The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel

by Margaret A. Oppenheimer

  A small, peevish comment suggested that money was still a bone of contention in their relationship. Eliza had asked whether Stephen had gone sleighing, and he replied resentfully: “You know that I did not come back to the United States to take my pleasure. I am [at] Harlem Heights. When I have to go to New York to take my letters there, it is a great punishment for me to go there; I have testified it to you enough.”

  But he implied that they continued to manage their finances jointly, regardless of Eliza’s legal authority over their income-producing properties. “I haven’t been to see our tenant Mr Durand, not having any money to claim for the rent,” Stephen wrote. “But I will have to pay him a visit.” Significantly, he wrote “our tenant,” not “your tenant.”14

  Now that he was retired from business and living at the mansion, he and Eliza’s financial interests were essentially the same: to live on their income and manage their country property productively. As long as she could continue to live in the style to which she was accustomed—having her own carriage and using travel as an escape; as long as she need not fear that Stephen might sell their properties to repay creditors or assist his relatives, Eliza could trust him to manage their money and collect their rents, as he had always done.

  The mansion with its surrounding acres functioned as a working farm. The population of the property fluctuated with the seasons, rising in the summer when Stephen hired men to work the land. Salaries were low, although not atypical for the region and time period. In 1831 Stephen paid farm laborers approximately $7.50 a month. The gardener, whose duties required more skill and background knowledge, received $8. An overseer, Gilbert Travis, hired in late March 1831, earned $150 per year. All of these men would have received room and board as well as their wages, a benefit that made the jobs more desirable. Nonresident laborers were employed as needed for a single day, a few days, or a specific project. Eliza handled the hiring of the female servants, as is indicated by a note in Stephen’s hand: “Madame Clark has made an arrangement with Madame Jumel at a rate of twelve shillings per week beginning Saturday the third in the morning. Madame Jumel has advanced her five dollars.”15

  Like many country landowners who had difficulty attracting household help, Eliza and Stephen turned to indentured servants from time to time. In February 1830 Stephen advertised for the return of two runaways: “a lad by the name of William Carr, about 16 years old, stout built, round and full face,” who disappeared on December 19, and “a girl, Louise Pai, 8 years old,” who absconded on January 30.16 Whether William farmed under Stephen’s supervision or did housework under Eliza’s, Louise, given her age and gender, would have been under the care of the mistress of the house.

  Was Eliza impatient with her or harsh? Later there were indications that she was a demanding employer, but she would not necessarily have been so to a young girl. Besides her fondness for children, she knew what it was like to be a frightened apprentice in a strange household. She had been only two years older than Louise when she was indentured as a servant herself. The girl may have been too young to thrive apart from her family. After being placed in another home, she ran away again.17

  23

  AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE

  In July or August 1831, Eliza set off on another extended voyage with Mary.1 They were headed for the Jumel properties in central New York to collect the rents and escape the heat of high summer. But the trip would prove profitable for nonmonetary reasons as well. During this journey, Eliza identified and secured a husband for thirty-year-old Mary.2

  In 1880 Nelson Chase looked half a century into the past and described the circumstances of his initial acquaintance with his future wife. They met in the tiny hamlet of Worcester, New York, in Otsego County. He was a law student in Schuyler Crippen’s office, he tells us, and “boarded in his family.” Besides carrying on a legal practice and serving as the local postmaster, Crippen acted as the Jumels’ agent, watching over their lands in the nearby town of Decatur and the neighboring county of Schoharie. Eliza called on Crippen, and Nelson was introduced to Mary.3

  Eliza and Mary stayed for a time in the region, joining Nelson as boarders “in Mr. Crippen’s family.”4 As the weeks passed, the young law student developed what he described as a “very intimate friendship” with Mary.5 Then Eliza stepped in, as Nelson had explained more fully in 1873: “Madame Jumel said to me, I perceive there is a friendship between you and my niece Miss Mary; she added, if I and Mary could agree, she would be happy to have me for a son-in-law; that if we got married, she would expect us to come and live with herself and her husband on their place; she said that Mary was her adopted daughter and was to be her heir.”6

  The prospect of a wife with financial expectations was tempting to a youth with his way to make in the world. Nelson, born in Duanesburgh, in Schenectady County, New York, was the son of a builder, Ebenezer Chase, and Susannah Sheldon.7 He worked initially as a clerk in a country store—probably from the time he was twelve or thirteen—first in the little village of Esperance on Schoharie Creek; then briefly in Troy; and finally for three or four years in Cooperstown. In 1830, aged nineteen, he moved to Worcester, where he began his legal studies.8 Relocating to the New York City region could open up profitable opportunities for a budding lawyer, aside from what the Jumels might do for him and Mary.

  For Mary, too, the marriage must have had its appeal. She had been educated as a gentlewoman, but her illegitimate birth and the gossip that swirled around her adoptive mother would have made it difficult to attract socially prominent suitors. She was still single at thirty—a telling indicator that Nelson might be her best (and perhaps only) option for matrimony. Although he was not a gentleman by birth, his profession would give him better-than-average financial prospects and entry into the upper-middle class.9 As William Wirt, a future attorney general of the United States, wrote in 1803, “The bar in America is the road to honor.”10

  If Nelson had reservations about Mary’s age—she was ten years his senior—Eliza knew how to overcome them.11 When he was asked in 1837 if he received “any estate with [Mary] on marriage,” he answered briefly, “I did.” To the follow-up question, “What did you receive?” the answer was, bluntly, “Money.”12 The funds probably came from Eliza’s sale of a farm that she and Stephen owned in central New York. Whether Stephen was aware of the January 2, 1832, transaction is an open question, but the deed was not registered until after his death.13

  The marriage took place at Schuyler Crippen’s home in Worcester on a Sunday evening in January 1832. “Mr. Crippen’s family” was present, Nelson recalled, “some neighbors who had become acquainted with my wife, and the Rev. Mr. Bassett who performed the marriage ceremony.” There was also the family of Seth Chase, “who lived a near neighbor of Mr. Crippen, and a variety of other persons whose names do not occur to me,” Nelson said.14 The occasion was recorded in the Albany Argus: “Married, at Worcester, Otsego County, on the evening of the 15th instant, by the Rev. Mr. Bassett. NELSON CHASE, Esq., to Miss Mary Jumel Bowne, adopted daughter of Stephen Jumel, Esq., of New-York.”15

  After the marriage, the young couple remained in Worcester for two months, continuing to lodge with Crippen. On February 29 they sold a 50½-acre farm in the town of Decatur, probably part of the real estate that Eliza had transferred to Mary when Stephen was in France.16 Some years later, the Chases would sell a 110-acre farm in Worcester.17 Thanks to Eliza’s foresight, Mary was not a penniless bride.

  In early March, Mary and Nelson left Worcester for Mount Stephen. Nelson described his first action on their arrival: “I handed Mr. Jumel a copy of the Argus [that contained the wedding announcement]. He read the notice. My wife and his wife were both present at the time.”18 If Nelson had been worried about his reception, Stephen’s good-natured welcome dispelled any worries. He gave Nelson a “very slight pinch” on the cheek in “very friendly” fashion, and jokingly took to calling his new son-in-law “Governor.”19

  Nelson recalled much later that Stephen spoke Eng
lish with “very good facility but with a marked accent.” At sixty-six, he wore his years lightly: “he was very light of foot, though weighing a pretty heavy weight; I suppose he would have weighed in the neighborhood of two hundred pounds. He was as light on his feet as quite a good many younger men than he would be. He had fine spirits, in [sic] good health, regular appetite, was a good sound sleeper, and was cheerful and full of fun. As bright a man as I ever met with,” Nelson added.20

  According to Nelson, Stephen called his wife “Eliza,” and “she called him ‘Mr. Jumel’”—a mode of address that seems formal today, but was normal at the time, especially when a wife addressed her husband in the presence of others. In the European fashion, they had separate bedrooms, just as they had had in France.21

  The Jumels knew how to hold household and entertained rarely; “they were very economical indeed,” Nelson said. Nelson accompanied Stephen on visits to John M. Bradhurst and Dr. Samuel Watkins, both near neighbors, and Jacobus Dykeman, who lived farther away, near the northern tip of Manhattan Island.22 Nelson also joined his father-in-law on his occasional trips into Manhattan. There Stephen would do the marketing, pick up letters, collect rent from his and Eliza’s downtown retail tenant, Michael Werckmeister, and call on friends.23

  The ladies of the house would have paid calls too, but Nelson mentions only one. About a week after his arrival in New York, he, his wife, and mother-in-law visited Maria Jones—at once Eliza’s sister and Mary’s mother. Nelson met Maria, her daughters Eliza and Louisa, and her younger son, Stephen. The older son, William Ballou Jones, he met later. There must have been regular intercourse with the Jones household, since Nelson would attend Louisa’s wedding and was acquainted with Eliza Jones’s husband, Charles John Tranchell.24

  At home at the mansion, daily life centered around “the drawing room, on the first floor of the house, where the family used to meet together every day.” Stephen would supervise work on the house, garden, and vineyard or, on inclement days, look through his papers.25 With the help of Lesparre and Ulysses, he continued to pursue old business debts in France and his claim to a share in his late uncle’s property in Saint-Domingue.26

  Mary and Nelson would live with the Jumels for only two months. Eliza arranged for them to move to lodgings she rented for them in New Jersey—in Hoboken or Jersey City. The relocation probably took place May 1, still the traditional moving day in the region.27 Neither city was much more than a country village at the time, but both had easy ferry access to New York, which would make it possible for Nelson to resume his legal studies. (Riding ten miles into Manhattan from Mount Stephen would have been impractical on a daily basis.) In after years, Nelson remembered the region in which he and Mary had set up household fondly: “Jersey was one of the most tranquil places then on the face of the globe almost.”28

  Less than a month after the newlyweds moved out, tragedy struck on Harlem Heights. Stephen was traveling north on the Kingsbridge Road in a one-horse wagon. The driver was unskilled, and Stephen was thrown from the vehicle. Ten or twelve days later, on the evening of May 22, 1832, he died at the mansion.29 He had celebrated his sixty-seventh birthday only two weeks before.

  Eliza, fifty-seven, was now a widow after twenty-eight years of marriage.

  24

  ENTER AARON BURR

  Aaron Burr, onetime vice president of the United States, was a familiar figure in lower Manhattan. As the spring of 1832 warmed into summer, he might be seen entering his law office on Nassau Street or mounting the steps of city hall to plead a case in court. About five feet, six inches tall, he was not physically imposing. But few met him without being impressed. Although his voice was quiet and his demeanor restrained, Burr’s mobile features and piercing hazel eyes gave him a magnetic presence. His upright posture and brisk walk belied his seventy-six years.1

  In June 1832 a carriage stopped in front of 23 Nassau Street. Eliza Jumel stepped down and disappeared into Aaron Burr’s office. “She wished to take legal advice respecting some real estate,” according to James Parton, one of Burr’s earliest biographers.2 Probably Eliza consulted Burr on how to begin the process of settling her late husband’s estate. Parton claimed that they parted on excellent terms: gallantly Burr handed his visitor into her carriage.3

  It would take some months for the acquaintanceship to ripen. Almost immediately after her visit to Burr, Eliza, accompanied by Mary, Nelson, and a servant, left the city to escape a cholera epidemic that was spreading south from Canada. By the time the disease reached Manhattan on July 3, they were safe in Ulster County, enjoying the dramatic scenery of the Blue Mountains and Shawangunks. Later in the summer they moved east of the Hudson to Columbia County, enjoying rural tranquility at Hoffman’s Gate (a stop on the post road between the villages of Claverack and Hillside) and then venturing further north to Lebanon Springs, a watering place close to the Massachusetts border.4 There they could socialize, drive out, and bathe in the health-giving mineral spring, which remained at a comfortable 73 degrees winter and summer.5 Mary’s well-being may have been the impetus for the move to a watering place. By midsummer she must have known she was pregnant.

  At the end of August, New York’s Board of Health stopped issuing its daily cholera report.6 The epidemic was contained—or so the doctors said. Eliza, returning to the city with the Chases in September, took the precaution of spending a night with them in Hoboken before crossing the Hudson to Manhattan. Beneath their window, they witnessed a shocking sight: “a person writhing in the agonies of death, dying with the cholera.”7 They fled north once more. This time they traveled beyond Albany, to the village of Saratoga Springs, which would become Eliza’s second home.8

  A summer resort like Lebanon Springs, Saratoga was considerably less developed than its older and more established competitor. But James Stuart, a visitor from Scotland, was impressed by the up-and-coming village. “It consists of a fine broad street, fringed with trees,” he wrote, “having so many large and splendid hotels, that it appeared to me that there was more extensive accommodation of company than at Harrogate [an English town famed for its mineral waters].” Visitors thronged the hotels and boardinghouses at the height of the summer season. “Fifteen hundred people have been known to arrive in a week,” he marveled, many traveling from as far south as New Orleans “to avoid the heat and unhealthy weather.”9

  There were fourteen mineral springs in the vicinity. The best known, on the grounds of the Congress Hall hotel, produced a sparkling water that was bottled and sold throughout the country, even on American packet boats. “The taste is very agreeable,” Stuart commented, “and the briskness of the water at the fountain delightful. Three or four pint tumblers are generally taken in the morning before breakfast.” Many people drank it at meals as well.10

  Amusements included reading rooms, ballrooms, a library, a local newspaper, and four or five churches offering public services. From the gracefully colonnaded porticos of the hotels, vacationers could admire the passing scene and keep an eye peeled for celebrities, such as annual visitor Joseph Bonaparte. “The whole appearance of the place is cheerful,” Stuart concluded with pleasure.11

  When Eliza and her family arrived in fall 1832, the village was on the verge of a remarkable transformation made possible by a new invention, the railroad. Over the winter of 1831 to ’32, hotel and boardinghouse owners had poured money into expanding and improving their facilities, anticipating the arrival of thousands of tourists on the “cars” from Albany and Schenectady.12 No longer would visitors from the capital region have to endure a full day’s carriage ride to reach Saratoga, lurching at a snail’s pace over a rugged road and sinking into deep beds of sand.13

  But in a disaster for a community whose economy depended on a three-month summer season, the promised visitors failed to arrive. Tourists were frightened of gathering in a busy resort on which the cholera might descend. Repeated assurances that no cases had been reported in the village were of no avail. Hotels were half empty, and their propr
ietors desperate for money.14

  Shrewdly Eliza seized the opportunity. Arriving at Saratoga on the brand-new steam railroad—one of the first in the nation—she, Mary, and Nelson spent the night at the home of Mr. Benedict, the train conductor.15 Venturing out in the morning in search of more convenient lodgings, they strolled down the flat, sandy length of Broadway, the main thoroughfare of the village.16 Eliza noticed a handbill on a pump advertising a “French hotel” for sale, and she proposed viewing the structure, advantageously located at the corner of Broadway and Caroline Street.17 Strictly speaking, the property was not a “French hotel”—the phrase Nelson used in describing it years later—but a “dwelling house.” It was owned by a Cuban tight-rope walker cum acrobat, who had worked as a traveling performer with his equally talented wife and children.18 Perhaps the family took in boarders, which could explain the hotel reference.

  Besides the residence, the lot contained a small barn, yard, privy house, and—sure to appeal to Eliza—a theater.19 Decisive as always, she acted quickly. In her first significant financial transaction as a widow, she arranged to buy the property.20 It was the first in a string of purchases made over a twenty-year period that would make her one of Saratoga’s leading landowners.

  25

  A CALCULATED COURTSHIP

  In November the family returned to New York City. Nelson resumed his legal training. He entered the office of New York lawyer John Duer, but soon moved to the firm of Aaron Burr.1 According to Burr’s biographer Parton, the transfer grew from Eliza’s June visit to the old lawyer. She had sent Nelson to pick up the resulting opinion, and Burr had cultivated Nelson’s acquaintance. Soon he invited the young man to read law with him.2