The first girl in her family, Dolley Payne was born on May 20, 1768, in the Quaker settlement of New Garden, North Carolina, in Guilford County to Mary Coles Payne and John Payne Jr, both Virginians who had moved to North Carolina in 1765 [REF].
Payne moved his family to Philadelphia, where he went into business as a starch merchant, but the business had failed by 1789.