James Madison University - Index

James Madison University - Liberty & Learning - Index

liberty & learning
12 Madison quoted in Douglass Adair, “James Madison’s Autobiography,” The William and Mary Quarterly
2, no. 2 (1945): 197. Donald Robertson lived from 1717 until 1783.
13 The Mattaponi and the Pamunkey Rivers are tributaries of the York. Todd’s Bridge was a major
tobacco warehouse on the river south of Robertson’s school. Robinson Daingerfeld operated it for the merchants
McCall and Elliot of Glasgow.
14 Elizabeth S. Gray, “Donald Robertson and His School in King and Queen County,” The Bulletin
of the King and Queen County Historical Society of Virginia 14, 2. Today, nothing remains of Robertson’s
school, and the site is overgrown with trees and vegetation.
15 Douglas Adair quoted in Willard Thorp, The Lives of Eighteen from Princeton (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1946), 139. Robertson’s influence on his students was considerable. According to J. Handly
Wright, “Attesting to the quality of both the student body and the instruction, the Robertson school turned
out one President of the United States, two Virginia Governors, the father of another president, a Naval hero, a
father of a United States Supreme Court Justice, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and several senior
officers in the War for American Independence.” See Wright, “The Remarkable Scholars of Donald Robertson,”
The Bulletin of the King and Queen Historical Society.
16 Hutchinson, Papers of James Madison 16 March 1751-16 December 1779, 5. Apparently, Madison spoke
French with a Scottish accent, which made him difficult to understand.
17 David Mays quoted in Gray, “Donald Robertson and His School in King and Queen County,” The
Bulletin of the King and Queen County Historical Society of Virginia 14, 2-6 (1963): 5.
18 Donald Robertson died on January 30, 1783. According to his descendants, he was informed that day of
the ratification of the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War. “His joy and gratitude over this intelligence
were unbounded, and he remarked, ‘This is the end for which I have longed and prayed. Having lived to see the
independence of my country established, I am now satisfied.’ Then expressing weariness, he went into his bedroom
and lay down. Shortly thereafter one of the family followed him and discovered him lying dead upon his
bed.” William Kyle Anderson, Donald Robertson and His Wife Rachel Rogers (self-published manuscript, 1900),
23. Rachel Rogers Robertson lived on the estate with her two surviving children, Lucy and Isaac, until her death
in 1792. Lucy abandoned the homestead and moved to Kentucky while Isaac was enrolled at Princeton. Where
the Robertsons are buried is uncertain, but they most likely were interred at the Saint David’s Church (sometimes
referred to as the Cattail Church) in Aylett. There are no existing markers.
19 There were only eight colleges in the colonies at the time of the American Revolution: Harvard, the
College of William and Mary, Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, the College of New Jersey
(Princeton), King’s College (Columbia), the College of Rhode Island (Brown University), Queen’s College
(Rutgers), and Dartmouth. Only William and Mary was in the south.
20 There were some outstanding faculty members at the college, including George Wythe and William
Small. Madison’s cousin, the Reverend James Madison, was also an instructor at William and Mary and
later became the institution’s eighth president.
21 Philip Fithian quoted in Hunter Dickenson Farish, ed., Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian: A
Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion, 1773-1774 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983), 65.
Fithian’s journal is a delightful and revealing glimpse into life in colonial Virginia.
22 Madison quoted in Adair, 197.
23 Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biography (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1990), 27.
24 Madison to the Reverend Thomas Martin, August 10, 1769, in Hutchinson, Papers of James Madison
16 March 1751-16 December 1779, 43. This is the first letter from James Madison that is known to exist.
25 M.D. Peterson, ed., James Madison: A Biography in His Own Words, The Founding Fathers series (New
York: Newsweek, 1974), 20.
26 William Bradford to James Madison, March 1, 1773, in Hutchinson, Papers of James Madison 16
March 1751-16 December 1779, 80.
27 Madison to William Bradford, July 1, 1774, in Hutchinson, Papers of James Madison 16 March 1751-
16 December 1779, 114.
28 Madison to William Bradford, November 9, 1772, in Hutchinson, Papers of James Madison 16 March
1751-16 December 1779, 74.
29 William Bradford to James Madison, October 13, 1772, in Hutchinson, Papers of James Madison 16
March 1751-16 December 1779, 72-73.
30 Madison to William Bradford, June 19, 1775, in Hutchinson, Papers of James Madison 16 March 1751-
16 December 1779, 153.
28