Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 07.djvu/232

 MADISON

MADISON

A few days later she returned to Washington, where she found her home in ashes. The Presi- dent followed the next day and they rented the house called the "Octagon" owned by Colonel Taylor, where they resided until the White House "was rebuilt. In 1817, upon the expiration of President Madison's second term, they returned to Montpelier, where she lived in retirement. Con- gress conferred on her the franking privilege and voted her a seat upon the floor of the senate. She removed to Washington one year after her husband's death and again entered society. She died in Washington, D.C., July 12, 1849.

MADISON, George, governor of Kentucky, was born in Augusta county, Va., in 1763 ; son of John and Agatha (Strother) Madison, and brother of James Madison, first bishop of Vir- ginia. He removed to Kentucky when a boy and as early as 1780 was a soldier in the militia organ- ized to repel the attacks of the Indians. He led a company in the force of General St. Clair and in the cavalry force of Maj. John Adair. While second in command of a company of mounted volunteers he was wounded Nov. 6, 1792, near Fort St. Clair. His bravery and discipline gained for him the rank of major and he served under General Winchester in the northwestern army, taking part in the battle of Jan. 18, 1813, near Frenchtown. Four days later he was taken prisoner in the defeat on the Raisin river, and in 1814 was sent to Quebec and released. He re- turned to Kentucky after the close of the war and made his home in Paris. He served as audi- tor of public accounts for twenty years and was elected governor of Kentucky in 1816 for a term of four years, as successor to Isaac Shelby, but died soon after and his term was filled out by Gabriel Slaughter, lieutenant-governor. He died in Paris, Ky., Oct. 14, 1816.

MADISON, James, first bishop of Virginia and 4th in succession in the American episcopate, was born near Port Republic, Rockingham (then Augusta) county, Va., Aug. 27, 1749; son of John and Agatha (Strother) Madison and grandson of Capt. John Madison, a patentee of land in Glou- cester county, Va., between the York and North rivers on the Chesapeake Bay, 1653, and of Wil- liam and Margaret (Watts) Strother. He was prepared for college at an academy in Maryland and matriculated at the college of William and Mary in 1768. He then studied law with George Wythe and was admitted to the bar in 1770, but soon after returned to the college, where he re- ceived the gold medal for proficiency in classical learning, July 29, 1772. He remained at the col- lege continuing his theological studies and serv- ing as instructor in penmanship, and in May, 1773, was made professor of mathematics. The board of visitors of the college furnished him

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with £50 to pay his expenses to London, England, where he received orders as deacon, Sept. 29, and as priest, Oct. 1, 1775. Returning the same year to Virginia, he resumed the chair of natural phil- osophy and in 1777, when the board of visitors removed President Camm, he was elect- ed president of the College of William and Mary and served in that capacity un- til his death in 1812. Under his adminis- tration the chairs of law and medicine were created and the college assimied the dignity of a univer- sity of which George Washington was

made chancellor in 1788, and George

Wythe professor of law and Dr. James Mc- Clurg professor of medicine. The elective sys- tem of study was introduced by the advice of Thomas Jefferson, a member of the board of visitors, and of Hugh Jones, professor of mathe- matics. President Madison was the first college president in America to introduce the study of municipal law, and the practice of elective courses of study. The period of the Revolutionary war saw the college deprived of state aid, and except a small income from crown lands the institution depended entirely on the fees of the students. President Madison was a pronounced patriot and supported the cause of the Revolution- ists with zeal, and in the transition of the church from the old establishment to the new he labored to remove the odium that the rupture with the mother clmrch had created. At the close of the Revolution he was president of the first conven- tion of the Episcopal church in Virginia, May 1, 1785. He was elected the first bishop of the American church in Virginia in 1790, becoming the fourth in succession in the United States, Bishop Seabury having been placed over the churches in Connecticut in 1784 and Bishops White and Provoost over the churches in Penn- sylvania and New York, respectively, in 1787. He was conseci-ated in the chapel of Lambeth palace, London, England, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by Bishop Porteous of Lon- don and Bishop Thomas of Rochester, Sept. 19, 1790. He continued to perform the duties as president of the college in addition to his over- sight of the churches of his diocese for twenty- two years. At his death the Rev. John Brocken was elected his successor as president and bishop, but declined to accept the bishopric and the