35. NYHS-JP, box 1, folder 1, Eliza Jumel to Stephen Jumel, November 5, 1826.
36. PUL Fuller, box 2, folder 83, Eliza Jumel to Stephen Jumel, December 1, 1826.
37. NYHS-JP, box 1, folder 1, Eliza Jumel to Stephen Jumel, January 1, 1827.
38. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 28.
39. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 24.
40. NYHS-JP, box 2, folder A, James A. Morse to Eliza Jumel, February 14, 1827.
41. NYHS-JP, box 1, folder 1, Eliza Jumel to Stephen Jumel, February 15, 1827.
42. NYHS-JP, box 1, folder 1, Eliza Jumel to Stephen Jumel, May 1, 1827.
43. Ibid.
44. PUL Fuller, box 2, folder 86, Stephen Jumel to Eliza Jumel, October 14, 1827.
45. PUL Fuller, box 2, folder 87, Stephen Jumel to Eliza Jumel, December 23, 1827.
CHAPTER 21: DECEPTION
1. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 15.
2. NYHS-JP, box 1, folder 1, Eliza Jumel to Stephen Jumel, May 1, 1827.
3. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 19.
4. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 20.
5. 1876 Bill of Complaint, 14.
6. Ibid., 26.
7. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 37.
8. Irving, Journals and notebooks, 430 (see chap. 18, n. 25).
9. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 37.
10. Norma Basch, In the eyes of the law: Women, marriage, and property in nineteenth-century New York (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), 63, 78–79; Hendrik Hartog, Man and wife in America: A history (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 170–72.
11. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 37.
12. Ibid.
13. N.Y. Sup. Ct., Nelson Chase vs. William Inglis Chase et al., 1880 C-3 (1880), exhibit C, nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 (identical copy of 8).
14. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.
15. Basch, In the eyes of the law, 16–17, 75, 89.
16. Ibid., 89.
17. PUL Fuller, box 2, folder 83, Eliza Jumel to Stephen Jumel, December 1, 1826.
18. NYHS-JP, box 1 folder 3, Stephen Jumel to Eliza Jumel, August 19, 1826.
CHAPTER 22: THE REUNION
1. New-York Spectator, July 29, 1828, [1]; 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 24. According to the Spectator, there were only eighty-four passengers in steerage.
2. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 24.
3. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 34.
4. MJM, 4.7, two English translations of an undated letter from Eliza Jumel to Stephen Jumel.
5. Ibid.
6. N.Y. Sup. Ct., Nelson Chase vs. William Inglis Chase et al., 1880 C-3 (1880), exhibit C, no. 19.
7. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 35.
8. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 25.
9. Jennifer L. Goloboy, “Business friendships and individualism in a mercantile class of citizens in Charleston,” in Class matters: Early North America and the Atlantic world, eds. Simon Middleton and Billy G. Smith (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 109–111, 118–19.
10. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 25.
11. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 24.
12. NYHS-JP, box 2, folder B, receipt of passage to Charleston, November 27, 1828; NYHSJP, box 3, folder E, receipt for a month’s rent, Charleston, January 30, 1829.
13. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 24.
14. MJM 98.12, Stephen Jumel to Eliza Jumel, January 22, 1829 (for the details and quotations in this and the prior two paragraphs).
15. This quotation and the other details on hiring and pay in this paragraph are found in NYHS-JP, box 1, folder 11, business notebook of Stephen Jumel.
16. New-York Evening Post, February 13, 1830, [3].
17. New-York Evening Post, October 12, 1830, [1].
CHAPTER 23: AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE
1. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.
2. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase (for the date of Mary’s birth). Mary turned thirty on September 6, 1831.
3. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase (for the details and quotation in this paragraph).
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. 1873 Transcript of Record, 306.
7. FamilySearch.org (record of the marriage of Nelson Chase and Hattie Crombie Dunning, August 12, 1868) (for the names of his parents); B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.
8. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.
9. Gary B. Nash, “The social origins of antebellum lawyers,” in Three centuries of social mobility, ed. Pessen, 94 (see prologue, n. 6); Samuel Haber, The quest for authority and honor in the American professions, 1750–1900 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 87.
10. Haber, Quest for authority, 87.
11. He was born on November 11, 1811 (1873 Transcript of Record, 305).
12. BM 710-J, examination of Nelson Chase, November 21, 1837.
13. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.
14. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase. Whether Seth Chase was related to Nelson is unknown.
15. Daily Albany Argus, January 19, 1832, [2].
16. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.
17. Ibid.
18. 1873 Transcript of Record, 305–306.
19. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letters 25 and 26; NYHS-AHMC, Jumel, Stephen, Étienne, called Ulysses, Jumel to Stephen Jumel, July 12, 1829, and August 1, 1830.
27. On a trip to the Hudson Highlands with the Chases in late June 1832, Eliza traveled south into Manhattan and across the Hudson on the Hoboken ferry (B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase). The only reason to structure the trip that way, instead of traveling straight north, was if she were picking up the Chases in New Jersey. Although Nelson claimed that they all began the trip at the mansion (ibid.), his statement was made many years later when he was trying to show that he and his wife had been very close to Eliza. He would not have been eager to admit that they had moved from the mansion to lodgings in New Jersey soon after their marriage.
28. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.
29. Ibid.; New-York Spectator, May 25, 1832, [3] (death notice).
CHAPTER 24: ENTER AARON BURR
1. For these details of Burr’s appearance and demeanor, see Matthew L. Davis, Memoirs of Aaron Burr. With miscellaneous selections from his correspondence (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1837), 1:181–82; Samuel L. Knapp, The life of Aaron Burr (New York: Wiley & Long, 1835), 64; Charles Burr Todd, Life of Colonel Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States (New York: S. W. Green, Printer, 1879), 116; Newburyport [Massachusetts] Herald, July 19, 1833, 5.
2. Parton, 661-62.
3. Ibid., 662.
4. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase; History of Columbia County, New York: With illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers (Philadelphia: Everts & Ensign, 1878): 305–306.
5. James Stuart, Three years in North America (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1833), 1:190.
6. Charles E. Rosenberg, The cholera years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 35.
7. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.
8. “The Jumel estate case,” Providence Evening Press, February 1, 1873, [3]. In this much later testimony during the Jumel estate case, Nelson Chase indicated that the move to Saratoga occurred in August, but it is likely that he misremembered. The family would not have returned to the New York region before the announcement of the abatement of the epidemic at the end of August, and the trip to Saratoga was subsequent to the initial return. Also see note 20 below for a transaction that took place on September 13, which Eliza is said to have made immediately after her arrival in Saratoga.
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br /> 9. Stuart, Three years in North America, 1:129.
10. Ibid., 1:129–30.
11. Ibid., 1:131–32.
12. “Preparations at Saratoga,” American Traveler, March 20, 1832, [2].
13. “Rail road from Albany to Saratoga Springs,” Commercial Advertiser, July 9, 1832, [2].
14. Independence [Poughkeepsie, New York], July 11, 1832, [4]; “The springs,” Saratoga Sentinel, July 31, 1832, [2]; New-York Evening Post, August 23, 1832, [2].
15. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.
16. Ibid.; Stuart, Three Years in North America, 1:132.
17. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.
18. Saratoga County Clerk, Civil Court Files, 1825–1900, box A 35, Eliza Jumel vs. Jonathan Hall and John Hall. For the previous owner, Jose Villalave, see, for example, advertisements in: Boston Gazette, May 2, 1814, [3]; Boston Daily Advertiser, May 5, 1814, [3]; New-York Evening Post, May 24, 1814, [2]. By 1826, he had adopted the French honorific “monsieur” rather than the Spanish “signor” (i.e., señor) or “don”; compare the advertisements in the Evening Post and Boston Daily Advertiser with these later examples: National Advocate, December 18, 1826, [3]; Saratoga Sentinel, June 25, 1833, 3.
19. Eliza Jumel vs. Jonathan Hall and John Hall.
20. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase; B-779, box 113, deposition of Nelson Chase; Saratoga County Clerk, Deeds Book 10, 138–40 (September 13, 1832).
CHAPTER 25: A CALCULATED OCURTSHIP
1. “The Jumel estate case,” New York Herald, January 30, 1873, 8; B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.
2. Parton, 662.
3. Parton, 663 (for both quotations).
4. Ibid.
5. John E. Stillwell, The history of the Burr portraits: Their origin, their dispersal and their reassemblage (1928), 1-2; Davis, Memoirs of Aaron Burr, 1:182; Todd, Life of Colonel Aaron Burr, 124 (see chap. 24, n. 1); Milton Lomask, Aaron Burr: The conspiracy and years of exile 1805–1836 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982), 373; Todd, Life of Colonel Aaron Burr, 116, 119.
6. Todd, Life of Colonel Aaron Burr, 119 (see chap. 24, n. 1).
7. “Madame Jumel’s estate,” New York Herald, November 13, 1866, 5.
8. For Burr’s striking ability to read others and imply what they wished to hear, see David O. Stewart, American emperor: Aaron Burr’s challenge to Jefferson’s America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 297; Joseph Wheelan, Jefferson’s vendetta: The pursuit of Aaron Burr and the judiciary (New York: Carroll & Graff Publishers, 2005), 84.
9. Parton, 663.
10. Parton, 663 (for all quotations in this paragraph).
11. Henry Fielding, The history of Tom Jones, a foundling, ed. Thomas Keymer and Alice Wakely (Penguin Books, 2005), 66.
12. “The Jumel case—the defendant’s cross examination continued,” New York Times, Feb. 1, 1873, 8.
13. Milton Lomask, Aaron Burr: The years from Princeton to vice president 1756–1805 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979), 3–4, 39–42, 48–50, 53–56, 61– 63, 73–75, 119, 134–35, 141–44, 200.
14. Samuel L. Knapp, Life of Aaron Burr, 84–85 (see chap. 24, n. 1).
15. Ibid., 85; Wheelan, Jefferson’s vendetta, 62–63.
16. Wheelan, Jefferson’s vendetta, 59, 62–63.
17. Stewart, American emperor, 18–19, 25.
18. Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 644–45; Wheelan, Jefferson’s vendetta, 77–79, 82.
19. Wheelan, Jefferson’s vendetta, 35–37, 84–86. It has been rumored that Burr and Hamilton had been rivals over the favors of Eliza Jumel before her marriage to Stephen, but these slurs, which don’t appear in print until the twentieth century, have no grounding in fact. Eliza’s marriage to Burr, added to the long-standing rumors about her virtue before her first marriage, probably prompted the imaginative to see her retrospectively as one cause of the two politicians’ enmity.
20. Roger G. Kennedy, Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A study in character (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 80–81.
21. Nancy Isenberg, Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (New York: Viking, 2007), 256–57.
22. Knapp, Life of Aaron Burr, 89.
23. Kennedy, Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson, 111.
24. Ibid., 112, 128–29, 184.
25. Wheelan, Jefferson’s vendetta, 120. He appears to have considered Spanish-owned East Florida (approximately today’s state of Florida) as a target also (Kennedy, Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson, 183–84). That prospect, however, would have seemed less tempting after the Jefferson administration began quiet negotiations to purchase East and West Florida (the latter now the southern portions of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama) in November 1805, although perhaps of interest again after the talks collapsed in early 1806 (Wheelan, Jefferson’s vendetta, 129, 134).
26. Wheelan, Jefferson’s vendetta, 132.
27. Ibid., 120. Stewart believes that Burr did seriously consider setting up a separate republic west of the Appalachians, but realized by 1805 that there weren’t enough Westerners who favored the move, given that the United States had acquired New Orleans, which provided an outlet for trade down the Mississippi, a burning economic issue in the West (Stewart, American emperor, 114–15, 141). However, Kennedy points out that Burr swore to respected contemporaries, including William Henry Harrison, Henry Clay, and Andrew Jackson, that he didn’t intend secession, and French intelligence agents indicated that Burr himself had never expressed any desire to break up the United States (Kennedy, Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson, 143–44).
28. Wheelan, Jefferson’s vendetta, 120, 132.
29. Ibid., 148.
30. Knapp, Life of Aaron Burr, 111.
31. Wheelan, Jefferson’s vendetta, 151, 237, 246.
32. Aaron Burr, The private journal of Aaron Burr reprinted in full from the original manuscript in the library of Mr. William K. Bixby, of St. Louis, Mo. with an introduction, explanatory notes, and a glossary (Rochester, NY, 1903): 2:434–36.
33. Lomask, Aaron Burr: Conspiracy, 392.
34. For example, see Knapp’s Life of Aaron Burr, published in 1835, for a sympathetic treatment of Burr’s career. Davis, in his Memoirs of Aaron Burr, published two years later (a year after Burr’s death), takes Burr’s side in the treason trial and conflict with Jefferson, e.g., 2:138–39.
35. E.g., N.Y. Mayor’s Ct., Joshua D. Waterman and Ralph Wells vs. Aaron Burr, 1820-#1002; N.Y. Mayor’s Ct., Patrick Denn vs. Aaron Burr, 1820-#258; N.Y. Com. Pl., William L. Vandevoort and John S. Van Winkle vs. Aaron Burr, 1823-#908; N.Y. Com. Pl., Francis J. Berier vs. Aaron Burr, 1825-#48; N.Y. Com. Pl., Robert A. Caldcleugh vs. Aaron Burr, 1826-#242; N.Y. Super. Ct., Thomas C. Morton and James Paton vs. Aaron Burr, 1831-#294; N.Y. Super. Ct., Thomas McKie vs. Aaron Burr, 1832-#86; N.Y. Super. Ct., Anne C. Cannon vs. Aaron Burr, 1833-#114; N.Y. Com. Pl., Hickson Sarles vs. Aaron Burr, 1835-#1022.
36. Parton, 604–605.
37. Burr, Private journal, 450.
38. Ibid., 448.
39. Aaron Burr, Political correspondence and public papers of Aaron Burr, ed. Mary-Jo Kline et al. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 2:1217.
40. N.Y. Com. Pl., Helen M. Catlin and others vs. Aaron Burr, 1834-#282.
41. N.Y. Super. Ct., Anne C. Cannon vs. Aaron Burr, 1833-#114.
42. Ibid. The young man in question, Charles Burdett, was probably one of Burr’s illegitimate children; see Burr, Political correspondence, 2:1196–97.
43. N.Y. Ct. Ch., Aaron Burr vs. John Pelletreau and others, BM 2759B, with additional details in the bill of complaint of a subsequent suit, N.Y. Ct. Ch., Aaron Burr vs. Benjamin Waldron and Sally his wife, John L. Wilson and Rebecca his wife, BM 2758B.
44. Samuel H. Wandell and Mead Minnigerode, Aaron Burr: A biography compiled from rare, and in many cases unpublished, sources (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1925), 324.
45. Stillwell, History of the Burr portraits,
64 (see chap. 25, n. 5).
46. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase. Although this statement was made in 1880, it is consistent with a declaration made decades earlier that he did not become intimately acquainted with Aaron Burr until “the spring of 1833”; see N.Y. Ct. Ch., Alexander L. Botts vs. Aaron Burr, BM 1710B, Part 2, deposition of Nelson Chase, March 30, 1836. There was no reason for Chase to lie in the 1836 deposition, since no legal point turned on the date of his acquaintance with Burr.
47. N.Y. Ct. Ch., Alexander L. Botts vs. Aaron Burr, BM 1710B, Part 2, deposition of Nelson Chase, March 30, 1836.
48. Liber 368:310.
49. This letter survives in two versions. One, dated June 30, seems to be a copy that Eliza kept for herself (NYHS-AHMC, Jumel, Madame Stephen, Eliza Jumel to Lesparre Sante [sic], June 30, 1833). The other is an English transcription of the version received by Lesparre. If the transcription is correct, the letter Lesparre received was dated June 28 (1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 38). Although the writer signed herself “Eliza Jumel,” her name until July 1, and Burr said she showed him the letter before the marriage (Liber 368:307), it could also have been written just after the marriage and intentionally misdated, whether to June 30 or June 28. The circumstances surrounding the letter’s composition are described more fully in chapter 29.
CHAPTER 26: AN OPTIMISTIC BEGINNING
1. New-York Spectator, July 8, 1833, [1].
2. Dunlap, Diary, 3:718 (see chap. 6, n. 13).
3. 1873 Transcript of Record, 306.
4. Parton, 663; New-York Spectator, July 8, 1833, [1].
5. Greatorex, 244 (for the location of the wedding, but wrongly stating that Aaron and Eliza were married by the same clergyman who had performed Burr’s first marriage).
6. John D. Livingston, Hymns, with the catechism, confession of faith, and liturgy of the Reformed Dutch Church in America (Philadelphia: GW Mentz, 1829), 603–607.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Parton, 664.
10. NYHS-JP, box 1, folder 1, Eliza Jumel to Stephen Jumel, letters of November 5, 1826; January 1, 1827; and May 1, 1827.
The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel Page 32
