In the White House
Jennings was born into slavery in 1799 at Montpelier, the Madison plantation in Orange County. His mother was a household slave and his father an English merchant named either Benjamin or William Jennings. When James Madison became president in 1809, ten-year-old Paul was chosen to be a footman in the president's mansion, which, during the Madison administration, came to be known as the White House. He was one of about ten domestic servants—including a few other slaves from Montpelier, slaves hired in Washington, free blacks, and whites—all of whom reported to the steward, a Frenchman named Jean-Pierre Sioussat.
After the British troops had reduced the White House and other public buildings in the city to blackened shells, the Madisons and their servants occupied a private residence nearby known as the Octagon. The Treaty of Ghent, ending the war, was signed on December 24, 1814, with word reaching the administration and staff on February 14. In his Reminiscences, Jennings writes that "we were crazy with joy." The butler liberally dispensed wine to all, including the servants and slaves. "I played the President's March on the violin," Jennings writes, "[Sioussat] and some others were drunk for two days, and such another joyful time was never seen in Washington."
James Madison's Valet
In the end, Jennings not only returned to Montpelier, the home of his mother, but was also given the more prestigious position of Madison's personal attendant, or valet. In this role, Jennings was responsible for Madison's wardrobe and toilette, which included shaving him every other day. He also served as Madison's travel companion, accompanying him on his sojourns to the University of Virginia, near Charlottesville, and to Thomas Jefferson's nearby home, Monticello. In 1829, he accompanied Madison to the state constitutional convention in Richmond.
In 1822, Jennings married Fanny Gordon, owned by one of Madison's neighbors, Jane Taylor Howard. He visited her once a week, on Sunday, and the couple had five children: Felix, Frances, John, Franklin, and William.
James Madison suffered from rheumatism, which crippled his body and often left him confined to his private room. As one of Madison's chief caregivers, Jennings cut the former president's food, lifted him into saltwater baths, and helped him walk. During this time, the bond between the two men apparently strengthened. George Tucker, a University of Virginia professor, visited Madison in his study and later wrote that he was impressed by the "trusty servant … seeming to identify himself with his master as to plans of management, and giving his opinions freely, though not offensively, as if conversing with a brother."
Madison died on June 28, 1836, and Jennings was present. "He ceased breathing as quietly as the snuff of a candle goes out," Jennings writes in his Reminiscences. It is the only eyewitness account of the event.
Freedom
After Madison's death, Jennings became Dolley Madison's butler and coachman. She spent part of each year in Washington, where she owned a home a block from the White House, an arrangement that further separated Jennings from his wife and children. During a visit back to Virginia in the spring of 1844, Jennings found his wife suffering from an unknown disease. In a letter to Dolley Madison dated April 23, Jennings wrote, "I found faney vary porley but she says she is better then she was in the winter." A few weeks later, Jennings wrote Madison's slave Sukey: "I am looking every day to see the last of her." Madison allowed Jennings to remain in Virginia during his wife's illness; Fanny Gordon Jennings died on August 4, 1844.
On August 8, Madison sold Montpelier to Henry Moncure. Of the approximately 100 slaves, about half were sold off the plantation, about 25 sold to Moncure, and the remaining 25 retained by Madison and her son, Payne Todd. Jennings stayed with Madison, who hired him out to President James K. Polk in 1845. On July 8, Dolley Madison drafted two documents, one of which arranged for Jennings to purchase his freedom for $200, the other to sell him to Todd for a yet-to-be-determined price. Though saved in her papers, neither document appears to have been made official. On July 17, Madison wrote her son that Polk had given Jennings leave to visit his family but that he had not returned.
Jennings had reason to expect his freedom from Madison, after her death if not sooner. In her will, dated February 1, 1841, or more than eight years before her death, she had written, "I give to my Mulatto man Paul his freedom," the only slave so treated. It is not clear whether, in the meantime, Madison allowed Jennings to work to raise money to purchase his freedom. Two reports attributed to William L. Chaplin written under a pseudonym that appeared in the abolitionist newspaper the Albany Patriot in 1848 suggest that she did not. After Madison brought Jennings to Washington, D.C., the correspondent wrote, "he worked a year and a half or two years on wages, which she took to the last red cent, leaving him to get his clothes by presents, night-work, or as he might." Worried he might be sold, Jennings, according to the correspondent, "induced a distinguished Northern Senator to advance for him the purchase-money, and give him time to work it out."
The Pearl Incident
In 1848, Daniel Bell, a free black man living in Washington, inspired an Underground Railroad mission designed to free his enslaved wife and children, who were in danger of being sold. With the help of free blacks and white antislavery activists, the plan expanded to include seventy-seven people. Jennings's involvement may have come through a connection with William Chaplin, a member of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society and the Washington correspondent for the Albany Patriot, which, at the time of the escape-planning, printed his two reports about Jennings. Those reports included the story of Ellen Stewart (referred to by the paper as Helen), a fifteen-year-old enslaved girl owned by Dolley Madison who ran away rather than be sold. (Her mother was the enslaved woman Sukey.) Jennings likely assisted her in her original flight and now included her among the thirty-eight men, twenty-six women, and thirteen children who hid belowdecks on the schooner Pearl on April 15, 1848.
Setting sail that night at ten o'clock, the Pearl, commanded by the white captain Daniel Drayton, encountered too-light winds on the Potomac River. And then, when the schooner finally reached the Chesapeake, the waters were too rough to enter the bay. In Washington, meanwhile, a black man named Judson Diggs, who may have held a grudge against one of the escapees, betrayed the plot. A posse of thirty men boarded the Pearl at two o'clock on the morning of April 17; the schooner was towed back to the capital, and the slaves and the three white crew members were detained. One crew member was released, while Drayton and Edward Sayres were tried, convicted, and sentenced to jail on seventy-seven counts of aiding in the escape of slaves.
Because Drayton declined to reveal the names of the plot's other conspirators, Jennings's role was never known to authorities. Ellen Stewart, with a number of the other captured slaves, was sold to a slave trader in Baltimore, Maryland. With the help of various abolitionists, money was raised and her freedom purchased. Dolley Madison sold Ellen's mother, Sukey, sometime after Ellen first escaped; her fate is unknown.
Reminiscences
In its April 1865 issue, the magazine featured an auction of historical objects that "belonged to the estate of the late Edward M. Thomas, a colored man." Among these was the document written by Daniel Webster granting Jennings his freedom, likely having been given or sold to Thomas by Jennings. His interest in Jennings piqued, the magazine's editor, John Gilmary Shea, ordered seventy-five copies of Jennings's narrative to be privately printed, each one containing an inlaid facsimile of the Webster document. Earlier in the year, Shea had issued a reprint of Bladensburg Races, a satirical poem about the Battle of Bladensburg, the British victory that led to the burning of Washington, D.C. (The battle was sometimes referred to as the "Bladensburg Races" because of fleeing American troops.) Shea labeled Jennings's Reminiscences as "Bladensburg Series, Number Two."
Including a two-paragraph preface by Russell, the account numbers fewer than 3,000 words, but it has proven to be an important source for historians on life inside the White House during the Madison administration. The White House Historical Association has described it as "the first memoir about the White House by one who had lived there."
Later Years
Major Work
- A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison (1865)
Time Line
-
1799 - Paul Jennings is born into slavery at the Madison plantation, Montpelier, in Orange County.
-
March 1809 - Ten-year-old Paul Jennings and a few other slaves owned by James Madison are selected for the domestic workforce at the president's house in Washington, D.C.
-
March 4, 1809 - James Madison begins his first term as the fourth U.S. president.
-
August 24, 1814 - As British troops march toward Washington, D.C., Dolley Madison and her domestic staff, including enslaved laborers. evacuate the White House.
-
September 8, 1814 - The president's mansion having been burned by British troops, the household of President James Madison and Dolley Madison moves into the Octagon a few blocks away.
-
December 24, 1814 - American and British negotiators sign the Treaty of Ghent (modern-day Belgium), ending the War of 1812.
-
February 14, 1815 - News of the Treaty of Ghent, signed at the end of December ending the War of 1812, reaches the James Madison administration and staff in Washington, D.C.
-
January 21, 1817 - In a letter to James Madison, Robert L. Madison apprises his uncle that three black slaves, including Paul Jennings, who served the elder Madison in the White House, are considering an escape attempt.
-
April 1817 - James Madison, his wife, Dolley, and members of their household return to their plantation, Montpelier, after living in Washington, D.C.
-
1820 - Paul Jennings, a slave owned by James Madison, becomes Madison's personal manservant, or valet.
-
1822 - Paul Jennings, a slave owned by James Madison, marries Fanny Gordon, an enslaved lady's maid to one of Madison's neighbors, Jane Taylor Howard. The couple will not live together but will have five children.
-
1829 - By this date, Paul Jennings, a slave owned by James Madison, and his wife, Fanny, have two children.
-
June 28, 1836 - James Madison dies at Montpelier. His slave Paul Jennings will later write, "He ceased breathing as quietly as the snuff of a candle goes out."
-
February 1, 1841 - In her will, Dolley Madison arranges for the disbursement of her property among family and friends.
-
1842 - About this year, William, enslaved son to Paul Jennings, a slave owned by Dolley Madison, and his wife Fanny, is born.
-
April 1844 - Paul Jennings, a slave owned by Dolley Madison, arrives at the Madison plantation, Montpelier, to visit his wife, Fanny, and children. He finds Fanny ill and remains until her death in August.
-
August 4, 1844 - Fanny Gordon Jennings, wife of Paul Jennings, a slave owned by Dolley Madison, dies at Montpelier.
-
August 8, 1844 - Dolley Madison sells the Madison plantation, Montpelier, to Henry W. Moncure.
-
Spring 1845 - Dolley Madison hires out her slave Paul Jennings to President James K. Polk at the White House.
-
July 17, 1845 - Dolley Madison drafts two documents, one of which arranges for her slave Paul Jennings to purchase his freedom, the other to sell Jennings to her son Payne Todd.
-
September 28, 1846 - Dolley Madison sells her slave Paul Jennings to Washington insurance agent Pollard Webb for $200.
-
March 19, 1847 - Senator Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, purchases and frees Paul Jennings with the understanding that Jennings will work off the $120 purchase price at the rate of $8 per month.
-
1847–1851 - Paul Jennings is employed as a butler and dining-room servant at the Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., homes of Senator Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts.
-
March 31, 1848 - In "Mrs. Madison and Her Slaves" and "Mrs. Madison's Slaves Again," the editors of the Liberator reprint two letters, signed Hampden, accusing Dolley Madison of selling her slave Paul Jennings and attempting to sell a fifteen-year-old enslaved girl.
-
April 15, 1848 - Seventy-seven enslaved men, women, and children attempt escape aboard the schooner Pearl, which sets sail from Washington, D.C., down the Potomac River toward the Chesapeake Bay. Light winds on the river and heavy winds near the bay prevent the schooner from reaching its destination.
-
April 17, 1848 - A posse of thirty men board the schooner Pearl near the mouth of the Potomac River and arrest seventy-seven enslaved men, women, and children attempting escape, as well as three white crewmen.
-
June 12, 1849 - Paul Jennings marries his second wife, Desdemona Brooks, a free black woman, in Alexandria County.
-
1851 - With a recommendation from Senator Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, Paul Jennings is hired as a "laborer" at the federal Department of the Interior's pension office, located in the Winder Building, in Washington, D.C.
-
August 1853 - William, son of Paul Jennings, is freed by his master, Charles Howard, of Orange County.
-
1854 - Paul Jennings buys a wood-frame house at L and Eighteenth streets in northwest Washington, D.C., for $1,000.
-
1854 - The pension office of the federal Department of the Interior relocates its offices from the Winder Building to the Patent Office Building, on the southeast corner of F and Seventh streets in Washington, D.C.
-
January 1856 - Franklin, son of Paul Jennings, is freed by his master, Charles Howard, of Orange County.
-
March 1856 - Charles Howard, of Orange County, dies, and the terms of his will free the slaves Frances and John, children of Paul Jennings.
-
January 1863 - "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison" appears in the Historical Magazine and Notes and Queries Concerning the Antiquities, History and Biography of America. The preface is signed "JBR," or John Brooks Russell, who helped Paul Jennings write his memoir.
-
1865 - A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison by Paul Jennings is privately published in book form by John Gilmary Shea.
-
1866 - Paul Jennings retires from the pension office of the federal Department of the Interior, in Washington, D.C.
-
September 13, 1870 - Paul Jennings prepares his will.
-
September 14, 1870 - Paul Jennings marries his third wife, Amelia Dorsey, of Maryland, at John Wesley A. M. E. Zion Church, in Washington, D.C.
-
May 20, 1874 - Paul Jennings dies at his home in Washington, D.C.
References
Further Reading
External Links
Cite This Entry
- APA Citation:
Taylor, E. D. Paul Jennings (1799–1874). (2016, February 3). In Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved from http://www.EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Jennings_Paul_1799-1874.
- MLA Citation:
Taylor, Elizabeth Dowling. "Paul Jennings (1799–1874)." Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 3 Feb. 2016. Web. READ_DATE.
First published: September 20, 2012 | Last modified: February 3, 2016