Our Collection

At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Madison, Dolley (1768-1849) to Richard Cutts

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC03191 Author/Creator: Madison, Dolley (1768-1849) Place Written: [s.l.] Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 8 February 1840 Pagination: 1 p. : address : docket : free frank ; 25 x 20 cm Order a Copy

Asks for more time to repay her debt to her niece and Cutts' daughter, Mary Cutts, and blames her delay in paying on bad weather and the roads, which have caused others not to repay her. Mentions that P. (John Payne Todd, her son) is still in Richmond. States she is unable to do business until she can get abroad. Free franked by Dolley Madison. Signed DPM.

After the death of James Madison in 1836, John Payne Todd (Dolley's son from a previous marriage) squandered the family money; Dolley had to sell James Madison's papers to pay their debts.

Madison, Dolley, 1768-1849
Cutts, Richard, 1771-1845
Cutts, Mary, 1801-1882
Todd, John Payne, 1792-1858

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