Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/239

 JAMES MONROE JAMES MONROE, fifth president of the United States, born in Westmoreland County, Va., April 28, 1758; died in New York City, July 4, 1831. Although the attempts to trace his pedigree have not been successful, it appears certain that the Monroe family came to Virginia as early as 1650, and that they were of Scottish origin. James Mon roe s father was Spence Monroe, and his mother was Eliza, sister of Judge Joseph Jones, twice a delegate from Virginia to the Continental congress. The boyhood of the future president was passed in his native county, a neighborhood famous for early manifestations of patriotic fervor. His earliest recollections must have been associated with public remonstrances against the stamp-act (in 1766), and with the reception (in 1769) of a portrait of Lord Chatham, which was sent to the gentlemen of Westmoreland, from London, by one of their correspondents, Edmund Jennings, of Lincoln s Inn. To the College of William and Mary, then rich and prosperous, James Monroe was sent; but soon after his student life began it was interrupted by the Revolutionary war. Three members of the 195