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Paul Jennings—Enamoured with Freedom

Summary

The following information is part of an ongoing research project by Montpelier Director of Education Beth Taylor. The results of this project will be published in a monograph in 2010.

Paul Jennings was James Madison's enslaved manservant. He was part of the Madison household staff at the White House, and was Mr. Madison's personal attendant during his retirement and was present at his death at Montpelier. Jennings began his life as a slave on the Virginia plantation of a U.S. president, and ended it as a free man, employed by the U.S. government, and living in a thriving racially-mixed community in the nation's capitol city.

Along the way he helped rescue the portrait of George Washington before the British burned the White House, was freed by Senator Daniel Webster, became an abolitionist, gave an aged and impoverished Dolley Madison, his former owner, money from his own pocket, authored the first White House memoir, saw his sons fight with the Union Army in the Civil War, and died in northwest Washington at 75.

The life of Paul Jennings shows us a remarkable piece of previously unknown American history. It is a story of

Paul Jennings: An Inside View of History

Paul Jennings

Paul Jennings
Courtesy of Sylvia Jennings Alexander

Among the laborers at the Department of the Interior is an intelligent colored man, Paul Jennings, who was born a slave on President Madison's estate, in Montpelier, Va., in 1799. His reputed father was Benjamin Jennings, an English trader there; his mother, a slave of Mr. Madison, and the granddaughter of an Indian. Paul was a "body servant" of Mr. Madison, till his death, and afterwards of Daniel Webster, having purchased his freedom of Mr. Madison. His character for sobriety, truth, and fidelity, is unquestioned; and he was a daily witness of interesting events, I have thought some of his recollections were worth writing down in almost his own language.

—JBR, From the Preface to "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison" by Paul Jennings

African-Americans in the White House

Paul Jennings was born a slave of James Madison at his Virginia plantation, Montpelier, in 1799 when Madison was 48 and Dolley was 31. Jennings accompanied James and Dolley Madison to Washington in 1809 when Madison was sworn in as the fourth president of the United States.

When Mr. Madison was chosen President, we came on and moved into the White House; the east room was not finished, and Pennsylvania Avenue was not paved, but was always in an awful condition from either mud or dust. The city was a dreary place.

—From "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison" by Paul Jennings

Slaves were an integral part of White House life from the beginning. They helped build both the White House and the Capitol, and served the early Virginia presidents during their terms.

While Jennings was a slave for James Madison in the White House, he helped Dolley Madison break the frame and rescue the famous Lansdowne portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart from the British during the War of 1812. They escaped just before the soldiers arrived and ate their prepared meal, and then torched the White House. The rescued portrait now hangs in the East Room of the White House because of Dolley Madison and Paul Jennings.

The Madisons usually spent the hot summer months, when the government was in recess, back home at Montpelier. But not in 1814, when Washington itself was in peril of being attacked by the British. After initial optimism of the capital's safety, many residents evacuated Washington in mid-August as British troops threatened. As a precaution, the White House staff, including slave Paul Jennings, started packing up and shipping out valuables. Then, just after midnight on August 24, the president received a message from Secretary of State James Monroe: "The enemy are in full march on Washington." Mr. Madison rode off to inspect the defensive preparations. After her husband's departure, Dolley and her staff kept packing "cabinet papers" even while hopefully preparing dinner for guests, as planned. Bravely ignoring all warnings, she remained in the house.

Ultimately Dolley fled, but not until an urgent rider arrived with a message from Madison: "Clear out, clear out!" She still refused to depart until a full-length portrait of George Washington was taken down and safely spirited out of harm's way. "I have ordered the frame to be broken, and the canvass taken out," she wrote her sister. That night British troops dined on the Madisons' dinner before torching the home. The soldiers reportedly looted a portrait of Dolley—to show and brag about in London—but her patriotic respect for history spared the prized portrait of the "Father of the Country" a similar fate.

—From James Madison's Montpelier, © The Montpelier Foundation, 2008

Mr. Madison's Death

After two presidential terms the Madison household withdrew in 1817 to their Virginia Piedmont plantation. In 1820, in the prime of life, Jennings was promoted to the position of James Madison's manservant at Montpelier. As manservant, Jennings was responsible for Mr. Madison's wardrobe and toilet, and accompanied him on his travels to Charlottesville and Richmond.

As the years went by and Mr. Madison's health failed, he leaned on Jennings's arm for support. Jennings was present when the end came for the ex-president.

I was always with Mr. Madison till he died, and shaved him every other day for sixteen years. For six months before his death, he was unable to walk, and spent most of his time reclined on a couch; but his mind was bright, and with his numerous visitors he talked with as much animation and strength of voice as I ever heard him in his best days. I was present when he died. That morning Sukey brought him his breakfast, as usual. He could not swallow. His niece, Mrs. Willis, said, "What is the matter, uncle Jeames?" "Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear." His head instantly dropped, and he ceased breathing as quietly as the snuff of a candle goes out. He was eighty-four years old, and was followed to his grave by an immense precession of white and colored people.

—From "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison" by Paul Jennings

From Slavery to Freedom

The widow Dolley returned to Washington in 1837 with a few household servants including Jennings. This meant separation from his wife Fanny and their children in Orange. There had been five all told: Felix, William, Frances, John, and Franklin. During a visit in the spring of 1844, he found his wife ailing. "Pore Fanney," he wrote to fellow slave, Sukey, back at the city house, "I am looking every day to see the last of her." Fanny Jennings died on August 4, 1844—the same year Dolley sold Montpelier.

Back in Washington, Jennings had reason to expect his freedom from Dolley one day. She had written as much in her will of 1841: "I give to my mulatto man Paul his freedom"—the only slave so treated. But Dolley faced hard economic times. She rented Jennings to President James Polk in 1845 and, according to an abolitionist newspaper that had picked up Jennings's story, kept the money "to the last red cent."& Indeed, despite the terms of her will, it was reported that Jennings, fearing Dolley's "wants might urge her to sell him to the traders, insisted she should fix the price, which he would contrive to pay, whatever he might be."

Jennings instincts were correct. Dolley sold him in September 1846 to Pollard Webb, an insurance agent in the city. The price was low at $200; perhaps Jennings had paid some of his purchase price to Dolley and this was the balance of his worth. Only six months later, Jennings was purchased by Senator Daniel Webster who wrote up the following arrangement, "I have paid $120 for the freedom of Paul Jennings; he agrees to work out the same at $8/month, to be furnished with board, clothes, washing…his freedom papers I gave to him."

Free Black Community Established in Northwest Washington, D.C.

Jennings was now a free man. He would remain an important member of the free black community of northwest Washington for the rest of his days.

In 1848, he acted with other abolitionists to plot a major, ultimately unsuccessful, escape attempt to the north of 77 slaves on a schooner named Pearl.

Prior to Dolley Madison's death in Washington in 1849, she found herself nearly destitute. Paul Jennings then found himself in the position of aiding his former owner.

Mrs. Madison was a remarkably fine woman. She was beloved by every body in Washington, white and colored…In the last days of her life, before Congress purchased her husband’s papers, she was in a state of absolute poverty, and I think sometimes suffered for the necessaries of life. While I was a servant of Mr. Webster, he often sent me to her with a market-basket full of provisions, and told me whenever I saw anything in the house that I thought was in need of, to take it to her. I often did this, and occasionally gave her small sums from my own pocket, though I had years before bought my freedom of her.

—From "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison" by Paul Jennings

In 1849, Jennings remarried. His new wife was a mulatto woman from Alexandria, Desdemona Brooks, free because she was the daughter of a white woman.

Jennings continued to work for Daniel Webster, who in 1851 issued his former dining room servant a recommendation ("honest, faithful and sober") which Jennings presented to acquire a job at the Pension Office in the Department of the Interior. Jennings worked as a government employee—albeit laborer—for about 15 years.

The First White House Memoirist

At the Pension Office, in 1862, Jennings met a new co-worker from Boston, John Brooks Russell. Russell, an antiquarian and contributor to "The Historical Magazine and Notes and Queries Concerning the Antiquities, History and Biography of America" found Jennings's story of his association with President Madison fascinating. In January 1863, "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison" appeared in the magazine. Russell identified himself only as JBR and submitted the history Jennings shared with him "in almost his own language." Two years later the Reminiscences were published in book form and today are well known to scholars.

In the 1860s Jennings reconnected in Washington with his surviving children. In 1854 he purchased a lot on L Street, near 18th Street, NW, for $1,000. He lived at 1804 L Street with his son John, while daughter Frances and her two sons lived next door . Sons John, Franklin, and William all joined the Union cause in the Civil War. Franklin later became a farmer in Dumfries, Virginia. William died before his father. In his 1870 will, the twice-widowed Jennings and grandfather of nine, referred to a new wife-to-be. In fact he married Amelia Dorsey on September 14 that same year.

Paul Jennings died at home in May of 1874, bequeathing a house and prized property in northwest Washington, D.C. to his sons John and Franklin, a gentle close to a long and eventful life with many chapters.

The descendants of Paul Jennings continued to thrive in the growing Black community of Washington, D.C. and surrounding area.