More is known of Mary’s two children, who each went on to lead lives worthy of their own books. Her daughter, Louisa Charlotte Burr (c. 1788–1878), married Francis Webb, a prominent leader in Philadelphia’s African American community. They and their children were among the hundreds of free African Americans who relocated to Haiti in 1824 as part of an ambitious but ultimately doomed emigration experiment. They returned to Philadelphia again in 1826.
Respected for her resourcefulness as well as her housekeeping skills, Louisa was employed for most of her life in the socially elite household of Mrs. Elizabeth Powel Francis Fisher. Louisa also served as the nursemaid to Mrs. Fisher’s only child, Joshua Francis Fisher, who was so devoted to Louisa that he later provided her with an allowance and an annuity for the remainder of her long life.
Jean-Pierre (or John Pierre, or John) Burr (1792–1864), was not only a successful barber, but also became a nationally respected leader, abolitionist, and activist. He was a founder of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, and he and his wife, Hetty, participated in numerous organizations to promote civil rights. He was an active member of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia, and because of his demeanor and light skin he was able to impersonate a white gentleman to escort runaways toward freedom. Much like his father, John-Pierre was an accomplished and persuasive speaker, and he founded the Demosthenian Institute as a literary society that also helped educate young black men and train them to become public speakers. Shortly before his death, he was among the prominent black men listed on Frederick Douglass’s famous “Men of Color, to Arms!” recruitment broadside, printed during the Civil War.
Although Mary died before her grandchildren were grown, their accomplishments were also impressive. Louisa’s daughter, Elizabeth Susan Webb (1818–88), was a well-educated amateur poet and a professional dressmaker who owned her own shop. Louisa’s youngest child, Frank J. Webb (1828–94), became a newspaper editor and an educator, but he is most remembered today for having written The Garies and Their Friends (1857), the second novel to be published by an African American author. As a protégé of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frank and his wife were feted in London as well as America.
All of Jean-Pierre’s children (he is believed to have had at least nine) were involved in the abolitionist movement. Several owned their own businesses, and among them were dressmakers, barbers, and carpenters. Mary would have been intensely proud, and, I suspect, a little in awe at the scope of her legacy.
The Colonel was not nearly as fortunate.
Vice President and Lieutenant Colonel Aaron Burr (1756–1836) was as close to an aristocrat as colonial America produced. He was descended from early New England colonists, and his family on both sides were illustrious, wealthy, and accomplished. His grandfather was the famed theologian, preacher, and philosopher Jonathan Edwards, and his father, also a notable minister and educator, was one of the founders of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and the school’s second president.
Although orphaned as a baby, Aaron always seemed destined for great things. He was a precocious scholar, completing his baccalaureate degree by age sixteen. He was a gifted speaker, and he was handsome and charming, if small in stature. He first considered the ministry, then shifted to a career in law, before the outbreak of the American Revolution inspired him, like so many others, to enlist in the Continental Army.
He soon added bravery and determination to his attributes, serving with courage and spirit as part of the ill-fated expedition to Quebec led by General Richard Montgomery and Colonel Benedict Arnold, and in later actions around Manhattan. An appointment to the staff of Commander in Chief George Washington seemed a fitting reward for his heroics, and the sure path to success for a young officer. But for whatever reason, Washington never warmed to Burr, nor Burr to the General, and Burr soon resigned from his post for another field command as a lieutenant colonel. Again he served with notable bravery, and displayed a gift for commanding men.
Yet by 1779, Burr had had enough. Disillusioned by the politics within the army as well as in poor health, he resigned his commission, and returned to his law studies, being admitted to the bar in Albany, New York, in 1782. While still in the army, he had met his intellectual equal in Theodosia Bartow Prevost (1746–94), the wife of an English officer. In time the two became lovers, and when her husband died they wed.
Once the couple and their daughter, also named Theodosia, moved to New York City, Burr’s legal career began to rise, and his political career swiftly followed as I’ve described through Mary’s eyes. In an age when American politicians chose to govern at an idealistic distance from their constituents, Burr was the first to be openly ambitious, and reveled in the dirty work of campaigning, dealmaking, and trading favors for power. He was exceptionally good at it, too, and he very nearly did seize the ultimate prize in the presidential election of 1800. He was tied in electoral votes with Thomas Jefferson, and the election was finally decided through the House of Representatives, as was the process at that time. By a single vote, Jefferson was named president, and Burr his vice president and president of the Senate.
Neither man trusted the other, and Jefferson did his best to exclude Burr from taking any serious part in the government. Jefferson also made it clear that Burr would not be endorsed by the Democratic-Republicans in the next presidential election. Burr must have known his political career was sinking fast, and ran instead for governor of New York. He lost there as well, and in the summer of 1804 he found himself in the unenviable position of not only having lost his power and position, but teetering precariously on the edge of financial bankruptcy as well. When he challenged his longtime rival and gadfly Alexander Hamilton to a duel, he seemed to be a man with little left to lose.
What happened on that morning in 1804 is the one thing that’s most remembered about Aaron Burr. Burr’s shot ripped through Alexander Hamilton’s abdomen and lodged against his spine, paralyzing him; he died the following afternoon. Whether by Hamilton’s design, or by fate, his shot came nowhere near Burr. While the doctor and Hamilton’s friends tended to him, Burr’s friends ushered him swiftly away, across the Hudson River, and back to Richmond Hill.
On that first day, Burr believed he’d only wounded Hamilton. He’d no idea the wound would prove fatal, and indeed, there were many conflicting rumors around the city regarding the duel. But once Hamilton died, Burr soon realized that what he’d regarded as an affair of honor between two gentlemen was instead perceived by the horrified public as murder. He quickly fled New York, where charges had already been filed against him, and went south. His creditors immediately claimed everything he’d left behind. Although in time the murder charges were dropped and he continued to finish out his duties as vice president, he was in effect as completely ruined as a gentleman could be. He never publicly expressed any remorse for shooting Hamilton, and spoke dryly of his “old friend Hamilton, whom I shot.”
In self-imposed exile, Burr traveled abroad, seeing the sights and conducting love affairs. When he returned to America, he dodged creditors under an assumed name, then headed west on an expedition that included inspiring supporters and raising a private militia, but whose ultimate purpose remains cloudy. Whatever he was doing, however, was sufficient for President Jefferson—who still neither liked nor trusted Burr—to have him hunted down, arrested, and tried for treason. Burr was acquitted, but there would be no further grand adventures. He returned to New York and practiced law, and lived on old memories and friendships.
In one last attempt to recoup the glory of his former life, at age seventy-seven he married Madame Eliza Jumel, a wealthy widow nineteen years his junior, and with a past as checkered and opportunistic as his own. (At this time, Mary Emmons Burr was still alive in Philadelphia, but after more than thirty years apart it’s doubtful Burr worried overmuch about being regarded as a bigamist.) Within a few months, however, Madame Jumel had had enough of Burr spending her fortune, and tossed him out. His health had already deteriorated, a
nd a stroke left him paralyzed and unable to speak. He died in a boardinghouse on Staten Island on September 14, 1836—the same day his divorce from Madame Jumel became final.
Burr’s final thoughts or regrets, like so many other things about him, remain a mystery. Unlike most of his contemporaries among the Founders who made certain to record their thoughts, actions, and beliefs for posterity, Burr was reluctant to leave a paper trail. His letters often include cautions to the recipient about keeping the contents confidential, or that he had more to share later in person. Some of the papers he did choose to preserve were reportedly lost at sea. He gave another batch for safekeeping to a friend, who in turn prudishly destroyed the ones that he deemed unsavory, immoral, or detrimental to Burr.
Burr also had enemies such as Hamilton, Jefferson, and their supporters who were all too willing to tarnish his reputation however they could. The fact that Burr did little to defend himself makes it a special challenge today to hunt for the man he truly was.
Unlike Alexander Hamilton, Burr did not leave a wife and children eager to promote his reputation for posterity. He outlived his wife Theodosia Bartow Prevost Burr by four decades. It’s a tantalizing historical what-if?: would the educated and politically savvy Theodosia have influenced and perhaps preserved Burr’s career had she survived? More important for Mary Emmons, would he have remained faithful to his wife had she been healthy?
The life of their only surviving daughter, Theodosia Burr Alston (1783–1813), was even more tragically short. Brilliant, charming, and endlessly devoted to her father, Theo had shocked her New York friends in 1801 by marrying at age seventeen. Joseph Alston (1779–1816) was a wealthy planter from South Carolina, and there were unkind whispers that Theo wed him to ease her father’s financial woes. Surviving letters prove that there was genuine affection between Theo and Alston. But soon after the birth of their only son—Aaron Burr Alston—Theo’s health rapidly declined, much as her mother’s had done. Theo’s son died of a fever in 1812. Grieving and ill, she attempted to return to New York to be with her father. She took passage on a ship that was lost at sea in December 1813, and Theo, only twenty-nine, disappeared with it. Her husband died three years later.
And once again, Burr lived on while those dearest to him perished.
I wonder, too, what Theo might have achieved had she survived. At the time of her death, her husband had just been elected governor of South Carolina. Given her own education and her husband’s wealth and position, would she have become an advocate for women’s rights, or perhaps, in time, even abolition?
For the people enslaved by the Burrs, abolition and manumission remained an empty hope. Although surviving records are sadly incomplete, it appears that a succession of enslaved servants lived and worked in the household. Their exact numbers aren’t known, and a handful of single names that appear casually in letters by the Burrs are the only record of their existence. Their presence as characters within this book is, again, my invention. But one thing is for certain: When Burr put his affairs in order before his duel with Hamilton, he could have left instructions for the manumission, or freedom, of his enslaved servants. Instead, he specified that they be sent from New York to his daughter in South Carolina, and deeper into the institution of slavery.
Could there be a more determined contrast between Burr’s decision and the path chosen by Mary and her children?
Mary’s story has not been an easy one to write, yet often the greatest challenges prove to be the most rewarding. I can only hope that Mary herself would agree.
Susan Holloway Scott
October 2018
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Creating and telling Mary Emmons’s story was not an undertaking I could have completed alone. I’ve been endlessly fortunate to have benefited from the assistance and support of many scholars, librarians, curators, interpreters, and other experts, and I’m particularly grateful to those who shared their knowledge and research to help bring Mary and her world to life. I also could not have completed this book without the support and good humor of good friends.
Kimberly Alexander
Laura Auricchio
Anne Bentley
Kelly Bolding
Donna M. Campbell
Mary Hardy Carter
Loretta Chekani
Donah Zack Crawford
Christopher Davalos
Erica A. Dunbar
Linda Eaton
Tiffany Fisk
Sara Georgini
Annette Gordon-Reed
Victoria Harty
Linda Hocking
Neal T. Hurst
Carl Robert Keyes
Timothy Logue
Kathie Ludwig
Michael McCarty
Philip C. Mead
Christopher Moore
Barbara Scherer
Jessie Serfilippi
Matthew Skic
Mariam Touba
Mark Turdo
Michael W. Twitty
Janea Whitacre
Sarah Woodyard
Hope Wright
Additional thanks to the staffs of the following historic sites, libraries, and other institutions:
The African American Museum in Philadelphia
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library
The David Library of the American Revolution
The Earl Gregg Swem Library, College of William & Mary
Firestone Library, Princeton University
Fraunces Tavern Museum
The Hermitage
Independence National Historical Park
The John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg
The Litchfield Historical Society
Monmouth Battlefield State Park
Morris-Jumel Mansion
The Museum of the American Revolution
The Museum of the City of New York
The National Constitution Center
The National Museum of African American History and Culture
National Museum of American History
The New York Public Library
The New-York Historical Society
The Pennsylvania Historical Society
Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site
Valley Forge National Historical Park
Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library
Susan Holloway Scott is the author of over fifty historical novels and historical romances. Writing under several pen names, her bestselling books have received numerous awards and honors. With more than three million copies of her books in print, she has been published in nineteen foreign countries around the world and translated into fourteen different languages.
Susan also writes as half of the Two Nerdy History Girls (twonerdy historygirls.com), a popular book & history blog and Twitter account (@2nerdyhistgirls) with a worldwide following. She is a graduate of Brown University, and lives with her family outside of Philadelphia, PA. For more information about Susan and her books, visit her website at www.susanhollowayscott.com.
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