The first girl in her family, Dolley Payne was born on May 20, 1768, in the Quaker settlement of "New Garden" within Guilford County, North Carolina (present-day Greensboro), Province of North Carolina, to Mary Coles and John Payne, Jr., both Virginians who had moved to North Carolina in 1765. Mary Coles, a Quaker, had married John Payne, a non-Quaker, in 1761. Three years later, he applied and was admitted to the Quaker Monthly Meeting in Hanover County, Virginia, where Coles' parents lived. He became a fervent follower and they reared their children in the Quaker faith.