moved in with them to help with the children.

In August 1793 a yellow fever epidemic broke out in Philadelphia, killing 5,019 people in four months,[6] including Dolley's 29-year-old husband, their 3-month-old son William Temple – both on October 24, 1793 – and her husband's parents.[7][2] By mid-September 20,000 people had fled the city. At age 25 Dolley Todd was a widow with her young son Payne to support.

Dolley Payne Todd and James Madison, who represented Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives (the capital met in Philadelphia from 1790 to 1800), likely encountered each other at social events in the temporary federal capital. Some sources state that Aaron Burr, a longtime friend of Madison's since their student days at the College of New Jersey (now called Princeton University), stayed at a rooming house where Dolley also resided, and it was Aaron's idea to introduce the two. In May 1794, Burr made the formal introduction between the young widow and Madison, who at 43 was a longstanding bachelor 17 years her senior. A brisk courtship followed, and by August, Dolley accepted his marriage proposal. As he was not a Quaker, she was expelled from the Society of Friends for marrying outside her faith. They were married on September 15, 1794, and lived in Philadelphia for the next three years.[8]

In 1797, after eight years in the House of Representatives, James Madison retired from politics. He returned with his family to Montpelier, the Madison family plantation in Orange County, Virginia. There they expanded the house and settled in. When Thomas Jefferson was elected as the third president of the United States in 1800, he asked Madison to serve as his Secretary of State. Madison accepted and moved Dolley, her son Payne, her sister Anna, and their domestic slaves to Washington. They took a large house, as Dolley believed that entertaining would be important in the capital.[9]

Dolley Madison worked with the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe to furnish the White House, the first official residence built for the president of the United States. She sometimes served as widower Jefferson's hostess for official ceremonial functions.[10]

In the approach to the 1808 presidential election, with Thomas Jefferson ready to retire, the Democratic-Republican caucus nominated James Madison to succeed him. He was elected President, serving two terms from 1809 to 1817, and Dolley became the official First Lady.[clarification needed] She was renowned for her social graces and hospitality, and contributed to her husband's popularity as president. She was the only First Lady given an honorary seat on the floor of Congress, and the first First Lady (and first American) to respond to a telegraph message.[11] In 1812, Madison was re-elected. This was the year that the War of 1812 began with Great Britain.