From James Madison to Reynolds Chapman, 24 July 1820
To Reynolds Chapman
July 24 1820
Dr. Sir
I have recd. yours of the 20th.1 I shall be content with whatever arrangements may be made with Ambrose Madison on the subject of Milly.2 Yrs Affe.
J.M
Draft (ViU: Special Collections). Reynolds Chapman (1778–1844) was clerk of the Hustings and Superior courts of Orange County, Virginia. He married JM’s niece, Rebecca Conway Madison, the daughter of William Madison and Frances Throckmorton Madison, in 1802 (Daily National Intelligencer, 20 Feb. 1844; Chapman, “Who was Buried in James Madison’s Grave?,” 254, 262).
1. Letter not found.
2. Milly was one of JM’s slaves, and probably the same who was conveyed to John Payne Todd by Dolley Madison in 1844. She would have been about sixteen years old in 1820 (Mattern and Shulman, Selected Letters of Dolley Payne Madison, 372).