As to Doug's' question about Kittie's finances, yes her father was displeased with her spending. "In 1813, four years after James Madison entered the White House, Kitty’s husband died, leaving her a 46-year-old widow with three children. In 1817, her father wrote a will in which he accused her of squandering “considerable sums” of money he had given her, as well as a piece of land worth $7,000, and bequeathed her only $70 a year. Just before he died four years later, Floyd softened and gave Kitty a piece of land in Oneida County and an additional $1,000. "Kitty Floyd was living with a daughter in New York City when she died at age 65 in 1832. She was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn."

A research source wrote: Chronically suffering from poor physical health, usually dressed in dark colors and awkward in any form of public speech, Madison came across as neither a commanding nor a self-confident figure. That lack of self-confidence may well have prevented him from risking rejection from a woman his own age, but Kitty Floyd’s girlish spontaneity emboldened his romantic instincts. Thomas Jefferson had boarded at Mary House’s establishment in the winter of 1783 and had seen proof of the mutual attraction between Kitty Floyd and Madison. On his way back to Monticello in April of 1783, Jefferson wrote Madison a letter urging him to propose marriage. Madison replied with characteristic earnestness: Your inference on that subject was not groundless. Before you left us I had sufficiently ascertained her sentiments. Since your departure, the affair has been pursued. Most preliminary arrangements, although definitive, will be postponed until the end of the year in Congress...

I am also a direct descendant of Kittie Floyd, and her father William, and my parents sought fit to name me William Floyd Clarkson Brown. I have always had names to spare..... The other piece of this story that I would love to know is how did Kittie meet William C, and how did she decide to break off with James and take up with William? My understanding is that William was a pretty charismatic preacher, being the Rev William Clarkson, Md. Yes, also a doctor with a degree from Philadelphia, I believe. William was 12 years younger than the older and diminutive Mr. Madison. When Madison first met Kittie she was all of 12 years old, and he was 28 years. She broke off with him when she was 15, and had recently met the Rev. Clarkson, who was a 21 year old doctor at the time. But how William and Kittie met, I do not know. How did she deliver the news to James. Good to meet you both!!! WFC Brown.

Ellen, I have been looking to confirm something I thought I`d read a while ago and cannot now find the information: I thought I had read that, after Kitty married William Clarkson, her father disinherited her and she and William were plagued by financial problems. Is this at all true? A I remembering this correctly? Thanks.

I am a direct descendant of Kitty Floyd. Her father was William Floyd, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. William Floyd owned a large plantation in New York and James Madison used to board there. Although he was quite a bit older than Kitty, he fell in love with her and they became engaged. The pictures you have are actually of miniatures that they had painted of each other during that time. Kitty`s was passed down the generations until my father inherited it after his father died in 1982. He held on to it until the mids 1980s, when he donated it to the Smithsonian so that it could once again be reunited with the other miniature. Kitty ended up marrying a William Clarkson