She was born, however, in North Carolina, that happy region where "every one does what seems best in his own eyes," or, better still, enjoys, as did Colonel Byrd, "the Carolina felicity of having nothing to do!" A rough people many of them still were, without doubt, when the little Dolly was born in their midst, on a plantation in Guilford county, to take charge of which her father had come a few years before from his Virginia home to where a thrifty, God-fearing colony of Quaker emigrants from New Garden, Pennsylvania, had peopled the wilderness, and in memory of the Pennsylvania home had erected a new "New Garden Meeting House" in a forest clearing. Very commodious it looked in comparison with the log cabins from which its congregation gathered to "mid-week" and "First-day Meeting," coming usually in the covered emigrant wagon that was ofttimes their only means of conveyance, but which well suited the size of the emigrant family. [Illustration: Friends' Meeting House, New Garden, North Carolina. From an old Drawing.] Turning over their earliest book of records, still distinct but yellowed by age, the curious visitor may find a page on which is inscribed the following: John Payne was born y^e 9 of y^e 12 m^o 1740. Mary, his wife, was born y^e 14 of y^e 10 m^o 1743. Walter, their son, was born y^e 15 of y^e 11 m^o 1762. Wm. Temple, their son, was born y^e 17 of y^e 6 m^o 1766. Dolley, their daughter, was born y^e 20 of y^e 5 m^o 1768. "Dolley," their little daughter, was named for her mother's friend, Dorothea Spotswood Dandridge, the granddaughter of Governor Spotswood, the daughter of Nathaniel West Dandridge, a near relative of Lord Delaware. Nathaniel West Dandridge, son-in-law of Governor Spotswood, had been one of his followers on a far-famed journey of exploration, led by the Governor, beyond the Appalachian mountains, and for this exploit had been dubbed a "Knight of the Golden Horseshoe," and presented with the symbol of the order, a golden horseshoe with its glittering jewels, and the inscribed motto, "_Sic juvat transcendere montes_," made in memory of their trip. A few years earlier a cousin of Dolly Dandridge, from her own home, the White House on the Pamunky, had been married to Colonel Washington, a gallant young officer lately elected to the House of Burgesses. A few years later Dolly Dandridge herself became the second wife of Patrick Henry, the cousin of Mary Payne, a young lawyer of Hanover county, whose eloquence had electrified the House of Burgesses, and who was now its acknowledged leader in the fight against English taxation. [Illustration: Patrick Henry.] Very slight seems the connection between these events and people and the little Quaker maiden, but it was through these, her mother's friends, that she was drawn in and became one of that choice circle of Virginia's honored children in the early days of the Republic.