Paul Jennings

Paul Jennings was born enslaved at James Madison’s Virginia plantation, Montpelier, in 1799.¹ As a child, Madison tasked Jennings with serving his young step-son John Payne Todd. Jennings learned to read and write while accompanying Todd to school and observing his lessons.² 

When Madison moved to the White House in 1809, he brought Jennings to fill the role of footman in the president’s household, meaning he performed a wide variety of duties including working as a dining room servant at the Madisons’ many social events, running errands for the president and first lady, and assisting with their travel.³ On August 24, 1814, as British soldiers approached Washington, D.C., First Lady Dolley Madison directed Jennings and two other White House workers, steward Jean-Pierre Sioussat and gardener Thomas McGrath, to save Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington.⁴ After the British burned the White House, Jennings and the rest of the Madison household moved to the nearby Octagon House, which served as the temporary Executive Residence. Several months later, when news of the peace treaty ending the War of 1812 reached Washington, an impromptu party erupted during which Jennings played “The President’s March” on the violin.⁵ After six months in the Octagon House, Jennings and the Madison household moved to another building in Washington, D.C., part of the “Seven Buildings,” while the White House was being rebuilt.⁶

As Madison’s term as president came to a close and the household prepared to return to Virginia, Jennings briefly self-emancipated. On January 21, 1817, the president’s nephew Robert wrote to Madison: “your Servants Jim, Abram & Paul” declared “that they never intended to return to Va [Virginia]: upon being asked what they meant to do, they replyed that their were Captain’s of Vessels who wanted Cooks & that they would enter into their service.”⁷ About two months later, former President Madison published an advertisement in a Washington, D.C. newspaper announcing that Jennings had escaped and offering a $50 reward for his arrest. The advertisement ran from March 14 through the end of April. Jennings eventually returned to Virginia and continued working for the Madisons.⁸ The only information about why and how Jennings returned comes from the memoir of Mary Cutts, niece of Dolley Madison, who stated that Jennings “sighed for freedom, and having sufficient money ran away to New York.” But when he ran out of money, Jennings allegedly wrote to Madison and expressed a desire to come back to Montpelier.⁹ 

Once back in Virginia, Jennings became Madison’s valet. “I was always with Mr. Madison till he died,” recalled Jennings, “and shaved him every other day for sixteen years.”¹⁰ After Madison’s death in 1836, Jennings continued working for Dolley and went with her when she moved to Washington, D.C. in 1837. She occasionally permitted him to return to Virginia to visit his wife, Fanny Gordon Jennings, an enslaved woman who lived on a plantation near Montpelier. Together they had five children before Fanny’s death in 1844.¹¹ In 1845, Dolley arranged for Jennings to work for President James K. Polk at the White House. Since Jennings was enslaved, Dolley received his wages from the Polks.¹² Jennings’s exact role in the Polk White House is unclear, though he likely worked as a dining attendant as he did for Dolley. In 1846, Dolley sold Jennings to Pollard Webb, an insurance agent in Washington, D.C. In March 1847, Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster purchased Jennings’s freedom from Webb for $120 on condition that Jennings pay Webster back by working for him.¹³ Afterwards, Jennings worked as a clerk in the Pension Office in the Department of the Interior and occasionally gifted small amounts of money to Dolley, who had by then fallen into poverty.¹⁴ 

Once free, Jennings purchased property in D.C. He helped organize the 1848 “Pearl Incident” in which seventy-seven enslaved people attempted unsuccessfully to escape Washington, D.C. via a ship named The Pearl.¹⁵ Jennings told family members that he also assisted the abolitionist cause throughout his life by forging “freedom papers” - documents asserting an African American was free - to help enslaved people escape captivity.¹⁶ In 1863, Jennings published a memoir of his time working for the Madisons in the White House titled A Colored Man’s Reminiscences of James Madison, widely considered the first White House memoir.¹⁷ He passed away on May 20, 1874, and was buried at D.C.’s Columbian Harmony Cemetery. Burials there were later disinterred during Metro construction, and moved to National Harmony Memorial Park Cemetery in Maryland.¹⁸ 

Thank you to the Papers of James Madison, to Hilarie M. Hicks, Senior Research Historian, James Madison's Montpelier, to Holly Shulman, editor of the Dolley Madison Digital Edition, and to Mary Alexander, a descendant of Paul Jennings, for providing research assistance with this biography.