Background
His mother remarried the following year, to the older James Madison, the future president of the United States. Todd died of typhoid fever less than three years after his mother"s death of old age.
His mother remarried the following year, to the older James Madison, the future president of the United States. Todd died of typhoid fever less than three years after his mother"s death of old age.
Saint Mary"s Seminary and University.
Madison adopted Todd at age 2 and tried to help him in what developed as a difficult life. Believed to be alcoholic, Todd was repeatedly jailed for shooting incidents, and ran up debts in gambling. John Payne Todd was the first son of Dolley Payne and John Todd Junior.
He had a younger brother, William Temple Todd.
The following year, his 26-year-old widowed mother married the future President James Madison, then 43. He adopted Payne. Madison sent Todd as a youth for eight years to Saint Mary"s Seminary, a Catholic boarding school in Baltimore, Maryland, but he seemed unsuited for academic work.
As an adult, Todd never settled into a career. Believed to be alcoholic, he was belligerent, and was repeatedly convicted of shooting incidents and sentenced to serve jail time for assaults and disruption of the peace.
Foreign a time, Madison assigned him to manage operations at Montpelier, but Todd was not successful.
Because of his problems, Todd contributed to his mother"s late life poverty, as she and Madison had sacrificed for him during their lives. Dolley Madison sold the family"s Montpelier plantation to cover his debts and gain some living expenses. But, she was still devoted to him.
Todd threatened to sue Cutts to gain more of his mother"s estate, all that was left from money she received for selling Madison"s papers to the Library of Congress.
She died at age 81. Todd survived his mother by two and a half years. She willed her remaining slaves to him.
He was nearly 60 when he died of typhoid fever on January 16, 1852 in Washington, District of Columbia. He is buried in the Congressional Cemetery. Payne Todd’s will provided for the manumission of all his slaves upon his death.
His debts delayed their release, but the Taylor family petitioned for freedom from James C. McGuire, administrator of the estate, which they were granted in 1853.
They continued to live in Washington, where Ralph Taylor had been a servant to Dolley Madison.