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[quote=Anonymous][not posting this to make a dig at Dolley Madison-truly--that post was interesting, and her situation was tragic--just ran across info on this guy when looking up Dolley Madison after her mention above]

Paul Jennings

[img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Paul_Jennings.jpg[/img]

Jennings was enslaved at birth at Montpelier in about 1799; his mother, who was African-Native American, was enslaved by the Madisons.[3] She told the boy his father was Benjamin Jennings, an English trader.[3] The mixed-race Jennings, as an enslaved child, was a companion to Dolley's son Payne Todd.[4] He began to serve James Madison as his footman and later was trained as his "body servant".[3] At the age of 10, Jennings accompanied Madison and his family to the White House after the statesman was elected president.[5] In his 1865 memoir, he noted that the East Room was yet unfinished from the first construction, most of the Washington streets were unpaved; the city was "a dreary place" in those years.

In 1814, during the Burning of Washington, as British troops were approaching the White House, Jennings, at age 15, with two other men, reportedly helped save the noted Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington known as the Lansdowne portrait. Other people enslaved at the White House helped save such valuables as silver. (The portrait was returned to the White House, where it is the only surviving item from before the War of 1812.) Legend has it that he assisted First Lady Dolley Madison in this effort. In his memoir, Jennings wrote that a French cook and one other person did the physical work of taking down the painting.

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