Timeline

Below is a timeline of Montpelier and James Madison.

1723	King George I grants to Ambrose Madison and Thomas Chew a patent to 4,675 acres in what will become Orange County. Both Madison and Chew had married daughters of Col. James Taylor of nearby "Bloomsbury." Ambrose's marriage to Frances, Taylor's eldest daughter, was in 1721. The two brothers-in-law ultimately effect a division of their patent.
1732	Late spring/early summer. Ambrose and family move to the patent lands, known generally as "Mount Pleasant." The Mount Pleasant house was near the existing Madison Family Cemetery, and archaeologists have now located the site. Ambrose Madison dies on August 27. One slave is tried and executed for poisoning him. Two others are found guilty and punished as accomplices. The widow, Frances Taylor Madison, retains and manages the plantation until their eldest son, James [Sr.], comes of age. (He had been born in 1723.)
1749	September 15. James Madison [Sr.] marries Nellie Conway (b. 1732, Port Conway, King George County).
1751	March 16. James Madison, Jr., is born at Port Conway, the first of 12 children, seven of whom would survive to adulthood. (Old-style birth date is 03/05/1750.) Siblings will be Francis, Ambrose, Nelly Madison Hite, Sarah Catlett Madison Macon, William, and Frances Taylor Madison Rose.
1762	Madison begins boarding school kept by Donald Robertson, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, in neighboring King and Queen County.
Early 1760s	The brick structure forming the core of the present Montpelier mansion is built. Madison remembers helping move some of the smaller items from the old house to the new house.
1767	Madison begins to be tutored at home by the Reverend Thomas Martin, himself an alumnus of the College of New Jersey at Princeton.
1768	May 20. Dolley Payne is born during her family's stay at a North Carolina Quaker farming community.
1769	Madison enters the College of New Jersey at Princeton. John Witherspoon is president of the college. Madison lives in Nassau Hall and studies Greek and Latin literature, science, moral philosophy, rhetoric, logic, and mathematics.
1772	Madison returns to Montpelier in April. He worries about his health while continuing to read law and study government. Espouses cause of religious freedom.
1775	Madison serves as a colonel in the Orange militia and as a member of the local Committee of Safety. (His father is the leader of both groups.) He never serves in the field because of weak health.
1776	Madison is elected a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention and the General Assembly. When Thomas Jefferson returns from drafting the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, the two men meet in Williamsburg and begin a 50-year collaboration and friendship.
1780	By this time, the Madisons' plantation—home to approximately 100 slaves—is generally known as "Montpelier." Madison travels to Philadelphia as a delegate to the Continental Congress.
1783	Madison plays major role in fashioning compromise measures designed to provide Congress with adequate revenue, and to amend the revenue clauses of the Articles of Confederation. Madison courts Catherine Floyd, 16-year-old daughter of New York delegate William Floyd. Returns to Montpelier on December 5, for the first time since March 1780.
1784	Madison serves in the Virginia House of Delegates in Richmond before and after a trip to New York with the Marquis de Lafayette. They go to Fort Schuyler in the Mohawk Valley to observe negotiations between American commissioners and the Iroquois.
1785	Madison returns to Montpelier in February and remains there until August. Writes "Memories and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments" in June.
1786	Back in the Virginia House of Delegates, Madison secures passage of revised version of the statute of religious freedom drafted by Jefferson in 1777. He returns to Montpelier in March and researches histories of ancient and modern confederacies. Attends conference on commercial regulations in Annapolis. Returns to Virginia with James Monroe and visits Washington at Mount Vernon before taking his seat in the Virginia Assembly. He is appointed one of the Commonwealth's delegates to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention.
1787	One of the first delegates to arrive at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Madison promotes what will become known as the "Virginia Plan." He serves as the chief architect of a proposed constitution that would provide for a strong central government. The Convention adopts a new constitution on September 17, subject to its being ratified by a minimum of nine states. Madison then travels to New York where he begins writing various numbers of the Federalist essays, known as The Federalist Papers, in support of that constitution.
1788	March. Madison meets with Baptist Elder John Leland in Orange County. He assures Leland and his numerous followers that if the new constitution is ratified, he will see to it that a Bill of Rights amending the Constitution is adopted. The bill will include specific language granting freedom of religion. Madison's March 25 election as a delegate to the Virginia Ratification Convention is thus assured. In June, as a delegate to the Virginia Ratification Convention, Madison thwarts the efforts of Patrick Henry and others to have that body reject the proposed National Constitution.
1789-1791	U.S. Congressional Delegate Madison engineers the adoption of the first amendments to the new Constitution. They are known collectively as the "Bill of Rights." (Madison proposed 17 amendments on 09/25/1789. Twelve were approved by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. Ten of those were ratified by the required number of states by 12/15/1791; an eleventh was finally ratified in 1992 as the 27th amendment.)
1791	Madison travels with Thomas Jefferson to visit northern New York and Vermont.
1794	September 15. After a four-month courtship, Madison marries the Philadelphia widow Dolley Payne Todd, mother to two-year-old son, Payne.
1797-1800	James and Dolley add four rooms to his parents' house, resulting in a "duplex" housing two generations of Madisons.
1801	February 27. Madison, Sr., dies. James, Jr., inherits Montpelier. His mother, Nelly, has life rights to the estate.
1801-1809	Madison serves as secretary of state in President Jefferson's administration.
1809-1812	Madison's second renovation and addition project at Montpelier adds the flanking wings with kitchens below and a back colonnade; also a neoclassical temple over an ice house is constructed to the north of the house.
1809-1817	Madison serves as fourth president of the United States. During the War of 1812, the White House is burned.
1817	The Madisons retire from public life to Montpelier.
1824	The Marquis de Lafayette tours America as the "Nation's Guest" and visits Montpelier in November.
1826	Madison succeeds his recently departed friend Jefferson as the rector of the University of Virginia.
1829	Nellie Conway Madison ("Mother Madison") dies aged 97 on February 11, at Montpelier. Madison stays in Richmond for three months serving as a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention.
1836	June 28. James Madison, the last surviving "Founding Father," dies.
1837	Dolley sells the first set of Madison's papers and moves to Washington, leaving the "management" of Montpelier to her son, Payne Todd. Todd, an alcoholic and a gambler, moves many Montpelier items to his place, Toddsberth, and over time disposes of most of them to pay debts.
1844	Dolley allows Montpelier to be sold to pay debts. She continues to live in Washington in near-poverty. Montpelier passes through a number of hands during the ensuing years.
1849	July 12. Dolley Payne Todd Madison dies in Washington, D.C., at age 81. Later her remains are reinterred in the Montpelier Family Cemetery.
1901	William duPont (Pierre duPont's great-grandson), residing in England at this time with his wife Annie and two children, buys Montpelier. Significant additions and renovations are made to the main house. Many farm buildings are added.
1927	William duPont dies, leaving a life estate in Montpelier to his daughter, Marion, with the property to go to her children, or if she has none, then to her brother's children. An internationally known horsewoman, Marion develops Montpelier's extensive equine facilities.
1983	Mario duPont Scott dies, and her heirs deed Montpelier to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She also requested that the mansion be restored to its Madison-era architectural appearance.
1984	The National Trust acquires title to Montpelier.
1987	Montpelier is opened to the public. It is the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution.
2000	While still a National Trust property, the site is now administered by The Montpelier Foundation.
2003	Following an 18-month state-of-the-art study to determine the current condition of the mansion and the feasibility of restoring it to the Madison era, work begins on the restoration of the mansion to its c. 1820 appearance.
2006	The restoration of the mansion exterior is completed.
2008	The interior architectural restoration is completed.