Belle Grove: Where James Madison Was Born
Near Colonial Beach, Virginia
On March sixteenth, seventeen fifty-one, Eleanor Conway Madison gave birth at her family's plantation on the south bank of the Rappahannock River. The child was James Madison, fourth President of the United States, principal author of the Constitution, father of the Bill of Rights. The family estate was called Belle Grove, and the surrounding community took its name from Eleanor's father, Francis Conway, becoming Port Conway.
Madison was not raised here, he grew up at Montpelier in Orange County, but this bend of the Rappahannock is where he entered the world. The present plantation house dates to seventeen ninety, built after Madison's birth, and stands on the National Register. A historical marker on Route Three Oh One notes the site.
