Fallen Founder

by Nancy Isenberg

  49. Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1096, 1099; Bixby, ed., Private Journal of Aaron Burr, I: 410.

  50. See “Documents Delivered to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” [Mar. 1–13, 1810], and Louis Roux: Report to the duc de Cadore, Mar. 13, 1810, and Louis Roux to the duc de Cadore, July 29, 1810, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1100–01, 1105, 1110–11, 1113–15, 1117–19, 1124–25.

  51. Bixby, ed., Private Journal of Aaron Burr, I: 430–31, 454; Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1101–02.

  52. See Louise Hunt Averill, “John Vanderlyn, American Painter (1775–1852),” Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, 1949, 82, 91; AB to Madame——, May 9, 1810, Madame “Z.” to AB, July 20, 1811, and AB to Madame “Z.,” Aug. 28, 1811, in Davis, ed., Private Journal of Aaron Burr, II: 15, 237–38. See also AB to [a lady] (also Madame “Z.”), Mar. 28, 1811, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 6; and Bixby, ed., Private Journal of Aaron Burr, I: 468, II: 87–88.

  53. AB to comte de Volney, Aug. 5, 1810, in Davis, ed., Private Journal of Aaron Burr, II: 30–31; Jonathan Russell to AB, Oct. 25, 1810, AB to Alexander McRae, Oct. 29, 1810, and Alexander McRae to AB, Oct. 29, 1810, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1128–29; Bixby, ed., Private Journal of Aaron Burr, II: 22, 25, 28–29; and Averill, “John Vanderlyn,” 88.

  54. Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1131–33.

  55. Bixby, ed., Private Journal of Aaron Burr, 244; Theodosia Burr Alston to Dolley Madison, June 24, 1809, in the Dolley Madison Papers, Special Collections, Alderman Library, University of Virginia. See AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, May 31, Oct. 13, 1809, Theodosia Burr Alston to AB, Aug. 1, 1809, in Van Doren, ed., Correspondence of Aaron Burr and his Daughter Theodosia, 296, 304, 312; and Theodosia Burr Alston to Frederick Prevost, Sept. 12, 1809, in Côté, Theodosia, 253.

  56. Theodosia Burr Alston to AB, Feb. 14, 1811, in Van Doren, ed., Correspondence of Aaron Burr and his Daughter Theodosia, 321; see also Mattern and Shulman, eds., The Selected Letters of Dolley Madison, 400.

  57. Theodosia Burr Alston to Albert Gallatin, Mar. 9, 1811, in Davis, ed., Private Journal of Aaron Burr, II: 155–56.

  58. See Natalie Sumter to Mary Hooper, Aug. 2, 1809, in Côté, Theodosia, 253–54; Catherine D. Westcott to AB, Dec. 8, 30, 1812, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7.

  59. Theodosia Burr Alston to AB, Feb. 14, 1811, May 10, 1811, in Van Doren, ed., Correspondence of Aaron Burr and his Daughter Theodosia, 322, 326.

  60. AB to John Reeves, Oct. 5, 1811, in Davis, ed., Private Journal of Aaron Burr, II: 241–42; and AB to David Williamson, Mar. 4, 1812, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1133–34, 1139–41.

  61. AB to David Williamson, Mar. 4, 1812, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1140–41, 1144–45; Bixby, ed., Private Journal of Aaron Burr, II: 401.

  62. AB to George Gardner, July 5, 1812, AB to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1812, AB and Timothy Green: Catalogue of Books, Aug. 1, 1812, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7; AB to [J.] Wickham, Mar. 10, 1812, in Davis, ed., Private Journal of Aaron Burr, II: 373; J. Wickham to Samuel Swartwout, July 4, 1812, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1146.

  63. Theodosia Burr Alston to AB, July 12, 1812, and AB to Jeremy Bentham, Aug. 27, 1812, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7; Joseph Alston to AB, July 26, 1812, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 426–27.

  64. Joseph Alston to AB, July 26, 1812, and Timothy Green to AB, Dec. 7, 22, 1812, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 427–28; Côté, Theodosia, 260, 63.

  65. Joseph Alston to AB, Jan. 19, Feb. 25, 1813, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 429–32; AB to Kate, Feb. 7, 1813, and AB to Lenora Fenwick, Dec. 26, 1814, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7; Côté, Theodosia, 261–65, 268, 271, 274.

  66. AB to Oliver Phelps, Aug. 13, 1812, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7.

  67. Burr was helping the couple make financial arrangements for John’s mother, the widow Jane Yates; and another acquaintance of Burr’s, Catherine Thompson, referred to “Recorder Yates” as Burr’s friend—see Catherine B. Thompson to AB, July 21, 1814, Eliza Yates to AB, Aug. 11, Sept. 18, 30, Oct. 1, [Oct. 1813], Nov. 12, John V. N. and Eliza Yates to AB, [1814–15?]. See also AB to Kate, Aug. 21, 1812, [P.M.B.] and “K” to AB, Apr. 17, 1814, P.M.B. to AB, June 16, 1814, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7; and AB to Theodosia Burr Alston, Nov. 3, 1801, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 156; Bixby, ed., Private Journal of Aaron Burr, II: 22; “Robert Yates,” in James Grant Wilson and John Fiskeels, Appletons Encyclopedia of American Biography (New York, 1887–89).

  68. Catherine Thompson was born in 1779—she was three years older than Theodosia. She later became a schoolteacher in Beaufort, S.C., and in 1818, she married a man ten year her junior. See Catherine B. Thompson to AB, Sept. 8, 17, 30, 1813, Feb. 14, 17, Mar. 8, 29, May 5, June 7, July 21, Sept, 29, Dec. 19, 1814, and July 8, 1817, and Arabella Seymour (Catherine’s sister) to AB, Feb. 24, 1818, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reels 7, 8. For family history, see census records for Dutchess County, N.Y., 1810, in The Dutchess, vol. 11, no. 3 (Spring 1984): 21, 89; and “Will of Alexander Thompson, 1813,” Will Book D, 185.

  69. See Mrs. Jenkins to AB, Sept. 16 or 18, 1813; Isabella Mix to AB, [Feb. 4, 1814], [Dec. 27, 1814], and Mar. 18, 14, 1814. Other women wrote him for money or advice; see Ann Spear to AB, Jan. 18, 1813, Mrs. M. Green to AB, Mar. 19, 1813, Madame M. to AB, May 1814. For his handlings of the case of Mrs. Denton, see AB to Gurdon Lathrop, Mar. 28 and 29, 1814, and Mar. 1, 1815, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7; see also Isabella Mix v. Marvin P. Mix, Apr. 30, 1814, in NYCC Cases. In Burr’s other divorce cases at this time, he only represented women: see Williamson v. Parisien, Apr. 8, 1815, Esther Smith v. Robert C. Smith, May 15, 1815, Adelaide Lindsley v. Abraham Lindsley, July 8, 1815, and Martha Codd v. Matthew Codd, May 29, 1816, in NYCC Cases, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 21.

  70. “Samuel Blodget, Jr.,” American National Biography (New York, 1999), III: 38–40; and Kenneth Hafertepe, “Banking Houses in the United States: The First Generation, 1781–1811,” Winterthur Portfolio 35 (Spring 2000): 9–13.

  71. Appendix C, “Guide to the William Smith Papers,” University Archives and Record Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Shields, Civil Tongues and Polite Letters in British America, 126; and “Samuel Blodget,” Dictionary of American Biography (New York, 1929), II: 380–81.

  72. Rebecca Blodget to AB, June 10, 1814, and AB to Burdon W. Lathrop, Aug. 1814, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7.

  73. Rebecca Blodget to AB, June 17, 1814, and July 15, 1814, Sept. 6, 1814, Nov. 21, 1814, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7.

  74. AB to Joseph Alston, Oct. 16, 1815, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 433; David Gelston v. AB, Oct. 1814, Louis Le Guen v. AB, July 31, 1817, and John Berry v. AB, Jan. 17, 1818, NYSC Cases, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 16; and Clarkson and Jett, Luther Martin, 292.

  75. AB to Gurdon Lathrop, Feb. 15, 1814, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7; and AB to Arthur Breese, Mar. 11, 1814, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1150. See also Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, 123–25.

  76. AB to [Gurdon W. Lathrop], Apr. 4, 1814, and AB to Martin Van Buren, [Jan. 31–Mar. 25, 1815], in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1153–55; Martin Van Buren to AB, July 23, 1814, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7; Donald B. Cole, Martin Van Buren and the American Political System (Princeton, N.J., 1984), 43–45; John Niven, Martin Van Buren: The Romantic Age of American Politics (New York, 1983), 45–46; John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., “The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren,” American Historical Association, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1918 (1920), 2: 55–56; and Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1156.

  77. Catherine B. Thompson to AB, May 5, 1814, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7; AB to [Gurdon W. Lathrop], Apr. 4, 1815, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1163–64.

  78. Cole, Martin Van Buren and the American Political System, 45; Donald M. Roper, “Martin
Van Buren as Tocqueville’s Lawyer: The Jurisprudence of Politics,” Journal of the Early Republic 2 (1982): 169–89; Jerome Mushkat and Joseph G. Rayback, Martin Van Buren: Law, Politics, and the Shaping of Republican Ideology (DeKalb, Ill., 1997), 21–22; John Brooke, “Columbia: Civil Life in the World of Martin Van Buren’s Emergence, 1776–1821,” unpublished MS, 2005; and Fitzpatrick, ed., “The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren,” 2: 13–14.

  79. Theodosia Burr Alston to AB, Feb. 14, May 10, 1811, in Van Doren, ed., Correspondence of Aaron Burr and his Daughter Theodosia, 321–22, 325–26; Erich Bollmann to AB, Mar. 5, 1811, in Davis, ed., Private Journal of Aaron Burr, II: 154; Bixby, ed., Private Journal of Aaron Burr, II: 402.

  80. J. C. A. Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early Republic, 1783–1830 (Princeton, N.J., 1983), 278–79, 504–05.

  81. AB to Joseph Alston, Nov. 15, 1815, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1165–66.

  82. Ibid.; see also Solomon Nadler, “Federal Patronage and New York Politics, 1801–1830,” Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 1973.

  83. AB to Joseph Alston, Nov. 15, 1815, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1166. Writing much later in life, and offering a kinder but similar assessment of Monroe, Van Buren noted in his autobiography: “Mr. Monroe’s character was that of an honest man, with fair, but not very marked capacities,”—Fitzpatrick, ed., The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren, II: 119.

  84. AB to Joseph Alston, Nov. 15, 1815, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1166–67.

  85. Cole, Martin Van Buren, 46–48; Burstein, Passions of Andrew Jackson, 124.

  86. Joseph Alston to AB, Feb. 16, 1816, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 437; Côté, Theodosia, 277.

  87. José Alvárez de Toledo to AB, Sept. 20, 1816, in Davis, ed., Memoirs of Aaron Burr, II: 442–43.

  88. John Alderson to AB, Oct. 16, 1817, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1170–72.

  89. Robert Cartmel to AB, July 31, 1817, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 8; Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1175–1177.

  90. Reid commanded the John Armstrong, a privateer that fought off an attack by the Royal Navy at Fayal in the Azores in 1814. This battle delayed the British attack on Louisiana, which contributed to Jackson’s victory at New Orleans. Samuel Reid to AB, Oct. 22, 1823, AB to Samuel Reid, Dec. 28, 1823, Robert Cartmel to AB, Mar. 31, 1824, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1177–80, 1182–84; AB to Samuel Reid, Aug. 27, 1824, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 8. And for the connection between Ruggles, Reid, and Burr, see AB to Ruggles Hubbard, Feb. 25, 1815, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7, and AB to Samuel C. Reid, Mar. 2, 1815, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1156–57.

  91. AB to Gurdon Lathrop, Mar. 9, 1814, AB to Benjamin Butler, Oct. 17, 1818, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7; Maria and Jacob Morton v. John Miller, George W. and Augustine J. Prevost et al., Jan. 13, 1815, and Levi Phillips and Leah and Belah Cohen, Jan. 26, 1818, NYSC, reel 16; Daniel Coxe v. William Goldsborough, Rebecca Blodget. . . , Oct. 13, 1815, NYCC, reel 21; AB to [Gurdon W. Lathrop], Apr. 4, 1814, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1153.

  92. “Eden Family,” in Mary-Jo Kline, ed., The Guide and Index to the Microfilm Edition of the Papers of Aaron Burr 1756–1836 (New York, 1978), 27; John Wood v. AB, July 20, 1825, NYCC, 16–17.

  93. “Eden Family,” in Kline, ed, Guide, 27; John Wood v. AB, 1825, NYCC, 5,13–15, 20–28.

  94. Wood v. AB, 1825, NYCC, 7–8, 10, 23. See also Morton v, Miller, 1815, Phillips v. Prevost, 1818, NYSC, reel 22; Cox v. Goldsborough, 1815, NYCC, John Wood v. AB, Eden, May 2, 1828, NY Ct. of Errors, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 21, 26. Benjamin Bulter to AB, June 24, 1818, AB to Daniel Webster, Jan. 27, 1827, and Elizabeth Eden to AB, Jan. 25, 1827, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reels 8, 11; and Mushkat and Rayback, Martin Van Buren, 168–69, 174–75.

  95. For Burr’s reputation as a lawyer, see “The Traveller,” New-York Mirror, and Ladies’ Literary Gazette, Nov. 5, 1825, 119; “Eden Family,” in Kline, ed., Guide, 27. See also the prenuptial agreement draw up by Burr for Isadore Guillet and Elizabeth Eden, Mar. 15, 1828, Elizabeth Eden to AB, Sept. 27, 1826, Rebecca Eden to AB, Oct. 6, 1826, Elizabeth Eden to AB, [Nov. 1826], [AB?] to Mr. H., Oct. 13, 1833, and AB to Rebecca M. Eden Wilson, Dec. 15, 1833, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 11.

  96. Jane L. Coryell, “‘The Lincoln Colony’: Aaron Columbus Burr’s Proposed Colonization of British Honduras,” Civil War History 43 (1997): 5–16; Aaron Burr Columbus to AB, Dec. 30, 1817, and Leonora Fenwick to AB, July 24, 1818, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 8.

  97. AB to Captain James Biddle, July 5, 1829, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 11; AB to Peter Buell Porter [Secretary of War], Feb. 18, 1829, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1195–97.

  98. For Burr’s historical ambitions, see Benjamin D. Silliman to Edward F. De Lancy, Jan. 22, 1876, in Thomas Jones, History of New York during the Revolutionary War, and of the Leading Events in the Other Colonies at that Period (New York, 1879): I: 608–09; and Darius Hawkins to AB, Oct. 23, 1820, Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 9.

  99. Richard H. Bayard to AB, Mar. 8, Apr. 22, 1830, AB to Richard Bayard, Mar. 10, 1830, AB to Matthew Livingston Davis, Mar. 15, 1830, and Matthew Livingston Davis to AB, Mar. 18, 1830, in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1197–04. Bayard felt his rendition of the facts offered “the most exact history of the matter”—see Richard Bayard to John W. Williams, Dec. 31, 1836, in Special Collections, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. We know that Jefferson was well aware of James Bayard’s letter to Allen McLane, in which Bayard promised that Jefferson would not dismiss him from his office. This letter was in Jefferson’s private papers, but it is not clear when he received this copy. It may have been in 1806 or earlier. What we do know is that Jefferson had every reason to deny the secret deal in the Anas. Jefferson had a habit of rewriting history for posterity. See the copy of James Bayard to Allen McLane, Feb. 17, 1801, with Jefferson Note, in Barbara Oberg, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Princeton, N.J., 2006).

  100. Davis began reading Jefferson’s Papers on May 30, 1830. See Matthew Livingston Davis, Memorandum Book, vol. 51, Rufus King Papers, New-York Historical Society, New York. I want to thank Jeff Pasley for referring this source to me. See also Kline, ed., Burr Papers, I: xxx.

  101. AB to Aaron Ogden, Dec. 19, 1828, “Declaration of Military Service,” Feb. 11, 1829, “Supplementary Declaration of Military Service,” Feb. 5, 1833, AB to Jared Sparks, Feb. 28, 1833, “Supplementary Declaration of Military Service,” [Mar. 1833], AB to Nelson Chase, Jan. 20, 21, Feb. 5, May 17, 1834, and AB to Martin Van Buren, Mar. 25, 1834, “Declaration of Military Service,” [Apr. 5, 1834], in Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1192–95, 1212–27; Aaron Ogden to AB, Jan. 8, 1832, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 11.

  102. Ogden had been ruined by a protracted legal battle over his steamboat ferry monopoly. This suit against him came before the Supreme Court in 1824; it was the most celebrated anti-monopoly case of the time, Gibbons v. Ogden. More troubling for their relationship, Burr had prepared a brief for Gibbons, calling Ogden’s monopoly “highly absurd & tyrannical.” This case became particularly vicious and personal, because it pitted Ogden against Thomas Gibbons, his former partner, whose son was married to Jonathan Dayton’s only child. See “Aaron Ogden,” Princetonians, 1769–1775 (Princeton, N.J., 1980), 332–334; “Jonathan Dayton,” Princetonians, 1776–1783 (Princeton, N.J., 1981), 40–41; AB: Brief on Fulton-Livingston steamboat monopoly (Gibbons v. Ogden), [ca. 1815?], in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 7; One historian dates Burr’s opinion as July 31, 1817, see Herbert A. Johnson, “Gibbons v. Ogden Before Marshall,” in Leo Hershkowitz and Milton M. Klein, eds., Courts and Law in Early New York (Port Washington, N.Y., 1978), 108,147; and Maurice G. Baxter, The Steamboat Monopoly: Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824 (New York, 1972), 29–32.

  103. “Aaron Ogden,” Princetonians, 1769–1775, II: 331, 333–34.

  104. Clarkson and Jett, Luther Martin, 302�
��03; AB, “Agreement with Alexander L. Botts on behalf of John Pelletrau,” Jan. 31, 1833, and AB to Rebecca Blodget, Nov. 10, 1834, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 11. And on Benjamin Botts’s tragic death, see “John Minor Botts,” Richmond Portraits, 20.

  105. See description of “Eliza Bowen Jumel” in the guide to the Fuller Collection of Aaron Burr (1756–1836), Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, Princeton, N.J; see also Lomask, Aaron Burr: The Conspiracy, 395–96. And for the unreliability of Jumel’s self-invented past, see “Eliza Bowen Jumel,” American National Biography 12, 317–18.

  106. See Dianne Sachko Macleod, “Eliza Bowen Jumel: Collecting and Cultural Politics in Early America,” Journal of the History of Collections 13 (2001): 60–61; “Eliza Bowen Jumel,” ANB.

  107. Macleod, “Eliza Bowen Jumel,” 61–72. For her nasty comments about her husband, see a recorded conversation she had with Washington Irving in 1824, in Washington Irving, Journals and Notebooks (Boston, 1984), III: 430.

  108. AB to John P. Bigelow, Sept. 9, 1833; for another letter of congratulation, see Margaret B. Sage to AB, Sept. 29, 1833, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 11; and Kline, ed., Burr Papers, II: 1218.

  109. Eliza B. Burr v. AB, July 11, 1834, NYCC, 301, 303, 306, 322, 326, 330–34.

  110. Ibid., 291, 370, 372–76.

  111. Ibid., 375–76, 378. Mariah Johnson’s testimony did meet the criteria of the courts, however. It became standard practice in divorce cases to rely on the testimony of witnesses, especially servants. Because of rigid divorce laws allowing adultery as the sole legally recognized cause, lawyers relied on strategic behavior. As the legal historian Henrik Hartog has argued, “if you needed a persuasive witness, then you would find or create a persuasive witness.” The courts were more concerned with making the divorce fit a formula than actually finding out the truth—see Hartog, Man and Wife in America: A History (Cambridge, Mass., 2000), 64–66, 74–75. As Milton Lomask points out, Johnson’s testimony was inaccurate, claiming that Burr did not have palsy at the time of his liaisons with McManus in August 1833. But there is clear evidence that Burr had a tremor in his hand as early as 1824. Johnson seemed more than willing to twist the facts, eliminating any detail that made Burr look less guilty. See Lomask, Aaron Burr:The Conspiracy, 402; also editor’s commentary in AB to Thomas H. Flandrau, Feb. 13, 1824, in Burr Papers, microfilm, reel 10.