James Madison University - Index

James Madison University - Liberty & Learning - Index

liberty & learning
A depiction of the original Mount Pleasant
homestead. Ambrose Madison, the president’s
grandfather, settled in the Virginia piedmont in 1732. Within just a few months,
he allegedly was fatally poisoned by his slaves. The president’s father built a more
suitable mansion in the 1760s, and the Mount Pleasant site fell into disrepair.
Today, archaeology students from James Madison University have been involved
in efforts to rediscover the site’s earliest remnants.
There he gained the acquaintance of Eleanor “Nelly” Conway, and the couple married
in 1749. They made their home at Mount Pleasant, which by now Madison
owned outright in accordance with the terms of his father’s original will.
Perhaps because of Mount Pleasant’s isolation, Nelly chose to travel more than
fifty miles to her mother’s home in Port Conway to give birth to her first child.
There on March 16, 1751 (NS), according to the family Bible, James Madison
Jr. was born.
James Madison junr. Was born on Tuesday Night at 12 o’Clock it being the
last of the 5 th . & beginning of the 6 th . Day of March 1750-1 for god-Fathers Mr.
John Moore & Mr. Jonathn. Gibson & for God-Mothers Mrs. Rebecca Moore,
Miss Judith Catless and Miss Elizabeth Catlett. 9
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linda Boudreaux MontgoMery