Duel with the Devil

by Paul Collins

  4 “The brick house I am now building”: Kleiger, Trial of Levi Weeks, 211.

  5 fellow Massachusetts native, Lyman Harding: Ibid.

  6 trusted army friend of Aaron Burr’s: Beveridge, Life of John Marshall, 3:364.

  7 Ionic columns along the front of the house, topped by Corinthian entablature: Kleiger, Trial of Levi Weeks, 211.

  8 the inspiration for other grand mansions in the region: Black, Art in Mississippi, 1720–1980, 36.

  9 commissions for Natchez’s new city hall and college building: Ibid., 35.

  10 “Colonel Burr has been here”: Kleiger, Trial of Levi Weeks, 202.

  11 a ten-by-ten rented room: Private Journal of Aaron Burr, 2:102.

  12 dodging petty debts to Parisian shopkeepers: Ibid., 2:108.

  13 “Had one sous left”: Ibid., 2:103.

  14 “I must, infallibly, have been taken”: Ibid., 2:101.

  15 “I can sit in my chair”: Ibid., 2:105.

  16 a volume containing “abuse and libels”: Ibid., 2:108.

  17 “You are a scoundrel, sir!”: Fleming, Duel, 404.

  18 military pension denied by a Congress: Isenberg, Fallen Founder, 399.

  19 “very thin and straight, dressed in black”: Morhouse, “Boy’s Reminiscences,” 340.

  20 one of America’s first specialists in family law: Isenberg, Fallen Founder, 389.

  21 almost never heard him speak again of Alexander Hamilton: Ibid., 406.

  22 sometimes mused over: the death of Miss Elma Sands: Parton, Life and Times of Aaron Burr, 148.

  23 friend of William Coleman’s: Slawinski, “Tale of Two Murders,” 368. I am indebted to Slawinski’s article for drawing my attention to Brown’s use of the Weeks trial in this story.

  24 “A recent instance has occurred”: Brown, “Trials of Arden,” 19.

  25 “Of all men his lot was most disastrous”: Ibid., 20.

  26 reviews of both Coleman’s trial transcript and the newly published transcript of Croucher’s: Slawinski, “Tale of Two Murders,” 398.

  27 riot and attack Arden and then even the jury: Brown, “Trials of Arden,” 26.

  28 “Europe had been for a long time the theatre of his crimes”: Ibid., 27.

  29 an old Princeton classmate of Burr’s: Isenberg, Fallen Founder, 418.

  30 “Gulielma Sands—the unfortunate event”: Freneau, Collection of Poems, 1:113.

  31 the city filled in and platted out Lispenard’s Meadow: NYDA, 29 June 1804. Specifically, this was an ad seeking cartmen to bid on a contract “for filling up to the level of the street, a number of Lots, situated on Spring-street, near the Manhattan Well.”

  32 bought by John Jacob Astor: Southern Portrait (Charleston, S.C.), 8 April 1848.

  33 modern descendant: Bank of the Manhattan Company, Early New-York and the Bank of the Manhattan Company, n.p.

  34 the author was Keturah Connah: Orange County Times-Press (Middle-town, N.Y.), 26 April 1910. Her authorship was revealed in this obituary placed by her family after her death in 1910 at the age of ninety.

  35 “our story, or rather, history”: Connah, Guilty, or Not Guilty, 155.

  36 originating the popular story of Mrs. Ring’s curse: Ibid., 374.

  37 Hope Sands, a witness in the trial—was still alive: Ibid., v.

  38 “an abundance of light auburn hair” … “small, piercing, black eyes”: Ibid., 47.

  39 “He was tall, and well formed”: Ibid., 153.

  40 “the little mountain maid”: Ibid., 34.

  41 “she had been always a delicate child”: Ibid., 10.

  42 listening to the piano: Ibid., 68.

  43 “The eyes were dark”: Ibid., 10.

  44 “Were you to ask me now to give you the exact location”: Ibid., 332.

  45 “Since the above was written”: Ibid., 333.

  46 “The old well, known as the Manhattan Well”: New York Times, 18 April 1869.

  47 129 Spring Street: Stone, History of New York City, 342. The 1869 Times article misprints the address as 115 Spring Street. Subsequent accounts, for example, an 1872 Harper’s article and later newspaper articles (including in the Times itself), identify the location as either 129 Spring Street or 89½ Greene Street, which is the alleyway behind 129 Spring. Stone might be the first key identification, though, because while he does not give a street address, he identifies the well’s location as “just above the present line of Spring Street between Greene and Wooster Streets.” This description fits for 129 Spring, but not 115 Spring. It was indeed at 129 Spring Street that a well was rediscovered a century later.

  That the well was near Spring Street—something that some later commentators were not even sure of—is clearly indicated by the aforementioned advertisement seeking landfill (NYDA, 29 June 1804), which identified “lots, situated on Spring-street, near the Manhattan Well.”

  48 a pawnbroker: New-York Herald, 11 May 1856.

  49 “O. Spotswood’s Antidote for Tobacco”: Farmer’s Cabinet (Amherst, N.H.), 25 December 1862.

  50 a German beer hall: Der Zeitgeist (Egg Harbor City, N.J.), 12 November 1870.

  51 a Communist meeting elected Victorian firebrand Victoria Woodhull: “Crinoline in Communist Councils,” New-York Herald, 10 March 1873.

  52 “on the anniversary of her murder”: Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 21 July 1889.

  53 “a sturdy German carpenter”: Pittsburg Dispatch, 16 June 1889. The alternate spelling of Pittsburgh is per the original newspaper.

  54 “Winds stir sooty papers in it”: “About New York,” New York Times, 23 October 1957.

  55 the owner of the Manhattan Bistro set about excavating: Ghost Stories: “The Ghost of Elma Sands,” Travel Channel, 18 June 2010. There is otherwise very little accurate information in this production.

  56 the owners and employees like to trade stories: Ibid.

  57 it was said that Levi’s defense counsel: Parton, Life and Times of Aaron Burr, 148.

  58 “He used to say”: Ibid.

  59 When Hamilton’s son recounted it: John C. Hamilton, History of the Republic of the United States of America, 746.

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