The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel
Page 33
11. Newburyport [Massachusetts] Herald, July 19, 1833, 5, reprinted from the “Hartford Review” (presumably either the New-England Daily Review or New-England Weekly Review, both published in Hartford; I have been unable to locate surviving issues for the time period).
12. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 34.
13. Liber 368:308.
14. BM 710-J, first account of the administratrix, filed January 22, 1836.
15. Parton, 664.
16. Aaron Burr, The papers of Aaron Burr [microform], eds. Mary-Jo Kline and Joanne Wood Ryan (Glen Rock, NJ: Microfilming Corp. of America, 1977), reel 2, Cty:3516/Burr.
17. Burr, Papers of Aaron Burr, reel 2, MH:2271.
18. Ibid.
19. Burr, Political correspondence, 1228 (see chap. 25, n. 39).
20. “Hon. Luther Martin,” Christian Watchman, August 11, 1826, 148.
21. N.Y. Ct. Ch., Alexander L. Botts vs. Aaron Burr, BM 1710B, Part 2, depositions of Nelson Chase, March 30, 1836, and Maria Johnson, March 5, 1836.
CHAPTER 27: THE UNRAVELING
1. The quotations in this and the preceding three paragraphs are from Dunlap, Diary, 3:796 (see chap. 6, n. 13).
2. Lisa Wilson, Life after death: Widows in Pennsylvania 1750–1850 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), 3, 5, for what one woman said as distinct from what she did.
3. Edith B. Gelles, “Gossip: An eighteenth-century case,” Journal of Social History 22, no. 4 (Summer 1989): 667–68.
4. Liber 368:301–302.
5. BM 710-J, first account of the administratrix, filed January 22, 1836. Although Eliza does not identify the mortgage in her bill of complaint, it must have been the six-thousand-dollar mortgage on 150 Broadway, which Stephen had taken out on September 16, 1824, and Eliza ultimately paid off on November 25, 1835.
6. Liber 368:302.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., 308–10.
9. Ibid., 312.
10. No record of any such lawsuit exists.
11. Liber 368:310–11.
12. Ibid., 312–13, 332.
13. Oliver L. Barbour, A treatise on the practice of the Court of Chancery, with an appendix of precedents (Albany: Wm. & A. Gould & Co., 1844), 2:245–46.
14. Barbour, Treatise, 2:245.
15. Linda S. Hudson, Mistress of manifest destiny: A biography of Jane McManus Storm Cazneau, 1807–1878 (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 2001), 7, 15–16.
16. Liber 368:375.
17. NYHS-JP, box 1, folder 13, testimony of Hannah Lewis, May 30, 1836.
18. Hudson, Mistress of manifest destiny, 15.
19. Ibid., 17.
20. Ibid., 17–18.
21. Burr, Papers of Aaron Burr, reel 2, TxU:2352/Bryan (see chap. 26, n. 16).
22. Hudson, Mistress of manifest destiny, 27–28. She may have tried to raise money by selling other real estate in Texas, whether acting as an agent for others or hawking property she or her family members owned. An advertisement offering investors fifty thousand acres of land in East Texas appeared in the Albany Argus on August 27 and September 10 (“Lands in Texas,” Albany Argus, October 27, 1833, 4). Although the owner of the land was not stated, potential buyers were advised to apply to Nelson Chase at 23 Nassau Street in New York City. McManus could have been involved, given that Nelson was acting as agent and the address was that of Aaron Burr’s law office. Perhaps she had applied to Burr for assistance in advertising and selling the parcel.
23. Hudson, Mistress of manifest destiny, 29.
24. NYHS-JP, box 1, folder 13.
25. Hudson, Mistress of manifest destiny, 30.
26. Ancestry.com, U.S. Passport Applications, 1795–1925 (see chap. 6, n. 17).
27. Liber 368:301, 306–7.
28. N.Y. Ct. Ch., Alexander L. Botts vs. Aaron Burr, BM 1710B, Part 2, deposition of Maria Johnson, March 5, 1836.
29. Ibid.
30. Parton, 667.
31. Burr, Papers of Aaron Burr, reel 2, NHi:1685/Burr (see chap. 26, n. 16). On November 23, 1833, Atkinson’s Saturday Evening Post noted that Burr “lately had a paralytic attack, from which he has not yet recovered.”
32. Burr, Papers of Aaron Burr, reel 2, NHi:1754/Burr.
33. Parton, 667.
34. Liber 368:306–307.
35. Commercial Advertiser, November 2, 1833, 2.
36. Burr, Political correspondence, 1218 (see chap. 25, n. 39).
37. Ibid., 1220.
38. Ibid., 1221n3.
39. Burr, Papers of Aaron Burr, reel 2, NjP:3088.
40. Burr, Political correspondence, 1218.
41. NYHS-JP, box 1, folder 13, John Lewis to Nelson Chase, February 10, 1834.
42. Davis, Memoirs of Aaron Burr, 2:25 (see ch. 25, n. 5).
43. Aaron Burr, Political correspondence, 1227.
44. Ibid., 1227n2.
45. Ibid., 1227.
46. Liber 368:301.
47. Ibid., 302–303.
48. NYHS-JP, box 2, folder J, N.Y. Sup. Ct., Nelson Chase vs. Aaron Burr, Copy of narr. in replevin and notice of rule to plead.
CHAPTER 28: THE DUEL
1. Liber 368:306.
2. Basch, In the eyes of the law, 17 (see chap. 21, n. 13).
3. Barbour, Treatise, 2:253 (see chap. 27, n. 16).
4. Liber 368:322–23, 325–26.
5. Ibid., 331.
6. Ibid., 342–43.
7. Ibid., 343.
8. Ibid., 338, 41.
9. Ibid., 338–40.
10. Ibid., 333–34.
11. Ibid., 332.
12. Ibid., 336.
13. Ibid., 334–35.
14. NYHS-JP, box 1, folder 13, agreement of December 23, 1835.
15. Barbour, Treatise, 2:257–58.
16. Liber 368.
17. Brian J Cudahy, Over and back: The history of ferryboats in New York Harbor (New York: Fordham University Press, 1990), 20–22.
18. Liber 368:376.
19. Mrs. Felton, American life. The narrative of two years’ city and country residence in the United States (London: Simkin, Marshall, & Co., 1842), 54; N.Y. Com. Pl., Helen M. Catlin and others vs. Aaron Burr, 1834-#282.
20. In Longworth’s city directory, Burr’s home address is given as “Jersey City” only once, in the 1833–34 edition, which would have been prepared in May or June 1833, after New Yorkers had signed their leases for the year. After the breakup of the marriage, Burr moved into his office on Nassau Street. Later he lived with an illegitimate son, Aaron Columbus Burr.
21. Liber 368:371–72, 375–80, 379.
22. Ibid., 377.
23. Ibid., 370–72.
24. Ibid., 372–74.
25. Ibid., 374–76.
26. Ibid., 377.
27. Ibid., 349–50, 365–68, 381–82; NYHS-JP, box 1, folder 13, timeline of the hearings in chancery (1836).
28. Liber 368:381–82.
29. Parton, 677–78.
30. New York City Municipal Archives, Minutes of the Court of General Sessions, MN 10016, roll 16, fol. 204–205, 242; New York City Municipal Archives, D.A. Indictment Records, MN 5166, roll 166, The People vs. Maria Johnson; “Courts,” Mercury, July 7, 1836, [2].
31. Liber 368:383.
32. Parton, 682.
33. Liber 368:373–74.
34. Nelson Manfred Blake, The road to Reno: A history of divorce in the United States (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962), 119, 199.
35. For the effect that the reputations of the concerned parties could have on results of divorce proceedings, see Basch, In the eyes of the law, 94 (see chap. 21, n. 10); Norma Basch, “Relief in the premises: divorce as a woman’s remedy in New York and Indiana, 1815–1870,” Law and History Review 8, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 23n58.
36. Donald M. Roper, “The elite of the New York Bar as seen from the bench: James Kent’s necrologies,” New-York Historical Society Quarterly 56, no.3 (July 1972): 224.
37. N.Y. Ct. Ch., Alexander L. Botts vs. Aaron Burr, BM 1710B, Part 2.
38. N.Y. Ct. C
h., Alexander L. Botts vs. Aaron Burr, BM 1710B, Part 1; 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. On September 20, 1833, Pelletreau sold a valuable property on Long Island—a racecourse and adjoining farm—to a man named Alexander Botts. The sale was performed under Burr’s supervision, with the purchase price to go to Burr himself: he would receive a five-hundred-dollar payment every six months for life. Allegedly Pelletreau made the arrangement in favor of Burr to compensate him for legal work and monetary advances during a lengthy lawsuit in which Burr had represented him. This explanation is suspicious, however, since Burr had been fighting unsuccessfully since before his marriage to Eliza to obtain additional fees for the work from Pelletreau and others. Suddenly he had succeeded, when his client was dependent on him and in failing health (Pelletreau would die in late 1833 or early 1834).
39. N.Y. Ct. Ch., Alexander L. Botts vs. Aaron Burr, BM 1710B, Part 2, deposition of Robert White, March 18, 1836.
40. Parton, 665.
CHAPTER 29: FINANCIAL SHENANIGANS
1. Tresor de la langue française 12:503; Andrew J. Counter, Inheritance in nineteenth-century French culture: Wealth, knowledge and the family (London: LEGENDA, 2010), 62–63, 69.
2. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letters 2, 15; ADL, 4 Q 1 445 (May 22, 1821).
3. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letters 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 46.
4. PUL Fuller, box 2, folder 83, Eliza Jumel to Stephen Jumel, December 1, 1826; 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 28.
5. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 36A.
6. BM 710-J.
7. Ibid.
8. Crane, Ebb tide in New England, 172 (see prologue, n. 7).
9. Wilson, Life after death, 31, 42–44, 58 (see chap. 27, n.2).
10. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letters 31, 33, and 34.
11. NYHS-AHMC, Jumel, Madame Stephen, Eliza Jumel to Jean Lesparre Jeantet, June 30, 1833. Eliza addressed the letter to “Monsieur Lesparre Sante” [sic], a roughly phonetic spelling of Jeantet.
12. NYHS-AHMC, Jumel, Madame Stephen, Eliza Jumel to Jean Lesparre Jeantet, June 30, 1833.
13. Ibid.
14. BM 710-J, first account of the administratrix, filed January 20, 1836; NYHS-JP, folder 1, copy of the opinion of the chancellor in Eliza B. Jumel, administratrix, appellant, vs. François Jumel and Magdalen [sic] Lagadere, respondents.
15. NYHS-AHMC, Jumel, Madame Stephen, Eliza Jumel to Jean Lesparre Jeantet, June 30, 1833.
16. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letters 31, 34, 35.
17. BM 710-J.
18. Ibid. In Eliza’s defense, many of the assets had become collectible only recently. She and Stephen had been trying to collect reimbursement for the Prosper since the 1820s (MJM 4.7, two English translations of a letter from Eliza Jumel to Stephen Jumel). Reparations only became possible after February 1836, when the French Chamber of Deputies began to carry out an 1831 treaty to compensate Americans for losses incurred during the Napoleonic Wars. Payments from the two marine insurance companies were made possible by the treaty’s implementation as well (BM 710-J). That said, the indemnification treaty had been a political football for several years (Carl Cavanagh Hodge and Cathal J. Nolan, eds., U.S. presidents and foreign policy: From 1789 to the present [Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2007], 68–69). The claims should have been revealed as potential assets.
19. NYHS-JP, folder I, copy of the opinion of the chancellor in Eliza B. Jumel, administratrix, appelant, vs. François Jumel and Magdalen [sic] Lagardere, respondents; NYHS-JP, box 2, folder H, copy of decree and receipt.
20. BM 710-J, examination of Eliza B. Burr, December 17, 1836; 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 34.
21. BM 710-J, examination of Eliza B. Burr, December 17, 1836.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Folk-lore of Shakespeare (New York: Griffith & Farran, [1883]), 314.
25. Diary of James Gallatin, 71, 262 (see chap. 15, n. 15); Hugh Stokes, The Devonshire House circle (New York: McBride, Nast & Company, 1916), 249.
26. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 37A.
27. BM 710-J.
28. Ibid.
CHAPTER 30: THE WIDOW’S MITE
1. Hartog, Man and wife, 145 (see chap. 21, n. 10).
2. NYHS-JP, box 2, folder A, Eliza B. Jumel vs. George Pramer, Circuit Roll; Eliza B. Jumel vs. George W. Clause, Circuit Roll; and subpoenas in Jumel vs. Pramer, August 15, 1837; box 3, folder B, subpoena to Dewit C. Bates, August 15, 1837; subpoena to Dan Martin, attorney of George Prunier, July 28, 1837; box 3 folder C, Eliza B. Jumel vs. George Pramer et al., stipulation, July 31, 1838; box 3, folder F, subpoenas in Eliza B. Jumel vs. George W. Clause, August 15, 1837; box 3, folder H, copy of proposition to settle dower suit of Eliza B. Jumel vs. George Pramer and others, after an original of March 8, 1838; N.Y. Ct. Ch., Eliza B. Jumel vs. Abraham Maynard, BM J-708; N.Y. Sup. Ct., Eliza B. Jumel vs. John Maynard and Phebe Maynard, Judgment Record, 1838 M-93 (after Abraham Maynard died, Eliza filed suit against his heirs, John and Phebe, but I have counted the two suits as a single case in totaling the number of her suits for dower rights).
3. NYHS-JP, box 3, folder H, copy of proposition to settle dower suit of Eliza B. Jumel vs. George Pramer and others, after an original of March 8, 1838; box 3, folder C, Eliza B. Jumel vs. George Pramer et al., stipulation, July 31, 1838. The property in Westchester occupied by the Maynards was an exception. In that case, a settlement was not forthcoming. She went to trial, her right to dower was affirmed, and she was awarded damages.
4. NYHS-JP, box 2, folder H, petition from Eliza B. Jumel to the Chancellor of the State of New York (copy); N.Y. Ct. Ch., Eliza Jumel vs. Catherine Ottignon and others, BM J-709.
5. Hartog, Man and wife, 145 (see chap. 21, n. 10).
6. N.Y. Ct. Ch., Eliza Jumel vs. Catherine Ottignon and others, BM J-709.
7. Basch, In the eyes of the law, 53 (see chap. 21, n. 10).
8. N.Y. Ct. Ch., Eliza Jumel vs. Catherine Ottignon and others, BM J-709.
9. NYHS-JP, box 2, folder H, copy of decree and receipt.
10. 1876 Bill of Complaint, act of notoriety 1 (for Francois’s death); letters 40 to 44.
11. Ibid., letter 42.
12. Ibid., letters 42–44.
13. Ibid., letter 41; ADL, 4 Q 1 445 (May 22, 1821).
14. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letter 42; “Madame Jumel’s will,” New York Herald, February 8, 1866, 8 (the appearance of a legacy to Felicie in Eliza’s will indicates that a compromise was reached).
15. N.Y. Ct. Ch., Magdalen [sic] Lagardere vs. Eliza B. Jumel, BM L-45.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. 1876 Bill of Complaint, act of notoriety 1.
20. This was Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Barclay Street, completed in 1815 (later superseded as the seat of the diocese by Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue).
21. NYHS-AHMC, Jumel, Stephen, copy of an April 22, 1846, letter from Bishop Fenwick to Bishop Hughes.
22. New York County Clerk’s Office, Division of Old Records, Water Commissioners of the City of New-York, #52-1836 (1839).
CHAPTER 31: A SECOND FAMILY
1. NYPL, Jumel family miscellany, NYGB Fam 2008-2482.
2. 1873 Transcript of Record, 306; B-779, box 113, deposition of Eliza J. Caryl.
3. 1873 Transcript of Record, 306.
4. According to Doggett’s New-York City Directory, the Chases lived at 63 Chambers Street in Manhattan in 1834; 339 Greenwich St., also in Manhattan, in 1835 and 1836; and in Hoboken in 1837. A home address is not indicated for them between 1838 and 1841, but Nelson is again listed in Hoboken in 1842, and other documentation that includes his home address indicates that he was still there in the interim. For example, see his 1839 signature, with the indication that he lived in Hoboken, in the record r
elating to land taken from Eliza for the building of the Croton Aqueduct: New York County, County Clerk’s Office, Division of Old Records, Water Commissioners of the City of New-York, 52-1836 (1839).
5. 1873 Transcript of Record, 307; B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.
6. This discussion of women’s involvement in business is based on the findings of Joyce W. Warren, Women, money and the law (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2005), 10, 115, 153.
7. New York County, Land and Property Records, Liber 379:415–16; NYHS, Jumel Papers, box 3, folder D, indenture between Eliza B. Jumel and Francis Philippon, January 6, 1838.
8. NYHS-JP, box 2, folder I, agreement with respect to a party wall, December 1836.
9. NYHS-JP, box 1, folder 14, agreement between Eliza B. Jumel and Lucius Smith, January 16, 1846; box 2, folder I, agreement between Eliza B. Jumel and Michael Werckmeister, May 1, 1844; box 3, folder D, copy of lease, William L. Burdick to Eliza B. Jumel, February 26, 1850.
10. Pessen, Riches, class, and power, 17 and n26 (see prologue, n. 6).
11. Edgar W. Martin, The standard of living in 1860: American consumption levels on the eve of the Civil War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942), 395, table 11.
12. 1873 Transcript of Record, 306. Nelson dated Pell’s tenancy from fall 1834, but indicated conversely that it was after the birth of his daughter, which occurred in 1836. Evidence in the Jumel/Burr divorce case (testimony of John Hopwood) placed Eliza at the mansion in the fall of 1834 and spring of 1835, supporting an 1836 rather than 1834 dating for Pell’s arrival.
13. N.Y. Super. Ct., Eliza B. Jumel vs. James Monroe, 1839-#722.
14. NYHS-JP, box 3, folder B, agreement between Eliza Jumel and James Pheigan, April 6, 1842. If Pheigan’s wife took care of the cows and dairy, they would be allowed to keep half of the profits from the milk and butter as well.
15. 1873 Transcript of Record, 308; Martin, Standard of living, 395, table 11.
16. New York County, Land and Property Records, Deeds, Liber 109:306–309.
17. N.Y. Ct. Ch., Stephen Jumel vs. John R. Murray et al., BM 713-J.
18. NYHS-JP, box 2, folder A, agreement between Michael Werckmeister, Eliza B. Burr, and James L. Curtis, April 27, 1835; N.Y. Ct. Ch., Eliza Jumel vs. Peter R. Wickoff and others, D. CH 91-J; New York County, Land and Property Records, Liber 377:425–26.