The Cutts-Madison House (Known locally as The Dolley Madison House) is located at 721 Madison Place NW. The house in 1888.
The indomitable Dolley Madison lived here from 1837 until her death in 1849.
Secretary Cutts
The house takes part of its name from its builder, Massachusetts congressman Richard Cutts who also served as Comptroller of the Treasury. Cutts was married to Dolley Madison’s younger sister Anna. (Below)
Cutts House was one of the first homes to be built on President’s Square, as Lafayette Square was then called. Back then the area was mostly a very large, open field and was used by the local militia for training and practice marches.
Cutts managed to drive himself broke and in 1828 was thrown into debtors’ prison and was forced to sell the house to meet his obligations. The buyer was his brother-in-law former President James Madison, who allowed Cutts and his family to remain living there.
Anna Cutts died in 1832 and Dolly, now a widow moved in and more or less ran Washington society. During this time, Dolly’s son, John Payne Todd, from her first marriage (Dolley had married a man named John Todd, who died in a cholera epidemic in 1793.) all but drove her to ruin.
John Payne Todd
By all accounts, John Payne Todd was a pampered and spoiled brat and an alcoholic who burned through his mother’s money by losing it in gambling games or raining it down on women of questionable reputations.
Because of her son's lavish spending, Dolley was eventually forced to sell her beautiful plantation estate in central Virginia, Montpelier, where President Madison had retired after his presidency.
After Dolley's died, Payne sold the Dolley Madison House to Admiral Charles Wilkes (Below) who eventually sold the property.
Some historians speculate that Wilkes' obsessive behavior and harsh code of shipboard discipline shaped Herman Melville's characterization of Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick.
It changed hands several times and for a while was owned by the vainglorious General George B. McClellan, head of the Union Army at the outset of the Civil War. (Below)
In the early 1880s, the house was leased to the Cosmos Club, a social club founded by scientists and intellectuals. The club made extensive modifications and additions to the property.
The property was purchased by the federal government in 1940 and the house was used as offices for the National Science Foundation, NASA. It was from the house that NASA introduced the Mercury 7 astronauts to America and the world.
Some say that Dolley never left the old house and she can be seen on some night in a rocking chair on the front porch. It’s said that the ghost was seen so often in the 1800s that members of the nearby Washington Club when returning home for the evening, would tip their hats to the old woman. (The house had no porch when Dolley lived there but anyway…)