AARON BURR

BIOGRAPHY

Stasis A

Aaron Burr had a difficult early childhood, passed around from relative to relative, never sure he and his sister could stay where they were. He graduated with a BA from Princeton at just 16, causing quite a stir.

Burr’s father was a Presbyterian minister and the president of what would eventually become Princeton. His mother, ‘a genius,’ was the daughter of a revivalist preacher and his wife Sarah, for whom Burr’s older sister was named. Burr’s mother, Esther, is known today for her journal, one of the only primary sources from the time giving a record of daily activities for a woman at the time. In 1757, when Burr was one year old, Burr Sr. died of a fever, and a few months later Burr and Sarah were orphaned when their mother died as well. The two were sent to live with their maternal grandparents, both of whom also died. In a little over a year, Burr lost both his parents and grandparents. After a little less than one year with family friends, they were sent yet again to a different home: that of their maternal uncle Timothy. Timothy was twenty-one at the time, just married, and suddenly had custody of not only the young Burrs but his own siblings and his wife’s. Burr was the youngest in the house of nine, but he stayed very close with his sister into their adulthood (Isenberg, 69). He keenly felt his parents’ legacy even as an orphan; both were highly spoken of by their peers, and Burr Sr. left him an inheritance of £3,679 (around $860,000 today) to be put toward his education. Burr entered Princeton at thirteen, four years younger than his classmates, and three years later graduated with a BA. He began studying theology, but at nineteen he moved to Connecticut, where his sister had recently married their childhood tutor, and began studying to be a lawyer.

RIGHT-HAND MAN

He joined the revolution to make a name for himself, but wasn't recognized as he should have been. Washington treated him like an amateur and wouldn't promote him, a slight Burr remembered for years after.

When war broke out in 1775, Burr enlisted in the Continental Army. He was there for the attack on Quebec that saw the death of General Montgomery, and made an honorable attempt to recover the General’s body. After this, it seemed sure to many Burr would be promoted as around the country people sang his praises, but it would still be another two years. Burr joined Washington’s staff temporarily in 1776, but quickly resigned his post, desiring “a more active role in the war. He wished to leave Washington’s staff even before he met the general. (Isenberg, 34)” During the evacuation of Manhattan, Burr saved an entire party of soldiers about to be surrounded through his quick thinking, another commendable act that went un-commended. In 1777 Washington finally promoted Burr to Lieutenant Colonel, and though many soldiers younger and less experienced were promoted further, Burr never was. Just after his promotion, he wrote Washington “a perfunctory response… ‘[the] late date of my appointment subjects me to the Command of many who are younger in the Service and junior officers the last Campaign,’ …[he desired] ‘only a decent Attention to Rank.’” (Isenberg, 38)

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THE STORY OF TONIGHT - REPRISE, WAIT FOR IT, DEAR THEODOSIA

He took up with Mrs. Theodosia Prevost while the monsieur was away, and after her husband died he married her. He acted as a father to her older children as well as to their daughter together, dear Theodosia, who he outlived by 23 years.

Theodosia Prevost sided firmly with the Patriots, despite her husband’s post with the British. While he was gone, she and Burr began a friendship that turned into love. Less than a year after Mr. Prevost died of Yellow Fever in 1781, the two married. They were as much friends as they were spouses (Isenberg, 72), which was uncommon at the time. Theodosia died in 1794, when their daughter Theodosia was eleven. Theodosia the younger was close to her father, and had as high a regard for knowledge and education as he did (Isenberg, 83). She died in very early January of 1813, either lost at sea with the schooner Patriot or murdered by pirates on the same.

NON-STOP, THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS, WASHINGTON ON YOUR SIDE

After the war, he was a bit of a cur, starting a bank by saying it was a company for water in Manhattan, which sorely needed one. He dueled John Church, Hamilton's in-law, angry at Church for spreading rumors and slander. He ran for President, but the people preferred Jefferson. As Vice President, he wasn't trusted and he still wasn't popular.

In 1798, Burr and his brother-in-law Dr. Joseph Browne proposed a new water company to New York State’s legislature, the Manhattan Company. Primarily, though, Burr wanted the company to function as a bank, in part as a way to help his political party gain power over the Federalists. At the time, Hamilton’s party controlled the two banks in charge of New York’s finances, and Burr knew the Federalists would never vote in a proposal for a bank they didn’t control, so he disguised it as a water company. At the time, Yellow Fever ran rampant in the city, and a water system would have helped enormously toward lessening the disease’s effects (Isenberg, 184). 

 In 1799, a rumor (started in part by Hamilton (Isenberg, 182)) flew around society that Burr had accepted a bribe. John Barker Church, married to Angelica Schuyler Church, spread the rumor to the point where Burr challenged him to a duel. They shot, but neither man was hit and Church offered an apology.

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YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT, THE WORLD WAS WIDE ENOUGH, STASIS B

By killing Hamilton, who became an overnight saint, he unintentionally incurred the wrath of the people. All this was made worse by accusations saying he was a traitor, a trial for treason, and rumors of an intended misdemeanor. He went away in hopes he could deter his creditors. He lived in England for a couple years before coming back under the name 'Edwards,' practiced law, remarried, and then died in 1836. He was buried in Princeton, near his father, Aaron Burr Sr.

Before the Hamilton-Burr duel, both men put some of their affairs in order. Burr wrote letters to Theodosia and her husband, appointing executors and asserting what should be left to whom. There are a few different accounts of what happened that fateful day in Weehawken, but historians have spent a lot of time speculating which man shot first. Burr’s second, William P. Van Ness, believed that Hamilton shot first. Both he and Burr maintained afterward that Hamilton had deliberately fired his weapon, conflicting with Hamilton’s second’s account that he had involuntarily discharged the gun from shock after being hit by Burr’s bullet. Van Ness “noted that after the first fire, Burr was jarred, as if he had been struck. His body moved. Then, after ‘several seconds’ elapsed, Burr fired his pistol, and Hamilton ‘fell instantly.’ As Hamilton collapsed, ‘Burr advanced toward Genl H with a manner and gesture of regret’ (Isenberg, 265).”

Burr was charged for murder in both New York and New Jersey, but both states dropped the charges eventually. He completed his term as Vice President and did not seek re-election, knowing his political career was likely over. He was accused of treason some years later, as some claimed he was planning on leading a secession in the newly-purchased Louisiana Territory. After his treason trial, where he was not found guilty, he put himself into exile and moved to Europe from 1808 to 1812. When he returned he reopened his law practice using his mother’s maiden name. Theodosia died in early 1813, and Burr adopted and provided for several other children after, leaving most of his money and property to two illegitimate daughters of his. He remarried a woman nineteen years his junior at seventy-seven, Eliza Jumel, who decided to divorce him after only a few months, using Alexander Hamilton Jr. as her divorce lawyer. Their divorce was “nothing short of a circus (Isenberg, 401).” Both parties accused each other of adultery, though the divorce itself “could hardly have been about anything other than money and power (Isenberg, 403).” The divorce was finalized on the day of Burr’s death.