by Paul Collins
40 disenfranchised acquire property and qualify to vote: Reubens, “Burr, Hamilton and the Manhattan Company,” 579.
41 “is now totally destroyed”: Larson, Magnificent Catastrophe, 98.
42 “All will depend on the city election”: Ibid., 92.
43 “The Collect is made the foundation of a Bank”: NYCA, 29 April 1799.
44 “a regular Roman triumph”: Friedman and Israel, Justices of the Supreme Court, 1789–1978, 396.
45 He’d gone to school with Hamilton: Allan McLane Hamilton, Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton, 154.
46 to college with Burr: Rogow, Fatal Friendship, 24.
47 aide-de-camp to George Washington: Livingston, Livingstons of Livingston Manor, 232.
48 an explosive sense of humor and an equally unpredictable temper: Friedman and Israel, Justices of the Supreme Court, 1789–1978, 396.
49 an editorial of his made a mild if careless jest: NYCA, 11 May 1798.
50 The constable had refused even to arrest him: Freeman, “Dueling as Politics,” 301.
51 “His best friends cannot lament his death”: NYCA, 14 May 1798.
52 Livingston had been held: Chester and Williams, Courts and Lawyers of New York, 3:1364.
53 John Young, a bassoonist: Highfill, Burnim, and Langhans, Biographical Dictionary of Actors, 16:361.
54 the musician panicked and shot: De Voe, Market Book, 1:342.
55 “an indecency” … “which ought never to be tolerated”: NYDA, 31 July 1797.
56 “This shameful exposure was not through the wantonness”: Quoted in De Voe, Market Book, 1:342.
10. THE SILENT SLEIGH
1 AT ABOUT NINE O’CLOCK THAT FRIDAY: Philadelphia Gazette, 20 January 1800.
2 “entirely consumed” … “the heavens illuminated”: NYCA, 18 January 1800.
3 $70,000 worth of cargo: Ibid.
4 the Olive—went up as well: Philadelphia Gazette, 20 January 1800.
5 the work, it was murmured, of an arsonist: NYMA, 18 January 1800.
6 “Sworn, 18th day of January, 1800”: Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton, 1:697.
7 she’d borne Ezra a daughter: Paine Family Records, 127. The daughter in question was Mary Ann Weeks [Paine] (1798–1852).
8 the young carpenter was released … bail laws had been considerably loosened: Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton, 1:697.
9 New York’s attorney general had been confined for a debt: Fleming, Duel, 99.
10 “Those who dared to suppose him innocent”: Hardie, Impartial Account of the Trial, iv–v.
11 “Directly in the rear of Mr. McComb’s houses”: NYCA, 21 January 1800.
12 selling the $100,000 behemoth: NYS, 21 November 1801.
13 building a new City Hall: Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 369.
14 Elias and Catherine Ring explained: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 24.
15 Elma told me that they were to be married: Ibid., 29.
16 Levi’s apprentice, came forward: Ibid., 46.
17 I saw Elma and Levi in an indecent act: Ibid., 43.
18 another murdered woman was found: NYDA, 6 December 1799.
19 Hoffman was Colden’s brother-in-law: Alden, Collection of American Epitaphs and Inscriptions, 272.
20 a newspaper brought this thunderbolt: NYCA, 24 February 1800.
21 AN ACT TO PARDON JOHN PASTANO: Hurd, Institutional Care of the Insane, 1:325.
22 no legal defense of insanity for a murder charge: Ordronaux, “Judicial Problems Relating to the Disposition of Insane Criminals,” 594.
23 “Where is the magnanimous General Hamilton?”: GNDA, 21 January 1800.
24 away in Albany for much of February: Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton, 1:699.
25 death of George Washington was already proving disastrous: Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, 600.
26 “If I should consent to the appointment of Hamilton”: Ibid., 559.
27 justified by stoking fears of a French invasion: Larson, Magnificent Catastrophe, 97.
28 “volcano of atheism, depravity, and absurdity”: Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 5:391.
29 “Speculations on a probable war in Europe have almost ceased”: NYCA, 16 January 1800.
30 “The French will not have any cause to regret the loss of their naval power”: Ibid., 8 February 1800.
31 more believable tale. It came from Susannah Broad: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 46–47.
32 a basic courtesy of the road: By-laws and Ordinances of the Mayor, 205. By 1839, it was, in fact, illegal to drive a sleigh without “a sufficient number of bells,” punishable by a ten-dollar fine. Similar laws were already in effect in Baltimore as early as 1797.
33 “When you hear sleigh bells jingling along the road”: United States Chronicle (Providence, R.I.), 3 March 1796.
34 “I sent to take passage for to-morrow”: Aaron Burr to Theodosia Burr, 5 March 1800, Memoirs of Aaron Burr, 2:144.
35 brought to them for appeal: NYCA, 3 March 1800.
36 stabbed a good Samaritan: Albany Centinel, 9 March 1798.
37 made a point of passing an act demanding it: NYCA, 3 March 1800.
38 counterfeiting Manhattan Bank currency: NYWM, 19 April 1800.
39 a $350 check drawn upon the Manhattan Bank account of Washington Irving’s brother: NYCA, 21 March 1800.
40 Yes, said Arnetta Van Norden: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 50.
41 one of the other cartmen: Collections of the New-York Historical Society for the Year 1885, 246.
42 The Sunday before, Matthew Musty recalled: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 90. Although Coleman lists his name as “Mustee,” this appears to be an error, as the name does not occur in any other documents; local directories repeatedly list a cartman named Matthew Musty.
43 Tea, ten shillings a pound: “Journal of Joshua Brookes” The various grocery prices in this section are from Brookes’s notes from 1798 and 1802.
44 Many locals had been accustomed to using British currency: Monaghan and Lowenthal, This Was New York, 3.
45 He had lived and worked in his store … for years: Argus and Greenleaf’s New Daily Advertiser, 11 December 1795.
46 name was prominent among Manhattan grocers: Longworth’s American Almanack (1800), 192.
47 meetings of his professional brethren: NYMA, 23 January 1801.
48 ice shipped out from Philadelphia had yellow fever: NYDA, 5 February 1800.
49 Bonaparte had hired Thomas Paine: Ibid., 11 February 1800.
50 “His household is French”: Ibid., 27 March 1800.
51 a duel between two bickering watchmakers: NYCA, 3 March 1800.
52 Benjamin Holmes was finally scheduled for hanging and dissection: Ibid.
53 city council session just having concluded the day before: NYDA, 26 March 1800.
54 circuit court was to commerce the following Tuesday: Ibid.
55 “Good morning, gentlemen”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 82.
11. THE AMERICAN PHENOMENA
1 “a very clear day, but very blustery”: Bleecker, Diary, 31 March 1800.
2 marrying one of his customers, the widow Mrs. Stackhaver: Report on the Trial of Richard D. Croucher, 6.
3 the widow’s house on Ann Street: Ibid., 9. During Croucher’s rape trial in July 1800, witness Abiel Brown mentions renting a residence in Croucher and Stackhaver’s house. The Longworth’s Almanack for 1800 (146) shows Brown at 10 Ann Street. The 1801 directory (126) shows Brown occupying both 8 and 10 Ann Street—perhaps having taken over the building after Croucher left to serve his prison sentence.
4 her teenaged daughter: Ibid., 5.
5 “Scarcely any thing else is spoken of”: Bleecker, Diary, 31 March 1800.
6 “The American Phenomena”: NYMA, 17 March 1800.
7 “the concourse of people was so great”: Hardie, Impartial Account of the Trial, vi.
8 “Cruci
fy him!”: Ibid.
9 Mr. Babb’s shop … “to confine tame birds in a free country”: Thorburn, Fifty Years’ Reminiscences of New-York, 149.
10 the city’s only hosiery shop: Ibid., 148
11 at the corner was an old buttonwood tree … for climbing: Ibid., 150.
12 a phalanx of constables and a citizen volunteer guard: Longworth, Brief Narrative of the Trial, 5.
13 “disposed to exercise it in its amplest extent”: Ibid.
14 hawking door-to-door copies of … “Washington’s Will”: NYDA, 13 February 1800.
15 “THE TRIAL OF LEVI WEEKS … BY JOHN FURMAN”: NYCA, 31 March 1800.
16 Hear ye, hear ye: Jenkins, New Clerk’s Assistant, 133. This court proclamation is italicized but not in quotation marks, as Coleman’s transcript simply notes “Proclamation having been made in the usual form” (9).
17 he towered over most of the crowd … skated twenty miles up the Connecticut River: Bryant, Reminiscences of the “Evening Post,” 3.
18 All manner of persons: Jenkins, New Clerk’s Assistant, 133.
19 an abandoned child at a Boston poorhouse: Pasley, Tyranny of Printers, 240.
20 worked briefly as Aaron Burr’s law partner … it was to Hamilton that the grateful and destitute Coleman owed: Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, 649.
21 he’d virtually walked out in disgust: Nannie Coleman, Constitution and Its Framers, 148.
22 publicly questioned the curious provisions buried in Burr’s bill: Koeppel, Water for Gotham, 85.
23 he’d served as an aide to Hamilton’s father-in-law: Gerlach, Proud Patriot, 312.
24 the general’s former law partner: Fitch, Encyclopedia of Biography of New York City, 1:346.
25 now also a board member of Burr’s new water company: Koeppel, Water for Gotham, 77.
26 Approach the bar: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 9.
27 a respectable-enough-looking fellow: Longworth, Brief Narrative of the Trial, 5.
28 the custom to not let the accused testify: O’Neill, “Vindicating the Defendant’s Constitutional Right to Testify at a Criminal Trial,” 812.
29 didn’t even have the right to counsel or to call witnesses: Ibid., 811.
30 “Levi Weeks, prisoner at the bar”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 9.
31 local hacks took rapid notes: Hardie, Impartial Account of the Trial, vii.
32 “Hearken to what is said to you”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 9.
33 Weeks immediately cut some of the jurors short: Ibid., 10.
34 “Juror, look upon the Prisoner”: Ibid.
35 they’d served in the assembly together: NYDA, 2 June 1797.
36 So had the father of juror Garrit Storm: Barrett, Old Merchants of New York City, 4:323.
37 tobacco and beeswax merchant: NYG, 19 February 1799.
38 organizing local Irishmen for the Republicans: NYDA, 11 June 1794.
39 everything from shawls to gunpowder: Ibid., 23 November 1799.
40 “immense operations” in salt manufacturing: Barrett, Old Merchants of New York City, 1:354.
41 former president of the city’s chamber of commerce … “Prince of Merchants”: Ibid., 104.
42 landowners holding property worth at least $250: Alschuler and Deiss, “Brief History of the Criminal Jury in the United States,” 879. Alschuler and Deiss’s account notes that although New York dropped its landowning requirement in 1821, it kept its $250 requirement until 1967.
43 nearly a year’s wages for a common laborer: Lebergott, “Wage Trends, 1800–1900,” 462.
44 Hunt and his fellow juror Jasper Ward had even run a grocery store together: NYDA, 19 April 1796.
45 “You shall well and truly try”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 9.
46 It was his habit to divide his papers into two columns: Allan McLane Hamilton, Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton, 195.
47 Hale’s Plea of the Crown: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 94.
48 “Gentlemen of the Jury”: Ibid., 10.
49 “The Jurors and the People of the State of New-York”: Ibid., 10–11.
50 “Upon this indictment the prisoner at the bar hath been arraigned”: Ibid., 11–12.
12. By THE HOLLOW STAIR
1 Colden had personally investigated: NYG, 5 December 1799.
2 Burr helped save Colden land: Coldengham History and Preservation Society, “The Colden Family of Early America,” 12.
3 “The prisoner has thought it necessary for his defense”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 12.
4 “His appearance interested us greatly in his favor”: Longworth, Brief Narrative of the Trial, 5.
5 “He gained the affections of those who are now to appear”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 12.
6 “The deceased was a young girl”: Ibid., 13. The remainder of this section is drawn from this page in Coleman’s trial transcript.
7 the defense was demanding that Elias Ring leave: Ibid., 18–19.
8 “You have a right to it, of course”: Ibid., 19.
9 twenty-seven years old—just five years older than Elma: Ibid., 33.
10 “I regarded her as a sister”: Ibid., 34.
11 “In July last, Levi Weeks came to board”: Ibid., 19.
12 announce a whole series of legal precedents: Ibid. Specifically, according to Coleman’s transcript, “4 State Trials, 487, 488, idem 291, 298; Leeche’s [sic] Cases 399, idem 397, idem 437; 2 Bacon 563; Skinner’s Reports 402.”
13 Brockholst Livingston … a copy of Leach’s Cases in Crown Law: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 19.
14 William Woodcock, accused in 1789 of beating his wife: Leach, Cases in Crown Law, 397–98.
15 “His Lordship” … “then left it with the jury”: Ibid., 401.
16 Aaron Burr leaped in: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 20.
17 “Levi became very attentive to Elma”: Ibid.
18 Elias Ring, who had crept back into the courtroom: Ibid., 21.
19 “I always thought her disposition rather too gay”: Ibid., 33.
20 her niece seeming “much pleased”: Ibid., 22.
21 “I heard the clock strike eight”: Ibid., 23.
22 Colden dramatically unrolled an architect’s plan: Ibid., 24.
23 “What kind of staircase is it?”: Ibid., 25.
24 Levi seemed “pale and much agitated”: Ibid., 26.
25 “I said, Stop, Levi, this matter has become so serious”: Ibid., 30.
26 Mrs. Ring also heard Elma threaten to overdose: Ibid., 31.
27 “Why Levi! How can thee say so?”: Ibid., 32. The remainder of this section is drawn from this page in Coleman’s trial transcript.
28 he had visited the museum with Hope and Elma: Ibid., 38.
29 “After she was missing, he denied knowing any thing”: Ibid., 37.
30 “I left my shoes at the bottom of them”: Ibid., 36.
31 “He soon began to use all possible means to convince me”: Ibid., 37.
32 Levi’s Seventh Ward alderman: New York Common Council, Minutes of the Common Council of the City of New York, 1784–1831, 3:157.
33 assistant, the memorably named Mangle Minthorne: Ibid.
34 their tireless efforts to get local streets fixed: Ibid., 2:2. These duties are first noted with Furman in the 15 April 1793 entry on page 2, and he turns up in this capacity on numerous other occasions in the volume.
35 “he paid no more attention to Elma”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 37.
36 “Levi, if I was to do it”: Ibid., 38.
37 “Levi Weeks was a lodger in my house”: Ibid., 39.
38 Hamilton interrupted: Ibid. The Coleman trial transcript is notable for, with a few exceptions, not specifying who on the defense team is speaking. It’s a peculiar omission for such a careful chronicler�
��so peculiar, in fact, that it is worth asking whether Coleman thought that the speaker was already obvious to his readers.
In his account of the trial, Hamilton’s grandson Allen McLane Hamilton explains that “Hamilton interrogated most of the witnesses” (186). In both Hardie’s and Coleman’s accounts, Hamilton is listed first among the defense team; what is more, when Coleman had his manuscript proofed after the trial, it was Alexander Hamilton that he showed it to (NYAC, 30 April 1800). My inference is that Hamilton was, in fact, the lead counsel.
On every occasion that we know Burr or Livingston to have spoken, they are clearly identified by name or as “one of the counsel.” For instance, the defense’s opening statement is attributed by Coleman to “one of the counsel” (64); both Longworth (10) and Hardie (21) identify this person as Burr.
Hamilton is never overtly identified as a speaker by Coleman—because, I believe, he is the default identity of the defense. Tellingly, the NYDA, 3 April 1800, identifies Hamilton as making the request to forgo the closing statement; Coleman identifies this simply as “counsel.” My conclusion is that Hamilton, as the lead counsel, is speaking for the defense unless otherwise identified, and the courtroom dialogue in this book is rendered accordingly.
39 “Did you ever know that the prisoner and Elma were in bed together?”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 40. The remainder of this section is drawn from this page in Coleman’s trial transcript.
40 “May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury”: Ibid., 43.
41 his voice low and quick: Ibid., 81.
42 “I was satisfied, from what I saw”: Ibid., 43.
43 As a newly married man: Report on the Trial of Richard D. Croucher, 6.
44 He’d gone to the coffeehouse and then to a birthday party: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 44.
45 “I wish I had”: Ibid.
46 “I believe I might have passed the glue manufactory”: Ibid., 45.
47 “Ever had a quarrel with the prisoner?”: Ibid., 44.
48 “She thought” … “he was an Adonis”: Ibid., 45.
13. THE COLOR OF A HORSE IN THE NIGHT
1 “Being in Greenwich Street”: William Coleman, Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks, 47.