After some months of study, Chase, appreciative of Burr’s kindness, persuaded Eliza to ask the lawyer to dine at Mount Stephen. In Parton’s telling, “It was a grand banquet, at which [Burr] displayed all the charms of his manner, and shone to conspicuous advantage.” As Burr handed his hostess to the richly set table, he complimented her in his most courtly fashion, “I give you my hand, Madame; my heart has long been yours.”3
After this agreeable prelude, Burr began to call on Eliza frequently.4 She could not have failed to appreciate his polished manners or his ready wit and beguiling smile.5 As one of his former law students reminisced, “He would laugh, too, sometimes, as if his heart was bubbling with joy, and its effect was irresistible.”6 Even men prepared to dislike him found themselves succumbing unwittingly to his charm.
Eliza would have savored her visitor’s attentiveness. As her family lawyer observed, “She was a lady of a great deal of vanity, and would tell me stories of personal vanities and attentions she had had from gentlemen in very high society, and all those sort of things.”7 Burr, quick to guess what his auditor wanted to hear, would have flattered Eliza adroitly.8
Parton portrayed the old soldier as a determined campaigner. Eventually he proposed marriage—and was refused. But he treated the rebuff as a mere temporary setback. He continued to court Eliza until he received a less decisive refusal. “Improving his advantage on the instant, he said, in a jocular manner, that he should bring out a clergyman to Fort Washington on a certain date, and there he would once more solicit her hand.”9
When Burr drove out to see Eliza, accompanied by the promised minister, “the lady was embarrassed, and still refused.” But then she reconsidered, Parton wrote: “And, after all, why not? Her estate needed a vigilant guardian, and the old house was lonely. After much hesitation, she at length consented to be dressed and to receive her visitors.” Then “she was married,” the ceremony taking place immediately with Nelson and Mary in attendance.10
This colorful narrative needs to be considered with caution. It bears more than a passing resemblance to the fictional courtship of fortune hunter Captain Blifil and aging spinster Miss Bridget Allworthy in Henry Fielding’s famous novel Tom Jones (1749). In Fielding’s tale, the scene proceeds in much the same way:
Blifil, the determined suitor, initiates the negotiations. He makes his addresses … and is rebuffed. However, he “perfectly well [understands] the Lady” and knows what the next move should be. “Very soon after,” he repeats “his Application, with more Warmth and Earnestness than before.” Yet again he is, “according to due Form, rejected.” But all is not lost. As “the Eagerness of his Desires” increases, “so the Lady, with the same Propriety, decrease[s] in the Violence of her Refusal.” He continues to make “his Advances in Form,” she defends “the Citadel … in Form.” Finally, “at length, in proper Form,” she surrenders “at Discretion.”11
The ritualistic advance and retreat Fielding described in his novel was a stereotypical picture of eighteenth-century courtship. But it was believable because similar rituals were enacted in real life. It was a model that Parton could use to shape a scene he had not witnessed himself. At the time the biographer was writing, in the mid-1850s, Aaron Burr was long dead. Nelson Chase said that it was he who met with Parton to provide the details on Eliza’s life with Burr.12 Indeed it is difficult to imagine anyone besides Nelson or Eliza who could have had detailed knowledge of the courtship. Whether Eliza met with Parton personally or sent Nelson in her place, the story must reflect how she wanted to be seen, the narrative she wished future generations to remember. It represents her as a desirable bride, not initially eager for a second marriage, but persuaded by an ardent suitor.
In truth, both parties had practical reasons for the union. For Eliza, a second marriage would offer an entrance into polite society, giving her the status she lacked as a widow without family ties to New York’s elite. Aaron Burr, from a prominent New Jersey family, was the grandson of renowned Calvinist cleric Jonathan Edwards, the son of the president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), and a graduate of the college himself. He had served valiantly for five years in the War of Independence and later was always referred to by his military title, Colonel Burr, as was the common practice when addressing ex-soldiers of the Revolutionary generation. After leaving the army, he married happily, trained as a lawyer, and made his mark in New York politics. He was elected twice to the New York State Assembly, in 1784 and 1797; appointed New York’s attorney general in 1789; and elected to the United States Senate in 1791, defeating Alexander Hamilton’s father-in-law, Judge Schuyler.13 Only the death of his wife in 1794 shadowed these triumphs.
Had Burr’s career continued as successfully as it had begun, a marriage with him might have been beyond Eliza’s reach. But his reputation was not what it might have been, thanks to a series of reverses that had begun with the new century. In the presidential campaign of 1800, Thomas Jefferson, the Republican candidate, had asked Burr, also a Republican, to be his running mate. At the time, the Constitution mandated that each member of the electoral college vote for two contenders. The candidate with the most electoral votes became president and the runner-up vice president. To Jefferson’s dismay, the election of 1800 ended in a tie, with seventy-three electoral votes each for Jefferson and Burr and sixty-five and fifty-four for their Federalist competitors, John Adams and Charles C. Pinckney, respectively.14 The choice of president would have to be made by the House of Representatives.
Burr could have had the presidency.15 In the House, he had considerable support across party lines, especially among New England Federalists who were unenthusiastic about Jefferson and his fellow Republicans from the South.16 Nonetheless, he declined to put himself forward for the role, honoring an earlier pledge to Jefferson not to seek the presidency for himself. But he angered the Virginian by refusing to eliminate himself as a candidate, on the grounds that it would be his duty to serve if elected.17
Ultimately Jefferson was elected president on the House’s thirty-sixth vote, and Burr became vice president. But Jefferson, wary of the respect in which Burr was held and the considerable political capital he wielded, marginalized his former running mate. He distanced him from important issues and made it clear that when he ran for a second term, Burr would have no place on the ticket.18 Burr, therefore, pursued his political ambitions elsewhere. During his last year as vice president, he ran for governor of New York in the election of 1804. He was badly defeated, thanks to Jefferson’s covert opposition and slurs about his character that had been disseminated for years by his fellow lawyer and political rival Alexander Hamilton.19
Burr had long borne Hamilton’s enmity with equanimity. But smarting from his loss of the election and ostracism from national politics, his normal stoicism was shattered.20 When he heard that Hamilton had vilified his character at a private dinner party, Burr challenged him to a duel. The parties met on July 11, 1804, on a dueling ground in Weehawken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City. There is still disagreement over who shot first, or whether Hamilton intended to shoot at all.21 Only Burr’s bullet found its mark, hitting Hamilton in the abdomen. The wound would prove fatal—to both Hamilton’s life and Burr’s reputation. General Alexander Hamilton, former soldier in the army of the republic, secretary of the treasury under President George Washington, and architect of the young nation’s fiscal policy, would die the following morning. The popular press took Hamilton’s side.22 Burr would be reviled for the rest of his life for killing Hamilton.
The nadir of his career came three years later, just as Eliza’s husband Stephen was reaching the peak of his success. In search of a way to recoup his fortunes, Burr had embarked on a career as a filibuster. The meaning of this word has changed since Burr’s day. In the early nineteenth century, a “filibuster” was a man who raised a private army to seize land from a nation at war with his own.23 Although George Washington had opposed this governmentally authorized form o
f piracy, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton had encouraged filibusters since the 1790s, and soon James Madison would do so too.24 Underlying the official tolerance, and even encouragement, of filibusters was the expectation that the settlers of lands newly freed from Spanish or French control would decide to join the United States, increasing the young country’s size and population.
As early as 1804, Burr had floated plans to seize Mexico from Spain.25 He acquired four hundred thousand acres of land in northeast Louisiana that he planned to settle with volunteers who could invade Texas and Mexico if a war with Spain began.26 The outbreak of hostilities was not unlikely given tensions on the border between the Spanish colonies and the United States.
Rumors flew as Burr attempted to raise money to equip followers. To tempt Spain and England, his intermediaries claimed that he would separate the states and territories west of the Appalachians from the United States—a story he was not beyond using himself to appeal to independence-minded Westerners—although it is unlikely he intended to divide the republic.27 He was also happy to inform England—although not Spain—about his designs on Mexico.28
As word of his project leaked out, President Thomas Jefferson, now in his second term, saw an opportunity to crush Burr. On November 27, 1806, as Burr was traveling south to Louisiana with a small group of supporters, the president ordered the military and judiciary to stop what he termed an unauthorized military expedition against Spain.29 Soon Jefferson had his former vice president charged with high treason for purportedly assembling an army to seize the restive city of New Orleans, instigate a rebellion in the adjoining territories, and divide the United States by splitting the eastern seaboard from the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. He also had Burr prosecuted for high misdemeanor for launching a military campaign against a nation (Spain) with which the United States was at peace.30
When the case came to trial in Richmond, Virginia, in the summer of 1807, Burr was acquitted. His project hadn’t garnered much active support—his “army” consisted of some sixty men—and he hadn’t actually started a war against either the United States or Spain.31 But with the Jefferson administration against him, further attempts at prosecution were likely. Burr took refuge in Europe. As late as 1812, when he returned to the United States, he had to slip into the country under a false name.32
Nevertheless, if Burr was still an outcast to many, he retained warm friendships and professional relationships with a number of prominent New Yorkers.33 Contemporaries were beginning to reassess his reputation and question the treatment he had received from the Jefferson administration.34 Despite the duel and the trial for treason, Eliza could anticipate that marrying a lawyer who had been a vice president of the United States would pry open social doors.
Burr had equally strong reasons to seek a marriage with Eliza. In spite of legal expertise that brought him a good income, he was chronically in debt. His warmhearted liberality was delightful to witness, but too often performed at the expense of others who had loaned him the money that he gave away. The many lawsuits filed against him testify to his longstanding practice of borrowing money and failing to repay it, and contracting for goods or services and not paying those who provided them.35 To compound the matter, he had borrowed heavily to defend himself in court in 1807 and support his life in exile.36 As early as 1812, the widowed Burr had contemplated remarriage as a way of discharging his debts and obtaining money to invest in speculations that he confidently expected would earn him riches. That year he wrote in his journal, penned for his daughter Theodosia, “I come now to sacrifice myself to you in every way; that of marriage is one.”37 He had even identified a suitable “fair object,” whom he described optimistically as “a worthy lady some few years older than myself, with fortune enough, and I think good nature enough to make that appropriation of it.”38 Nothing came of the project; the fair object must have been insufficiently good-natured.
Twenty years later Burr still needed a fortune, if only to retire from the practice of law and enjoy a comfortable old age. The elderly lawyer’s financial status was particularly precarious in the first half of 1833. In March Burr was turned down in his attempt to collect a federal pension for his military service during the Revolutionary War.39 By May, if not earlier, he was in arrears on the rent of the home he occupied at 31 Reade Street (the street where both Stephen and Eliza had lived—only the spelling had changed).40 He was also facing a lawsuit for an unpaid debt, which would result in a judgment against him on June 7.41 (Irresponsibly generous as always, Burr had ordered a complete wardrobe as a New Year’s gift for a young man who was his ward, but once the clothing was delivered, didn’t pay for it.)42 To improve his financial situation, he had been trying for months to collect legal fees for his work on a long-running case, although his once-grateful clients contended (almost certainly accurately) that he had received more than adequate compensation already.43 How could Burr not have considered pursuing Eliza to gain control of her late husband’s fortune?
Eliza might even have placed the idea in his head, or at a minimum encouraged him to pursue it. She was undoubtedly aware that a union with Burr could raise her social status and that her wealth made her an attractive parti. Indeed Samuel H. Wandell and Meade Minnigerode, in a biography of Burr published in 1925, claimed that she proposed the match. Their source, they said, was William D. Craft, Burr’s law partner during his final years.44 John Stillwell, who also spoke with Craft, went further. Eliza “courted [Burr] assiduously and finally bagged him,” he harrumphed. “Bagged is the only word for it.”45
Although neither Wandell and Minnigerode nor Stillwell were sympathetic to Eliza, this claim deserves serious consideration. In arranging a marriage for Mary, Eliza had utilized marriage as a bond that could be dictated by financial and practical concerns. Years later she would use money again to secure a desirable suitor, this time for a child of Mary’s. Why not arrange such a marriage for herself?
Certainly there was some horse trading going on. In spite of Parton’s story, which has Nelson introducing Burr into the family after studying with him for “some months,” Nelson himself stated that he did not begin training with the older lawyer until May 1833.46 Until then they were scarcely acquainted.47 Given the compressed time frame—the marriage would take place July 1—it is likely that either Eliza made Nelson’s admission to Burr’s office one of the criteria for the nuptials or, more probably, that Burr arranged the apprenticeship to gain closer access to Eliza.
There is indirect evidence that Eliza discussed money matters with Burr before their marriage, understanding that her financial assets would form part of her appeal. In a court filing in 1834, Burr testified that her personal estate amounted to fifteen thousand dollars, plus an income of five thousand dollars or more per year, not including the mansion house nor real estate held in trust for her that was valued at around two hundred thousand dollars.48 This was probably information Eliza had shared with him before the marriage. In addition, she had shown him a letter she had drafted to send to one of Stephen’s relatives, in which she declared that her late husband had left only debts. Mailed just before or just after the wedding, the missive was written to ward off claims for money from Stephen’s brother and sister.49
Ultimately both parties had practical reasons for the marriage: on Burr’s side, money; on Eliza’s, social acceptance—and probably also the utility of having a clever lawyer at her side to help her guard her assets. Eliza, then, was no passive victim of Burr’s machinations, but a bride who expected to benefit from this union. It is a telling point that the couple’s honeymoon would be a business trip to reclaim monies Eliza was owed under Stephen’s estate. On balance, however, it was probably Burr rather than Eliza who was the aggressor in their alliance. Given his tangled finances, he needed Eliza more than she needed him.
26
AN OPTIMISTIC BEGINNING
The marriage of Madame Eliza Jumel, née Bowen, and Colonel Aaron Burr took place at the bride’s house on Harlem
Heights Monday evening, July 1, 1833.1 The day was clear and a little sticky—seventy-two degrees at dawn, eighty by afternoon—presaging the dog days of the summer to come.2 As evening fell, Nelson and Mary were in attendance. But no infant would interrupt the ceremony with a cry; on January 27, Mary’s child had arrived stillborn.3
Burr, raised in the Dutch Reformed Church, had supplied the pastor, Reverend David Bogart.4 As the bride and bridegroom stood in the southwest parlor of the mansion, waiting for the minister to begin the ceremony, did Eliza pause a moment to reflect on her first wedding, twenty-nine years before?5 After the ups and downs of those decades with Stephen, what were her expectations for this marriage? Did she hope for love—and why wouldn’t she; Burr could charm the birds from the trees—or simply a working relationship?
The sober opening of the Dutch Reformed marriage service hardly lent itself to optimism. “Married persons,” Rev. Bogart would have intoned, “are generally, by reason of sin, subject to many troubles and afflictions.” Although they could count on “the certain assistance of God,” the Lord would “punish whoremongers and adulterers.”6
As the ceremony continued, Burr and Eliza would have listened to Bogart describing the mutual respect they owed each other. The husband should honor, teach, comfort, and protect his wife; the wife should love, honor, and obey her husband. Given the occasional dissension in Eliza’s first marriage, it wouldn’t be surprising if she felt a moment’s scorn when Bogart told her, “You should not exercise any dominion over your husband, but be silent: for Adam was first created and then Eve, to be a help to Adam.”7
Whatever inner voices the couple heard, the two consented to the marriage: first seventy-seven-year-old Aaron, then fifty-eight-year-old Eliza. After solemnizing the union, Bogart would have stressed once more the sanctity of the marriage bond, warning against divorce. Finally he would have blessed the newly married couple: “The Lord our God replenish you with his grace, grant that ye may long live together in all godliness and holiness. Amen.”8
The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel Page 15