"[248] He was buried in the family cemetery at Montpelier.[236] He was one of the last prominent members of the Revolutionary War generation to die.[237] His last will and testament left significant sums to the American Colonization Society, Princeton, and the University of Virginia, as well as $30,000 ($897,000 in 2021) to his wife, Dolley. Left with a smaller sum than Madison had intended, Dolley suffered financial troubles until her death in 1849.[249] In the 1840s Dolley sold Montpelier, its remaining slaves, and the furnishings to pay off outstanding debts. Paul Jennings, one of Madison's younger slaves, later recalled in his memoir,

In the last days of her life, before Congress purchased her husband's papers, she was in a state of absolute poverty, and I think sometimes suffered for the necessaries of life. While I was a servant to Mr. Webster, he often sent me to her with a market-basket full of provisions, and told me whenever I saw anything in the house that I thought she was in need of, to take it to her. 