James Madison University - Index

James Madison University - Liberty & Learning - Index

virginia historical society
piedmont, princeton, and an educated citizenry
The Madison family expanded rapidly. Over the ensuing decade, six of eleven
more children joined James and Nelly’s firstborn, who came to be known in
the family as Jemmy. 10 The original Mount Pleasant farmhouse quickly became
too small and crowded for such a large family, so, between 1763 and 1765, the
senior Madison supervised the construction of a more substantive and appropriate
home. Located just a short distance away from the original homestead, the
two-story brick mansion became
known as Montpelier and was
considered to be one of the most
impressive homes in the entire
piedmont region of Virginia. 11
A page from Donald Robertson’s journal listing
some of the books used for instruction
at his boarding school in King and Queen
County. Included in the inventory are such
works as Milton’s Paradise Lost, Plutarch’s
Lives, and Aesop’s Fables, as well as the Greek
classical histories of Thucydides and Herodotus.
Robertson was Madison’s teacher for five
years. He would later say of Robertson, “All I
have been in life I largely owe to that man.”
15
As a child, little Jemmy received
a rudimentary education from
his mother and grandmother. In
1762, at the age of eleven, he left
home to board with Donald Robertson,
a renowned educator who
had established a small school
on his modest farm in King and
Queen County. It proved to be a
fortuitous decision, because Madison
excelled under Robertson’s
tutelage. He would later remember
his first teacher as “a man of
extensive learning, and a distinguished
teacher.” 12
Donald Robertson had arrived
in Virginia in March 1753 and,
for the next five years, served as a
tutor on a plantation of John Baylor
in Caroline County. He eventually
settled in Drysdale Parish
on a 150-acre estate along the
banks of the Mattaponi River. 13
By the time he opened his school,
Robertson had acquired an exten-