The Prevost Mansion Known as The Shrubbery, Once Owned by Aaron Burr, Burned December 31, 1880

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A large home known as "The Shrubbery" once stood along Split Rock Road in Pelham Manor.  The home once was owned briefly by Aaron Burr, Revolutionary War hero and third Vice President of the United States before he infamously shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel on July 11, 1804.  Burr married the widow Theodosia Bartow Prevost, a Pelham Manor native, and became a stepfather to her son Augustine James Frederick Prevost.  The family reportedly bought The Shrubbery as a summer place.

Portrait of Aaron Burr in 1792, Attributed to

Gilbert Stuart.  NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.

The circumstances regarding how Aaron Burr came to own The Shrubbery and then sell it to his stepson, Augustine James Frederick Prevost, seem rather suspicious.  Indeed, I have written before about those questionable circumstances.  See Tue., Jul. 18, 2006: Aaron Burr Tries to Pull a Fast One in the 1790s and Must Sell His Farm in Pelham.

In his recent book The King's Best Highway, Eric Jaffe also wrote of the odd circumstances surrounding Burr's purchase and prompt sale of The Shrubbery.  Jaffe wrote:

"Before the Revolution the patriot Lewis Morris, an eventual signer of the Declaration of Independence, had sought permission to build a toll bridge across the Harlem River, almost exactly where the modern Third Avenue Bridge exists today.  (Morris lived in a region of the Bronx that still goes by the name Morrisania.)  A branch road toward his bridge would severely duck the old approach from New England onto the island over King's Bridge.  The diversion would pay off twice; once when the thankful traveler deposited a coin at the gate of the new bridge, and once again down the line, when the value of Morris's land increased.

"Come 1790 Morris was ready to revive the idea of this bridge when the proposal caught the ear of the state's new attorney general, Aaron Burr.  Burr offered to finesse the bill through to passage, and when he was finished, Morris earned the right to build his bridge, and the task of laying out the new road fell upon three commissioners -- two of whom, Joseph Browne and John Bartow Jr., were Burr's close in-laws.  In March of 1790 the bill indeed passed.

"Some evidence suggests that Burr intended to purchase the land through which the new road passed, and profit as its value soared.  Back in the fall of 1789, Burr had represented the heirs of Joshua Pell, a loyalist whose 146-acre farm had been confiscated after the war by the state.  The following February, Burr bought the plot in question -- dubbed The Shrubberies [sic] -- for use as a summer home.  The Shrubberies resided 'on the post road' as it passed through modern Pelham, beginning near 'the gate of the Boston Turnpike Road,' precisely where a new road would branch toward Lewis Morris's new bridge.  Burr soon transferred this land to his stepson, Augustine Prevost, for ten shillings -- essentially gave it away, perhaps to distance himself from its acquisition.

"A few years later Lewis Morris sold his rights to the toll bridge to John Coles, who soon undertook its construction.  In summer of 1800 the Westchester Turnpike Company established its 'Western Gate' near The Shrubberies and extended the new highway from Pelham to the 'Eastern Gate,' near the Connecticut line.  When the city laid down fresh milestones in 1801,this new Boston road became the route of record between New York and New England."

Source:  Jaffe, Eric, The King's Best Highway -- The Lost History of the Boston Post Road, The Route that Made America, pp. 95-96 (NY, NY:  Scribner, A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2010).

Undated Photograph Said to Depict "The Shrubbery," a Home

That Once Belonged to Aaron Burr and, Later, His Stepson,

Augustine James Frederick Prevost and Stood Along Today's Split

Rock Road in Pelham Manor. Source: Courtesy of The Office of

The Historian of the Town of Pelham. NOTE: Click on Image to Enlarge.

Detail from 1868 Beers Atlas Map Showing Location of "THE

SHRUBBERY" (Lower Left) Just Off Today's Boston Post

Road in Area Between Today's Split Rock Road and Today's

Boston Post Road. Source: Beers, Frederick W., "City Island,

Pelham Township, Westchester Co., N.Y. [With] Town of Pelham,

Westchester Co, N.Y." in Atlas of New York and Vicinity from

Actual Surveys by and Under the Direction of F. W. Beers, p.

35 (NY, NY: Beers Ellis & Soule, 1868). NOTE: Click Image to Enlarge.

"THE PREVOST FARM By John M. Shinn"

NOTE: Click on Image to Enlarge.

The Shrubbery remained in the Prevost family for the next eighty years.  In late 1880, George A. Prevost, a brother of the actual owner of The Shrubbery, lived in the home with his wife and "two maiden sisters."  The grand home was two and one half stories high with massive, grand Corinthian columns in its front. It was filled with the Prevost family's "furniture, paintings, statuary, and many ancient relics which were highly prized." 

Late in the evening on New Year's Eve, December 31, 1880, a fire was discovered in the room of one of the maiden sisters.  Reports later indicated that the fire may have begun from an overheated flue in the room.  In any event, the fire spread until it completely destroyed the mansion and all its contents.  Reports indicated that the property destroyed was valued between $15,000 and $20,000, the equivalent of about $487,000 to $649,000 in today's dollars.  I have written before about the fire that destroyed the Prevost home on that New Year's Eve.  See Tue., Aug. 16, 2016:  The "Shrubbery" Mansion in Pelham Once Owned by Aaron Burr Burned Down on December 31, 1880.  

Today's posting to the Historic Pelham Blog provides the brief text of another newspaper article that referenced the fire that destroyed The Shrubbery.

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"THE FIRE FIEND.

The end of the old year and the beginning of the new has been prolific of fires -- not an uncomfortable thing to read of in view of the demoralized, rent condition of the thermometer.  Among these fires was the burning of James R. Keene's Newport villa, including what the redoubtable bon vivant, Sam Ward, pathetically characterized as 'a divine wine-cellar.'  Another fire was the destruction of the Provost [sic] mansion, in the town of Pelham, which is said to have been occupied at one time by Aaron Burr.  The latest important addition to the list was the total annihilation of Mount St. Vincent's in Central Park on Sunday morning, more recently and better known as 'Stetson's' which has been a favorite resort and restaurant for sporting men and the general public.  The part of the building used for hotel purposes was over one hundred years old."

Source:  THE FIRE FIEND, Evening Star [Washington, D.C.], Jan. 8, 1881, Vol. 57, No. 8660, p. 1, col. 7.  

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I have written before about the Prevost Mansion known as "The Shrubbery" and the family that owned it.  (The family name often is misspelled "Provost."  It is "Prevost.")  See:

Tue., Aug. 16, 2016:  The "Shrubbery" Mansion in Pelham Once Owned by Aaron Burr Burned Down on December 31, 1880.

Thu., Jun. 23, 2016:  Original Record of Forfeiture Sale of Lands of British Loyalists in the Manor of Pelham.

Thu., May 21, 2015:  Pelham Manor Romance:  A Tale of Aaron Burr and His Love, Theodosia Bartow Prevost of the Manor of Pelham.

Thu., Apr. 23, 2015:  Augustine James Frederick Prevost of The Shrubbery in Pelham Manor.

Tue., Sep. 30, 2014:  Pelham Resident Recorded His Impressions of Meeting Aaron Burr.

Fri., Feb. 7, 2014:  Early History of The Pelham Home for Children, an Early Pelham Charity (Notes that The Pelham Home for Children was located on a portion of the old Prevost Farm).

Wed., Aug. 1, 2007:  1805 Real Estate Advertisement Offering Prevost Estate in Pelham for Sale.

Mon., Jun. 4, 2007:  Abstract of 1797 Will of John Bartow, Sr. Who Owned Land in Pelham and Whose Family Became Early Pelham Residents.

Wed., Jan. 31, 2007:  A Large Distillery Once Stood on the Prevost Farm in Pelham During the 1790s.

Mon., Oct. 2, 2006: The Revolutionary War Diary of Loyalist Joshua Pell, Jr. of the Manor of Pelham.

Thu., Jul. 27, 2006:  1799 Notice of Foreclosure Sale of Pelham Manor Lands Owned by Augustus James Frederick Prevost, Stepson of Aaron Burr.

Tue., Jul. 18, 2006: Aaron Burr Tries to Pull a Fast One in the 1790s and Must Sell His Farm in Pelham.

Wed., Jun. 14, 2006: Text of Deed by Which Aaron Burr Acquired Pelham Lands in 1790.

Thu., Apr. 14, 2005: The Pelham Home for Children that Once Stood on Split Rock Road.

Archive of the Historic Pelham Web Site.
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Pelham Manor Romance: A Tale of Aaron Burr and His Love, Theodosia Bartow Prevost of the Manor of Pelham

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Aaron Burr, who served as Vice President during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson and who fought a duel with, and mortally wounded, Alexander Hamilton on July 11, 1804, spent time in Pelham, bought a farm there which he promptly sold to his step-son Augustine J. F. Prevost, and married Theodosia Bartow Prevost, a widow born in Pelham Manor who was ten years his senior.

Portrait of Aaron Burr, 1802, by John Vanderlyn.

Source:  Wikimedia Commons.

In 1931, Elizabeth Cushman published an entertaining article about Aaron Burr's tremendous love for Theodosia Bartow Prevost who was born in the Manor of Pelham and whom Burr married on July 2, 1782.  The article discussed Burr's purchase of "The Shrubbery" and his practice of law in Westchester County.  The text of the article is transcribed below, followed by a citation and a link to its source.

"Aaron Burr, The Great Lover, Used Barge To Reach Only Woman He Ever Cared For
-----
As a Youth He Had a Great Collection of Billet - Doux
-----

(Editor's Note:  Westchester County is rich in Revolutionary history -- far richer than we are likely to think as we go about our daily tasks or our social life.  To study histories of the great days when the nation's existence was at stake is to discover interesting and important thing[s] about Westchester.  Aaron Burr's part in the life of early Westchester was interesting.  Whatever our sentiments about his actions which caused his conviction for treason, we must remember him as one who spent much of his time here.)

BY ELIZABETH CUSHMAN

There was no moon that night. 

The darkness made an excellent ally for the young man who, muffled in a long cloak that hid his soldier's uniform, led his horse carefully down the rutty road now known as Sunnyside Lane, Irvington, and, when he had reached the water's edge, paused to give a long low whistle.  Immediately dark figures arose from the bushes around.  They seized and tied his horse and carried the animal aboard a barge that floated nearby.  The soldier followed them and without a single word having been spoken, the barge pushed off and headed for the Jersey shore.  In the prow the soldier, forgetful now of his uniform, of his rank as Lieutenant Colonel in the American Army, of his command of the American lines in Westchester from Tarrytown to the Byram River, impatiently awaited the arrival at his destination.  He was a soldier no longer; he was a lover now, set out on a midnight wooing.

To the average American, this soldier of long ago is known in one capacity only -- as the slayer of Alexander Hamilton; but to you and to me, who live in Westchester, he is or he should be the brave and gallant figure in Westchester's most glamorous revolutionary romance -- who ferried the Hudson at night, as often as he could to pay his court to a lady who lived in the Ramapo Hills but who was llied with Westchester far more than the young Colonel who sought her for his wife.

Romance!

This was not only Westchester's most glamorous revolutionary romance but one of the strangest stories written in the love-ife of an outstanding American.

Aaron Burr, destined to become Vice President of the United States, to be tried for treason, to dream of a Mexican empire with himself seated on the throne, was, at the time of his war-time wooing only 22 years old.  He had proven himself a brave and intrepid soldier at the storming of Quebec; he had fretted as a member of Washington's official family in the Greenwich Village quarters then established in the Mortier house which later would be Burr's own famous home; he had served under General Israel Putnam and had been mentioned frequently in official circles for his 'coolness, deliberation and valor.'  He was the youngest man in the army to hold the rank of lieutenant colonel.

They called him 'The Little Colonel,' and the name rankled in the heart of this fiery grandson of a fiery grandfather -- for his grandfather had been the eminent New England divine, Jonathan Edwards, preacher  of hell-fire and damnation.  His father, too, was a minister, and the president of the Young College in New Jersey known as 'Prince Town.'  For six generations, the ancestors of Aaron Burr had been clergymen, his own father was the author of religious books that became so popular that he was a 'best seller' in his day.  The ancestry of 'The Little Colonel' was impeccable, quite different from that of the gentleman he was to slay one day on the field of honor, the gentleman from Nevis.

That Was to Come

The duel, however, was far ahead, the intellectual and religious exploits of his progenitors far behind, those nights when Aaron Burr crossed the Hudson River to woo Theodosia Prevost.

He could have married any girl in the colonies.  His gallantry with the ladies had passed the point of fame and approached that of notoriety.  He was handsome and fascinating, suave and cultured.  

He had, at 20, a collection of letters from women that could have disrupted many of the proudest homes in the country.  He still had the collection, greatly augmented, when he died at 80.

What sort of woman was it, then, whom he had set his heart on marrying, for whom he'd ride from the Hammond House, where he had his headquarters, to the river, cross the river, ride ten miles to her house, and make the return trip before daybreak?

A Widow, Cultured

She was a widow 10 years his senior.  She was the mother of five children, a delicate ailing woman with a deep scar on her forehead and a scanty fortune in her purse.  She was a little faded, a little worn, when Aaron Burr came a wooing. . . . But she could speak several languages, she read Voltaire, Rousseau, Chesterfield.  In 'The Hermitage,' her house at Paramus, New Jersey, she had a fine collection of books; she was cultured, intelligent, with gentle manners and gracious ways; it was this combination of qualities that won and kept the love of Aaron Burr, philanderer as he was, during the rest of her life.  But it is not these things, especially, that interest us of Westchester.

It is the fact that this woman whom Aaron Burr loved so faithfully and so long was a Bartow of Pelham Manor.

Her father, Theodosius Bartow, died shortly before she was born.  Her grandfather had been John Bartow, rector of St. Paul's in Eastchester and had founded St. Peter's Church in Westchester.  Her uncle, Theophilus, had married Bathsheba Pell.  Another generation of the Pell-Bartow family would build the Bartow mansion still standing on Pelham Road, just as previous generations of the Pells had held the lordship of the Manor of Pelham.

British Husbands

Theodosius Bartow's mother married twice, her second husband being Philip De Vismes.  Theeodosia herself had a British army officer, Colonel Jacques Marc Prevost, for her first husband, and for her brother-in-law, general Augustine Prevost, commander of British forces in South Carolina.  

Her first husband died in the West Indies, on duty, in 1777.  She married Aaron Burr on July 2, 1782, either in Albany or in Paramus, the ceremony being performed by the Rev. Benjamin Van Der Linde, pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church of Paramus.  It was a wedding as curious as the wooing.  The bridegroom, a great dandy in his day, ame, for some reason, in his oldest coat and paid the minister his last coin -- a half joe -- for a fee.  The bride was gowned 'in suitable gauze.'  They went to live in Albany where, the next year, the ill-fated child, Theodosia, destined to be a beautiful woman and one of American history's most fascinating mysteries, was born.  Eventually they came to New York.  

His Estate

On February 6, 1790, Aaron Burr bought an estate in Westchester.  

It comprised 155 acres of land lying near the Eastchester Creek and bound by property owned by the Pells.  This, too, had been Pell property, for though Burr paid 800 pounds for it to Nicholas Wright of Pelham Manor and William Wright of Oyster Bay, it had been the estate of Joshua Pell and from him had descended to his son, Joshua, Jr.  The first Joshua was the son of Thomas, third lord of the manor, and of his Indian wife, Anna, daughter of Wampage.)

A month after Burr bought the property he turned it over to his step-son, Augustine James Frederick Prevost, 'in consideration of the love and affection which he (Burr) bears Augustine. . . '  And for the sum of ten shillings.  This was on March 1, 1790.  The property remained in the Prevost family until 1898, when on October 6, Adelaide S. Prevost, widow of George A., deeded it over to the Pelham Summer home for Children.

Apples

At the time of Burr's purchase a fine mansion, called 'The Shrubbery,' stood on the property.  It was only about thirty years old then, having been built around 1760; its entrance stood just north of Split Rock.  This was one of the best farms in the county, especially renowned for its apple orchard.  During the Revolution, a few years previous, Colonel Leommi Baldwin, commanding one of the regiments which took part in the Battle of Pelham, noted the orchard.  When the war was over, he obtained some of the trees, took them to his home at Woburn, Mass., where he was a noted horticulturist, and proceeded to develop the Baldwin apple.

Colonel Burr's stepson -- of whom he was as fond as of his own children -- lived in 'The Shrubbery,' and here the Colonel, no longer a military figure but one of America's most famous lawyers, came with his wife for the Summers.  He had become Attorney General; he was to become, in 1791, a United States Senator, after a bitter campaign, in which he defeated General Philip Schuyler, and added fuel to the fierce hatred smouldering between him and Alexander Hamilton, for Schuyler was Hamilton's father-in-law.  Burr sat also in the New York Assembly.

Church Has His Paper

It is quite possible that it was during his visits to Augustine Prevost's home he appeared in legal cases in the old Eastchester church where there is still cherished a legal document signed with Burr's name.  Burr lived at this time in Richmond Hill, the Greenwich Village estate then far out in the country but on property now bounded by King, Varick, Charleston and McDougal Streets.

Little Theodosia Burr must have played, those Summers of long ago, on the lawns near Split Rock Road.  (She was the only one of her father's four legitimate children to survive.  Two boys were stillborn and a little sister, Sally, died in babyhood.  Theodosia herself, the wife of John Alston, Governor of South Carolina, was lost at sea.)

All Burr's life, from the age of 22, was colored by the love he bore Theodosia Bartow Prevost.  The story of this romance and of the prior and subsequent philanderings of this gallant -- whose last word addressed, possibly, to a shadowy Theodosia who beckoned him onward from some spirit-land, was 'Madame!' -- is told in a new romantic biography, 'Aaron Burr,' written by Johnston D. Kerkhoff and published by Greenberg.  It tells of course of his unhappy second marriage, contracted in his old age, with Madame Jumel.

The Lover

No woman ever meant to Burr what Theodosia had meant.  The story of his courtship is memorialized in a little known poem by E. C. Steadman, called 'Aaron Burr's Wooing':

From the Commandants quarters on Westchester height
The blue hills of Ramapo lie in full sight;
On their slope gleam the gables that shield his heart's queen, 
But the Red-Coats are wary -- the Hudson's between.
Through the camp runs a jest,
'There's no moon; 'twill be dark;
'Tis odds little Aaron will go on a spark.' 
And the toast of the trooper is:  'Pickets, lie low!'"

Source:  Cushman, Elizabeth, Aaron Burr, The Great Lover, Used Barge To Reach Only Woman He Ever Cared For, The Daily Argus [Mount Vernon, NY], Jul. 31, 1931, p. 12, cols. 1-3.  

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I have written about Aaron Burr, Theodosia Bartow Prevost Burr, Augustine J. Frederick Prevost and The Shrubbery on a number of occasions.  For examples of such earlier postings, see the following:

Thu., Apr. 23, 2015:  Augustine James Frederick Prevost of The Shrubbery in Pelham Manor.

Tue., Sep. 30, 2014:  Pelham Resident Recorded His Impressions of Meeting Aaron Burr.

Fri., Feb. 7, 2014:  Early History of The Pelham Home for Children, an Early Pelham Charity (Notes that The Pelham Home for Children first occupied the Shrubbery before the building burned in the 1890s).

Wed., Aug. 1, 2007:  1805 Real Estate Advertisement Offering Prevost Estate in Pelham for Sale.

Mon., Jun. 4, 2007:  Abstract of 1797 Will of John Bartow, Sr. Who Owned Land in Pelham and Whose Family Became Early Pelham Residents.

Wed., Jan. 31, 2007:  A Large Distillery Once Stood on the Prevost Farm in Pelham During the 1790s.

Tue., Jul. 18, 2006: Aaron Burr Tries to Pull a Fast One in the 1790s and Must Sell His Farm in Pelham.

Wed., Jun. 14, 2006: Text of Deed by Which Aaron Burr Acquired Pelham Lands in 1790

Thu., Apr. 14, 2005: The Pelham Home for Children that Once Stood on Split Rock Road

Mon., Oct. 2, 2006: The Revolutionary War Diary of Loyalist Joshua Pell, Jr. of the Manor of Pelham.

"The Shrubbery," a Home That Once Belonged to Aaron Burr

and, Later, His Stepson, Augustine James Frederick Prevost

and Stood Along Today's Split Rock Road in Pelham Manor.

Source:  Courtesy of The Office of The Historian of the Town of Pelham.

Archive of the Historic Pelham Web Site.

Home Page of the Historic Pelham Blog.

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Augustine James Frederick Prevost of The Shrubbery in Pelham Manor

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Augustine James Frederick Prevost, known as Frederick Prevost, was a stepson of Aaron Burr (the third Vice President of the United States who killed Alexander Hamiliton in an infamous duel on July 11, 1804 near Weehawken, New Jersey).  Frederick Prevost lived in a grand 18th century home that once stood in Pelham Manor along today's Split Rock Road.  Known as "The Shrubbery," the home stood until the late 19th century when it was destroyed by fire.

According to genealogists, A. J. Frederick Prevost was a son of James Marcus Prevost and Theodosia Bartow who was the only daughter of Theodosius Bartow of Shrewsbury, New Jersey.  James Marcus Prevost, who was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in the Province of New Jersey during the Revolutionary War, died in the West Indies in 1779.  Thereafter, Theodosia met and married Aaron Burr who became A. J. Frederick Prevost's stepfather.  According to one family genealogy:

"7.  COL. JAMES MARCUS PREVOST, a native of Geneva, followed his brother, General Augustine, to England, and was afterward with him in Savannah in the war of the Revolution.  He was appointed Commander-in Chief of the British forces in America in the province of New Jersey, and died in the West Indies in 1779.  He married Theodosia, only daughter of Theodosius Bartow, of Shrewsbury, New Jersey.  The widow of Theodosius Bartow married Pierre de Vismes, of a noble French family in England, and Theodosia lived with her mother and half-brothers and sister at a place called the Hermitage, near Paramus, N. J.  Here Col. Aaron Burr met her, and after the death of Col. Prevost married her and brought up her two boys as his own sons.  Col. James Marcus Prevost and Theodosia, his wife, had two children, as follows:

11.  i.  AUGUSTINE JAMES FREDERICK PREVOST, usually known as Frederick Prevost, Esq.  He lived on his estate at Pelham, N. Y., which he afterward conveyed to Major George William Prevost.  He married twice, left several daughters, who settled West, but has no descendants of the name of Prevost.

12.  ii. HON. JOHN BARTOW PREVOST."

Source:  Bartow, Evelyn, "The Prevost Family in America" in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol. XIII, No. 1, pp. 27-28 (New York, NY:  Jan. 1882).

The Shrubbery passed from A.J. Frederick Prevost to another member of the Prevost family, Major George William Prevost.  (Major George William Prevost is interred in the graveyard located next to St. Paul's Church National Historic Site in Mount Vernon, New York.)  His only son, also named George Prevost, formerly of Poole, Southampton, succeeded his father in ownership and resided in The Shrubbery for a number of years.  See id. at p. 27.   

"The Shrubbery," a Home That Once Belonged to Augustine

James Frederick Prevost and Stood Along Today's Split

Rock Road in Pelham Manor.  Source:  Courtesy of The

Office of The Historian of The Town of Pelham.

A different genealogy, one recounting the history of the Bartow family, provides a little more information about the family.  It says:

"THEODOSIA BARTOW, only child of Theodosius Bartow, born in 1746, m. 1st in 1765, Col. Frederick Prevost, a near relative of Lt. Gen. Sir George Prevost, Baronet, of Belmont, co. Hants, and Gov. General in North America, son of Major Gen. Augustine Prevost of Geneva.

Col. Prevost, dying in the West Indies, in 1779, his widow m. 2ndly, July 2, 1782, Col. Aaron Burr.

Children of Theodosia and Col. Frederick Prevost:

i.  James Augustine Frederick Prevost [sic, should be "Augustine James Frederick Prevost'], b. 1766, lived at Pelham on the place now the residence of his cousins, the Misses Prevost, daughters of Major George William Prevost, of Pelham, b. 1767, the son of Major Gen. Augustine Prevost, who d. at Catskill.  Frederick Prevost m. 1st, *** Hunt, by whom he had Frances Anna, and others.  By his second wife, he had several daughters.  His family, I beileve, is extinct.

ii.  Hon. John Bartow Prevost, b. 1768; Member of Congress, Recorder of New York, and District Judge of the United States for Louisiana.  He m. a da. of Dr. Samuel Smith, President of Princeton College, N. J., and had four children:  1.  Marcus Prevost, d. y.  2. Stanhope Prevost, d. in Lima, Peru, leaving children.  3. Frances Prevost, m. John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, and has one son and two daughters.  4 Theodosia Prevost, b. 1810, lived near Englewood, N. J.; d. unm. Dec. 14, 1864."

Source:  Bartow, Evelyn P., Bartow Genealogy:  Containing Every One of the Name of Bartow Descended From Doctor Thomas Bartow Who Was Living at Crediton, in England, A.D., 1672 With References to the Books Where Any of the Name is Mentioned, p. 158 (Baltimore, MD:  Innes & Company, 1875).

What follows is the text of an interesting article in which the author claims to have in her possession a Prevost family bible providing more information about the family in Pelham.  

"MOHAWK VALLEY GENEALOGY AND HISTORY
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

LOCKWOOD

Wanted information regarding the parentage and birthplace of Prudence Lockwood, born Oct. 30, 1795 (perhaps in Greenwich, Conn. or perhaps in Poundridge, N. Y.) died Dec. 19, 1855 in Mount Sterling, Ill.  Prudence Lockwood was the younger sister of Catharine (Lockwood) Minor.

The Prevost family Bible (in my possession) records Prudence Lockwood's marriage to Augustin [sic] James Frederic [sic] Prevost in Pelham, N. Y. on Oct. 30, 1813.  The ceremony was performed by Rev. Theodorius [sic] Bartow (a cousin of A. J. F. Prevost, the groom) and rector of Trinity Church, New Rochelle, N. Y.  Three guests at the wedding were named 1. Simeon Hinman Minor, Esq. (Prudence's brother-in-law, husband of Catharine Lockwood for whom she [portion missing].  [2.] Aaron Burr, Esq. (step-father of A. J. F. Prevost).  Aaron Burr married Mrs. Theodosia (Bartow) Prevost, wido of Col. Jacques Marc Prevost in 1782 who died in 1794.  3.  Abraham Thorpe.

Prudence Lockwood had one sister Cathatine Lockwood for whoms she named her 2nd daughter (Catharine Lockwood Prevost) which record is also in the Prevost family Bible.  Catharine, her sister, married Hon. Simeon Hinman Minor, a lawyer of Stamford, Conn. and died young in 1819.  So far this account is recorded family history.  

Omission of Prudence Lockwood in Lockwood Genealogy

The Colonial and Revolutionary History of the Lockwood Famil in America from 1630, by Frederick A. Holden and E. Dunbar Lockwood, states that Eliphalet Lockwood born March 23, 1753 and Prudence Skeldinjg were married Jan. 16, 1776 and that they had only one child, Catharine Lockwood, who married Hon. Simeon Hinman Minor of Stamford, Conn. and that she died in 1819, leaving several children whose histories are given in detail.  Catharine's birth date is not given.

In my opinion there is substantial evidence that Prudence Lockwood, myu grandmother, was the sister of Catharine (Lockwood) minor and the daughter of Eliphalet and Prudence (Skelding) Lockwood, but I cannot prove it in print.

Might not the omission of Prudence's name be explained by the fact that Catharine  died in 1819 and was buried in Stamford, Conn., while Prudence and family who had lived in Pelham and Cooperstown, N.Y. in 1834 moved to Illinois.  Then, 68 years later when the Lockwood genealogy was compiled in 1887, perhaps the living Lockwoods and Minors had lost all trace of Prudence and her descendants?

Snag.  The lapse of 19 years between the marriage ofr Eliphalet and Prudence Skelding Lockwood and the birth of Prudence, Oct. 30, 1795 (Catharine's birth date is not given.)  Does it not seem unusual for a couple in that day to have one child or even two so many years after marriage?  Has a generation been skipped?

From another source I have heard that Catharine and Prudence were the daughters of Israel Lockwood and Grace Thorpe of Poundridge, N. Y.  Israel Lockwood was a ship's carpenter.  In the Prevost Bible, Abraham Thorpe  was numbered as a guest at the wedding of Prudence (apparently only the important male, out-of-town connections were considered worth recording).  He may have been Prudence's grandfather or uncle, if Israel Lockwood and Grace Thorpe were her parents.  In which case what was Simeon Hinman Minor doing there?  (Simeon Hinman Minor was her brother-in-law.)

Prudence Lockwood, aged 18, married Augustin [sic] James Frederic [sic] Prevost, a widower with six young daughters, Oct. 30, 1813 presumably at the 'Shrubbery,' the home of her residence, built by Joshua Pell, a relative by marriage to A. J. F. Prevost, was situated near the Boston Post Road (on Split Rock Road, I believe) near New Rochelle.  It was not far from the International Garden Club formerly the Bartow Mansion.  A. J. F. Prevost received this property from Aaron Burr.  I have a copy of the deed executed in 1790 from Aaron Burr to A. J. F. Prevost fro 155 acres including the 'Shrubbery' with 'no consideration (except 10 shillings) but for the love I bare [sic] him.'  A. J. F. Burr's [sic] step-son was then 24 years of age.  I have a photograph of the 'Shrubbery.'

A. J. G. Prevost [sic] and family lived at the 'Shrubbery' from 1790 to 1817 when he sold the home and 140 acres to George William Prevost, a relative, whose descendants lived in the house until it burned about 1907.  In 1817 the A. J. F. Prevost family moved to Cooperstown wherre their four children were born and the daughters by his first wife, Euphemia (Hunt) Prevost were married.  About 1825 the family moved to Westford, N. Y. and bought a sheep farm and in 1834 they moved to Morgan County, Ill. and cleared a 250 acre farm.  A. J. F. and Prudence were buried in Illinois.  

While A. J. F. Prevost lived in Pelham, N. Y. he attended St. Paul's Episcopal church in Eastchester, now Mount Vernon.  His first wife, Euphemia (Hunt) Prevost is buried in the cemetery yard.  He was married to Prudence Lockwood by the rector of Trinity Church, New Rochelle.  Prudence may have attended that church or Rev. Theodosius Bartow may have been asked to perform the ceremony because of his relationship to A. J. F. Prevost.  There is a large Lockwood family lot in the Trinity church cemetery, however.

Would like to correspond with descendants of Euphemia (Hunt) Prevost who probably live in or near Cooperstown and Westford, N. Y., or with descendants of Simeon Hinman Minor who may live in Stamford or New York City.

Mrs. Marie Oliver Watkins,
1190 Collingwood Ave., 
Detroit, Mich."

Source:  MOHAWK VALLEY GENEALOGY AND HISTORY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS - LOCKWOOD, St. Johnsville Enterprise and News [St. Johnsville, NY], Jun. 27, 1946, p. 7, cols. 1-2.  

*          *          *          *          *

I have written about Augustine J. Frederick Prevost and the home in which he lived -- called the Shrubbery -- before. (Prevost was the step-son of Aaron Burr.) For examples of such earlier postings, see the following:

Tue., Sep. 30, 2014:  Pelham Resident Recorded His Impressions of Meeting Aaron Burr.

Fri., Feb. 7, 2014:  Early History of The Pelham Home for Children, an Early Pelham Charity (Notes that The Pelham Home for Children first occupied the Shrubbery before the building burned in the 1890s).

Wed., Aug. 1, 2007:  1805 Real Estate Advertisement Offering Prevost Estate in Pelham for Sale.

Mon., Jun. 4, 2007:  Abstract of 1797 Will of John Bartow, Sr. Who Owned Land in Pelham and Whose Family Became Early Pelham Residents.

Wed., Jan. 31, 2007:  A Large Distillery Once Stood on the Prevost Farm in Pelham During the 1790s.

Tue., Jul. 18, 2006: Aaron Burr Tries to Pull a Fast One in the 1790s and Must Sell His Farm in Pelham.

Wed., Jun. 14, 2006: Text of Deed by Which Aaron Burr Acquired Pelham Lands in 1790

Thu., Apr. 14, 2005: The Pelham Home for Children that Once Stood on Split Rock Road

Mon., Oct. 2, 2006: The Revolutionary War Diary of Loyalist Joshua Pell, Jr. of the Manor of Pelham

Archive of the Historic Pelham Web Site.

Home Page of the Historic Pelham Blog.

Order a Copy of "Thomas Pell and the Legend of the Pell Treaty Oak."

Pelham Resident Recorded His Impressions of Meeting Aaron Burr

Archive of the Historic Pelham Web Site.

Home Page of the Historic Pelham Blog.

Order a Copy of "Thomas Pell and the Legend of the Pell Treaty Oak."

Aaron Burr, who served as Vice President during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson and who fought a duel with, and mortally wounded, Alexander Hamilton on July 11, 1804, spent time in Pelham, bought a farm there which he promptly sold to his step-son Augustine J. F. Prevost, and married Theodosia Bartow Prevost, a widow born in Pelham Manor who was ten years his senior.  The story of the farm itself is quite fascinating, as evidenced by the work of Pelham Manor resident Mark Gaffney.

On August 23, 1784, New York State's Commissioners of Forfeiture sold a 146-acre farm in Pelham on which sat the mansion known as "The Shrubbery" to Isaac Guion for 988 pounds.  See Abstracts of Sales of Confiscated Loyalist Estates by the Commissioners of Forfeiture in the Southern District of New York (available in the collections of the New-York Historical Society).   The tract had been confiscated after the Revolutionary War from Joshua Pell [Junior] who served as a British officer in upstate New York during the War.  See Pell, Howland, The Pell Manor:  An Address Prepared for the New York Branch of the Order of Colonial Lords of Manors in America (Baltimore, MD:  1917).

The will of Joshua Pell [Senior] entitled his children to receive monetary legacies when his farm (the one of which Aaron Burr eventually bought a portion) was divided in half and devised to two of his older sons:  Joshua Pell [Junior] who was entitled to receive the northern half of the farm, and Edward Pell who was entitled to receive the southern half of the farm.  

Joshua Pell [Junior] and his brother, Edward Pell, eventually filed a lawsuit alleging that the the forfeiture proceedings involved a wrongful taking of the property.  Significantly, the Pell brothers were represented in the matter by Aaron Burr.  As a consequence of the lawsuit, in 1789 the New York State Treasurer paid Joshua Pell [Junior] 988 pounds in compensation for "wrongful taking" and paid Isaac Guion 125 pounds for his expenses.  See Yoshpe, Harry B., Disposition of Loyalist Estates in the Southern District of New York, pp. 104-06 (NY, NY:  1939).  

Significantly, on February 26, 1790, Aaron Burr bought one of the farms at issue in the lawsuit.  He bought the northern half -- the Joshua Pell [Junior] tract -- from Nicholas and William Wright "subject nevertheless to the right of dower of Phoebe Pell the widow of [Joshua Pell Sr.] deceased to the payment of all such pecuniary legacies as are charged upon the said premise by the will of [Joshua Pell Senior]."  See Deed from Nicholas Wright and William Wright to Aaron Burr, Westchester County Archives, Elmsford, NY, Register of Deeds, Liber L, 363-66.

Burr soon sold the tract to his step-son, Augustine J. F. Prevost.  At least one author who has studied that sale has concluded that it was part of a scheme by Aaron Burr to hide his involvement with the tract.  In his book Cipher / Code of Dishonor, Dr. Alan J. Clark analyzed the sale and concluded that during the 1790s, Burr was involved in a secret scheme to move the Boston Post Road (which, at that time followed today's Colonial Avenue in Pelham) to its present location which passes near where The Shrubbery once stood. At the same time (and as part of the same scheme), Burr sought to form a toll road leading from Manhattan through the West Farms area of what was then southern Westchester County. This, it seems, was all part of a land speculation scheme in which Burr sought to profit by acquiring the lands of poor farmers who found it difficult to sustain large farms in the area in the aftermath of the devastation wrought by the predations of two armies in the so-called "Neutral Ground" between New York City and upper Westchester County during the Revolutionary War. By moving the Boston Post Road so that it passed next to his newly-acquired farm in Pelham and by placing a toll road in the West Farms area near the Burr Family's ancestral home to shorten the travel time from New York City, Burr hoped to increase the value of those properties and, before the scheme became known, perhaps acquire other properties in the area that likewise would increase in value. 

In his fascinating book, Dr. Clark describes the scheme as follows: 

"[I]n 1790 Aaron Burr purchased as a summer residence 'The Shrubbery', manor house of the Pell family since 1740 on the Boston Post Road in Pelham, New York for his bride, Theodosia Prevost married in 1782. Burr conveyed the home to his stepson Augustine Frederick Prevost in 1794. 

Next he entered on a scheme to move the New York to Boston road (now the Boston Post Road) and form a toll road in the West Farms area of southern Westchester County and Connecticut near his Burr family ancestral home. Dr. Joseph Browne married Catherine (Caty) De Visme, Theodosia's half sister, in a joint wedding with the Burrs at the Hermitage. He owned some of the land on which the road was to be built. Dr. Brown had acquired it from the estate of John Embree in 1785. Road commissioners, engineered into the legislation for absolute control by Burr himself, were Dr. Joseph Browne, George Embree (the family of the city of Embree deeded to Trinity Church during the war and back to Effingham Embree on May 6, 1795) and John Bartow, Jr. Bartow was a brother of Theodosia Bartow Prevost Burr. The Lewis Morris family took all of the tolls from the new bridge over the Harlem River at their Manor of Morrisania. 

Burr began speculating in land of Rebels caught in the no man's land between the armies in Westchester County. These poor farmers had been unable to sustain a living on their land because of constant predation by both sides during the War of Independence and after the war were unable to sustain the vast land holdings without slave labor. They were forced to sell their land at bargain prices. Burr was only too glad to oblige. With the new road Burr and Browne would have convenient access to their newly acquired lands from Manhattan making them more valuable to break up into smaller farms for new immigrants. The enterprise was unpopular with the local population because it required taking thir land for the new road. Since Burr had been appointed Attorney General of the State of New York by Governor Clinton in March, 1790, he was forced to sell the Shrubbery Manor house, situated on the toll road, to his stepson Augustine Prevost, to prevent discovery of his connection to the tolls." 

Source: Clark, Alan J., Cipher / Code of Dishonor - Aaron Burr, an American Enigma -- Trinity The Burrs Versus Alexander Hamilton and the United States of America, p. 48 (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse 2005).

Aaron Burr's connections to Pelham arose in part from his marriage to Theodosia Bartow Prevost who was born in Pelham Manor and maintained close family connections to residents of Pelham and New York City her entire life.  According to their marriage certificate, on July 6, 1782, Aaron Burr married Theodosia Bartow Prevost.  There is evidence, however, that the couple actually married on July 2, 1782.  

Burr bought a farm in Pelham on February 26, 1790.  See Deed from Nicholas Wright and William Wright to Aaron Burr, Westchester County Archives, Elmsford, NY, Register of Deeds, Liber L, 363-66.

Today's posting to the Historic Pelham Blog transcribes the text of a lengthy essay written by Rev. William Hague who was born in Pelham in 1808.  Hague read the essay at a meeting of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society on March 25, 1881.  Hague knew Aaron Burr when Hague was a young student.  His impressions of Burr, though delivered in flowery Victorian prose, offer an interesting glimpse of Burr through the eyes of a long-time Pelham Manor resident who knew Burr personally.

Portrait of Aaron Burr, 1802, by John Vanderlyn.

Source:  Wikimedia Commons.  Note:  This Portrait

of Burr is Referenced by William Hague in the Essay Below.

"A YOUNG STUDENT'S IMPRESSIONS OF COLONEL AARON BURR.*

[Footnote * reads as follows:  '* Read before the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, March 25, 1881.']

NOT many months ago, during the latter half of January, 1881, while sojourning in Washington and occasionally visiting the Capitol, particularly the Senate-chamber, in company with a few friends, the historical associations pertaining to our surroundings called forth, in the free flow of talk, allusions to the early days of the American Congress -- the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson, the Vice-Presidency of Colonel Aaron Burr.  In connection with the mention of the latter name several facts were touched upon, quoted from Mr. James Parton's biography of the man, illustrating his power of address, the ease with which he could put himself in communication with people of every class, from the highest to the lowest, from the most cultured to the rudest, old and young alike, instinctively quick to adjust himself, as to thought, tone, and manner, to any personal presence whatsoever, confident in his ability to win responsive feeling and realize the aim or even the whim that may have impelled him at the time.

The conversation having taken this turn, evidently, as it went on, awakened fress interest in the study of a distinguished character that had seemed to some mysterious and almost mythical.  One lady there present, certainly well read in general history, was disposed to criticise [sic] the style of those statements as exaggerated; quite ready to admit the exceptional greatness of the man as a born ruler of men, exemplified especially in his last address as presiding officer of the Senate, whereof there were many witnesses, yet questioning the affirmations she had heard as to the extent of his regal sway, his capability of universal conquest, despite distinctions of age and class, wheresoever the way was open for his genius to assert itself as 'a living presence.'  Then another added, with an emphasis of expression, 'Why, the style of talk about Burr that I have heard from some old southern gentlemen sounds like a boy's romancing, rather than a man's plain story of what he has seen and known in the matter-of-fact world we live in.'

Thus I was led when alone at night, thinking of the driftings of that day's talk, recalling my own personal memories of Colonel Burr, to muse upon the curious combination or fusion of incongruous influences that have free scope in 'the make-up' of every particular individuality of the human race.  One's own experience may vivify this thought to his own consciousness if he chance to follow it out in reflective or retrospective moods of mind.  How few, comparatively, have apprehended, much less comprehended, the workings of all the conflicting elements in constant play throughout the changing phases of inner life, yet all unified at last under the dominant sway of one supreme idea or ruling principle!  Such is the general observation then recorded in my diary, to me very real indeed, as if I were writing it in the real presence of two contemporary contrasted characters, called up at my mind's bidding from 'the vasty deep,' both at once reappearing, not seeing each other, but both greeting me, as of old, in contrasted tone and manner, with the cheer of friendly recognition.

The intervening half-century is as one day; for, as I now look back to the early years of my academic life in New York, where I was in the way of seeing Colonel Burr, for successive years, twice or thrice every week, at the house of an aged relative where he occupied the lower front room as a law-office, it seems to myself quite noteworthy that I, so young, should have been so thoroughly captivated as by the spell of his genius for winning social sympathy, admiring him as the realization of an heroic ideal, and at the same time, on the other hand, conscious of an attracting force put forth by one of the plainest, most simple-minded, and most honest-hearted of Christian men, Richard Cunningham, Esq., an elder of the Brick Presbyterian Church, under the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Spring, while that distinguished minister, who kept his place of eminence for more than a half-century, was yet in his prime.  The elder, a good and lovable man, could not have endured the companionship of Colonel Burr for a single hour without a keen sense of nervous uneasiness, so little had they in common, particularly after the public feeling had turned so mightily against the slayer of General Hamilton.  At that period my father, who commanded a ship in the India trade, disliked the mere presence of Colonel Burr; and it happened once that when Mr. Bartow, a relative of my mother and also of the Colonel, called in company with him at our house, my father, as soon as the name was announced, managed to take himself out of the way, and thus refused to see the late Vice-President of the United States [Page 525 / Page 526] freely speaking of him as an enemy of his country and a social demoralizer whom good society should disown.  And yet, even at that time, enjoying week by week the freedom of opportunity for observation allowed to a schoolboy in a recognized family relationship, the charm of Burr's manner and conversation, incidentally in the law office or in the parlor, was felt intensely as a power of extraordinary attraction.  

Now, I may safely say that if Richard Cunningham, Esq., whose wife and my mother had grown up at Pelham as neighbors in a relation like that of sisterhood, at whose city home, therefore, I was a frequent visitor, had been aware of the fact that I have here recorded, and had inquired of me what I had found that was so interesting in the presence of the ex-Vice-President who had 'lost caste,' as Dr. Spring expressed it, I could not have explained the matter so that either he or his minister could have understood it at all.  Nevertheless, viewing it retrospectively, it is easy enough here to set if forth so that any one may discern the secret of personal power, or, as some have called it, 'magnetism,' and see the Colonel from a young student's point of observation.

To this end let the reader picture to his thought old New York, as it was more than a half-century ago, and imagine that about six o'clock P. M., of a November day, about 1821, being a schoolboy of thirteen, having delivered my mother's message to her aunt, Mrs. Bartow, an aged lady of seventy-five (a relative by marriage to Colonel Burr's first wife, nee Theodosia Bartow), I was protracting my stay in the parlor of her dwelling in Vesey Street, with the expectation that the Colonel would come in very soon, as was his wont, to take his tea, in company with Mr. Bernabue Bartow, and his excellent mother (nee Ann Pell), whom Colonel Burr could not but venerate, and upon whose sympathetic kindness he recognized a degree of dependence.  Imagine him entering the parlor, as I recall him, at a moment when it happened that I was lingering there alone.  His physique, air, style of movement, realize a boy's highest ideal of the soldier and gentleman, while his keen glance and sunny smile, expressive of a personal interest as real as if I had been a senator, awaken a feeling quickly responsive to the tone of cheer in his greeting:  'Well, Will, I'm glad to see you.  Have they left you alone here?'

'Hardly, Colonel.  Aunt and Cousin Bernie were called out just now; they will be in soon.'

Approaching the sofa where I had been reclining, and taking up a school-book that lay there, he notices the title-page and the edition, asking, 'Is it your way to be carrying Caesar's Commentaries' about with you?'

'No, sir, but I have evening lessons; and, as I have not been home since school, I have kept Caesar with me.'

'How far have you read?'

'Up to the Bridge.'

From this incident, as a starting-point, the reader may trace in thought, as far as fancy can serve him, a lively talk about Julius Caesar; stories of his youth, his personal appearance, his manner and habits of life, his characteristics as a Roman citizen, a soldier, a writer, etc., all of which the Colonel could render as interesting to a boy as Sir Walter Scott's word-pictures of Queen Elizabeth or of the Duke of Buckingham in 'Kenilworth' -- a book that occurs to memory in this connection, because it happened to be the freshest of the Waverleys, that everybody was reading or talking about just then.  

Here, in reminiscences pertaining to schooldays (taking within their scope two men notably contrasted, constantly within view, and present to my thought, often meeting in old New York, but never interchanging a word or look of recognition), I trace in personal experience two currents of educational influence incessantly active, distinct, and different, yet coalescing like the two contrasted streams of Hebrew and Greek thought in the education of youth throughout England and America.  A similar fusion of influences in the early domestic and academic life of the only son of the second President of Princeton College, and grandson of the third President, Jonathan Edwards, may be traced in the life-course of Aaron Burr, who, when Vice-President of the United States, could so readily carry with him the sympathies of the national Senate by the power of eloquent address, and could ever move with equal ease and gracefulness of bearing, in the social circle, in the festive hall, in the reunions of scholars, writers, and scientists, in courts of law, upon the arena of political conflict, upon the chosen ground of the duelist, in the camp, or upon the battle-field.  In the interior life of Colonel Burr, the Greek or 'Gentile' element dominated, ultimately shaped his conceptions and ideals; so much so that, even in those early academic days to which memory now reverts, while reading parts of Rollin's 'History,' the thought would suggest itself that we saw in him actually the ancient Stoic and the primitive Epicurean fused into a live unity.  Never could I conceive of an ancient Stoic, in the palmiest days of that philosophy, more fully 'possessing himself,' and persistently imperturbable, than was Aaron Burr.  He surpassed Zeno himself.  His perfect poise, his equanimity, his power of endurance, his apparent superiority to all changes of condition, even from affluence to a poverty that he could dignify like Diogenes, who stood [Page 526 / Page 527] up in the sunshine so royally as the peer of Alexander, were exceptionally wonderful, seeming almost superhuman; and now, while the memory of those fine qualities revives the sympathetic admiration ever called forth by his personal presence, we can not resist the saddening thought that, if they had but been subordinated to a worthy life-aim of sufficient 'pith and moment' to enkindle the enthusiasm of which his gifted nature was capable, the world would have recognized a style of heroism that it would gratefully commemorate, and would have assigned to him a place in history upon the highest plane of 'representative men.'

This remarkable power of self-possession, an endowment of nature -- improved, even in his college-days, by a regulated self-discipline -- was incidentally, now and then, a topic of home-talk; and in this connection it was a familiar observation that Colonel Burr was never, throughout all his life, in the least disconcerted, 'except once.'  Well do I remember the day when I asked of my mother an explanation of this saying, 'It was during his sojourn in Parks,' she answered, 'where, for a time, he felt himself liable to arrest.  There, while walking alone, quite willing to remain unnoticed, he was surprised by the quick,, sharp exclamation of a stranger, 'That's the man!'  The Colonel told the story himself, frankly confessing his exceptional experience of a nerve-tremor and a heart-beat.  It turned out that the stranger had seen the portrait of Colonel Burr, drawn by his celebrated protege, Vanderlyn; and his quick recognition of the likeness startled him into a mood of admiration that could not but express itself aloud to the honor of the artist.

At the time here noted, Colonel Burr, sojourning as an exile in the French capital, to which his party in Congress had once unanimously agreed that he should be sent to reside as United States Minister, must have felt himself keenly alive to the falseness of his position, out of all normal relations to society; and any European who might have made his acquaintance just then would have seen him not 'at his best,' but his worst, thus failing to get a just impression of that combination of qualities that had for years called forth from all orders of people the most curious questionings as to the possibilities of his career.  Nevertheless, every feature of his physique and manner indicated the complete self-control which is always sure to win the mastery of others.  Thus it had been from first to last.  At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, nearly a year before the Declaration of Independence, at the age of nineteen, enlisted as a volunteer under General Arnold, in the campaign against Quebec, he had won the military prestige that a veteran might have envied; then, after the war, while we behold him a self-trained student and practitioner, acquiring preeminence at the bar, and, yet in early manhood called forth and idolized as a political leader by the best young men of the nation, we feel assured that we have before us, as a study, not merely a personality richly gifted by nature, but severely self-disciplined for the realization of a well-defined ideal, ever present to his thought as an impelling and uplifting power.  His conception of the type and style of character to be realized seems not to have been given by 'heredity,' but formed by the agency of moral causes, a strong will putting forth choices of its own, as if consciously a creative genius, with faith in the maxim that 'a man makes for himself the world that he lives in.'  In rendering his conception of manhood actual, he was as minutely particular as Lord Chesterfield (in his view a typal character), in laying down rules of gentlemanly living, not disdaining in his intercourse with law-students to emphasize the smallest things pertaining to conduct, as for instance by the reminder, 'Remember, sir, no gentleman will be seen smoking in the streets.'

That reminder, which in those days was occasionally quoted in my hearing, is associated with memories of the whole aggregate of impressions made upon my mind during the period of my school-life in New York, by Colonel Burr, 'as a living presence,' realizing to my youthful conception the highest type of cultured manhood, awakening an intense desire to appropriate and assimilate the elements of manly power of which he was ever before me as the most complete exponent.  The possibility of my exemplifying the qualities that I so keenly appreciated was often a matter of serious questioning.  Under his care at that time was a Spanish lad, Columbus, occupied as an office-boy, whom I was always glad to meet.  One day, while talking with him in front of the house in Vesey Street, the Colonel stepped out to the hall doorway, in order to give the boy an errand, and some particular directions as to the manner of doing it.  As soon as he had left us and closed the office-door, I was impelled to exclaim:  'O Columb, isn't he great?  A perfect gentleman!  You could tell he was a born soldier if you had never seen him before -- couldn't you?'  To this Columb assented.

The incident is here recalled as illustrating the impression of the moment.  That and like impressions were enduring.  I can truly affirm that, as a matter of personal experience, throughout the half-century that followed, seldom, if ever, have I found myself tempted to give way to impatience, to anger, to peevishness, to the [Page 527 / Page 528] abandonment of self-control, but that the image of Colonel Burr has risen before me as a mentor, rebuking the weakness and quickening manly resolution. Even now, in similar circumstances, under the spell of such a temptation that early experience would be renewed, and the soliloquizing question put:  'Shall I, with all the added aid of a Christian's faith, fall below the standard of self-mastery attained by one whose only recognized sense of inspiration was a 'common-sense philosophy' -- the strength of a gifted and cultivated nature?  What a miserable and pitiable failure that would be!'

In connection, however, with this grateful acknowledgement of indebtedness to Colonel Burr for influences so helpful and uplifting, there comes the unwelcome reflection that his life, regarded as a whole, even in relation to his own cherished ideal, was a disastrous failure.  His philosophy proved utterly inadequate to meet his need of self-regulating power at the culminating point of his brilliant career.  At the opening of this century, in his manly prime, he had captivated the nation.  He had won its heart; thrilled it with the delight of a hero-worship that seemed but a generous enthusiasm.  Then came to him what comes to all in a degree, the crucial trial of the grounds of character, the one great temptation  that becomes a turning-point of history.  He seems like a man standing upon a pinnacle, 'observed of all observers,' beyond the reach of harm from any one except himself; listening to the subtle tempter whispering, 'Cast thyself down,' and whispering, too, the false promise of power to lift himself up in bedazzling triumph over his enemies, above all law, human or divine.  Instead of bidding away the angel-like fiend that assumed to speak as the champion of Honor, he yielded to the say of 'the hour and power of darkness.'  In his latest retrospect of life he must have caught a glimpse of 'the situation' as we see it now, when, having been sympathetically moved one afternoon, by hearing readings from Sterne, among them the story of 'Uncle Toby and the Fly,' he was heard to say pathetically, 'Had I read Voltaire less and Sterne more, I might have thought the world wide enough for Hamilton and me!'

How suggestive was that expression of a sad heart-story, never fully told, but just hinted!  While we all regret his great mistake, we may trace it back to its source, chronologically beyond the period when Voltaire overshadowed Sterne, to the day of his student-life at Princeton, when he sought an interview with the fourth president of the college as to the proper manner of treating the extraordinary religious interest in progress just then among all classes of the undergraduates.  To the good Doctor, thoroughly familiar with the set habitudes of a Scotch university, molded by the traditional forms of the state Church, this spontaneous movement, on the part of the young men, of an earnest spirit of inquiry not comprised within the prescribed educational cirriculum, was of a sort somewhat new and strange.  He spoke of it disparagingly; treated it as an outbreak of fanaticism.  The young inquirer acknowledged his sense of relief from anxiety, and resolved to ignore the movement or resist its appeals.  This hostile attitude was unhealthful; issued in a set antipathy that modified his tastes, his choice of books, or favorite readings, his associations, his decisions, and the trend of his life-course.  If the fourth President of Princeton had been as well qualified to 'understand his times' as have been his successors, especially the eminent Christian philosopher of our own time, who also crossed the Atlantic to take the same presidential chair, he would surely have emphasized, in some way, the sentiment sounded forth by Thomas Carlyle in interpreting the story of young Oliver Cromwell at the like crisis of his inner life, heart-trouble, and deliverance thus:  'Certainly a grand epoch for a man -- properly the one epoch, the turning-point which guides upward or guides downward him and his activity for evermore.  Wilt thou join the dragons?  Wilt thou join the gods?  Of thee, too, the question is asked, whether by a man in Genevan gown, by a man of four surplices at All-Hallowtide, with words very imperfect, or by no man, and no words, but only by the silences, by the eternities, by the life everlasting, the death everlasting.'  Would that some such Carlylean oracle had been whispered in the ear of the President of Princeton in time for the critical hour of his pupil's exigency, and imparted the fitting tone of response to the call of an inquiring spirit!

After the summer of 1824, absence from the city of New York during the period of collegiate and professional studies, and then the establishment of my home in Boston, allowed me but few opportunities of personal interviews with Colonel Burr -- hearing from him occasionally, however, through mutual relatives and friends.  Throughout the years of his residence in Vesey Street, which Mr. Parton has not particularized, he enjoyed, to a degree, the sympathies and comforts of family-life; and afterward, death having invaded that home circle, his office was removed, and he lived, for the most part, alone within it.  His physical energy was wonderfully sustained until the year 1830, when he was suddenly smitten by paralysis of the right side.  As soon as the intelligence reached his cousin, Mrs. Hawes (nee Catharine Bartow), she hastened from her residence in Brooklyn to visit him in his office, [Page 528 / Page 529] then on the corner of Gold and Fulton Streets.  His physician and several friends were there, and the experiment of electrical application was going on.  He expressed his wish to Mrs. Hawes that he might be removed to her home and be under her care.  Mr. Edwards, one of the company, immediately took an opportunity to say to Mrs. Hawes, with a look of anxiety:  'He is not in a fit condition to be removed, and it will excite him too much just now to talk about it.  As there is a coach at the door, perhaps you had better avail yourself of it and take leave of hiim for the present.'  Mrs. Hawes returned to Brooklyn.  But the strong-willed man had his way ere long.  On the day following, a coach containing the Colonel and two strong men as attendants, who had managed a mattress and pillows for his support, arrived at the dwelling of Mrs. Hawes, who, hastening in her surprise to greet him, was hailed by his salutation in an exultant, joyous tone, 'Cousin Katie, I told you that you must take care of me now.'  It was so.  He was cordially welcomed.  The sickness did not prove to be as expected, his last.  A few weeks assiduous care on the part of Mr. and Mrs. Hawes, encouraging him with their help to rise and, by gentle exercise in the parlor, to learn to walk again, repeating the process at a set hour daily for a month, restored the old warrior, so that he resumed his office business with as keen a zest as ever.  Although he had passed 'the borderline of threescore and ten,' his interest in the details of professional work had not flagged, the changes wrought by time had not touched his brain, and the tone of his mind, thus marvelously kept up, rendered his work a kind of rejuvenation.  At the same time, despite all faults, sorrows, 'loss of caste,' abandonment by society, he never lost faith in the genuineness of unselfish friendship, or his power to win and keep it; and never, we may safely say, has history shown us the example of a man whose experiences of adversity more fully proved that the love-power is a reality, and that real love is a deathless principle.

Among the reflections suggested by the review of a life-course so marked by contrasted changes and interesting episodes, there comes to us one that is somewhat startling; namely, this:  the ethical and aesthetic lessons inculcated by moralists in their analyses, summings up, and final judgments of his career had been anticipated by Aaron Burr himself in the papers that he had written and read as 'compositions' in the years of his college-life at Princeton.  Therein he has set forth a high ideal of character and purpose.  That fine ideal was, in the main, actually realized in his own family-life as husband, father, educator, and companion.  From the day of his marriage to Mrs. Theodosia Prevost (nee Bartow) to the day of her departure from earth, no household of any public man in America that we have any account of, as to its interior relations, could show a more beautiful exemplification of a pure and happy home.  To her, though older than himself, he had been attracted by qualities of mind and heart that not only won his love but commanded his admiration.  Their correspondence betrays a profound congeniality of sentiment and intellectual kinship of the highest order; so that in her he recognized a woman to whom he could look up as a superior representative of her sex, realizing his own cherished ideal of true womanhood.  Trust is the basis of love, and his trust in her was all but boundless.  He honored her judgment when it differed from his own, appreciating its frank expression.  Writing of her before the time of their marriage, he said she could talk of books, of Voltaire, Rousseau, Chesterfield, 'could appreciate those authors without becoming their disciple.'  In accordance with this statement we notice that in one of her letters to him, in 1781, referring to Lord Chesterfield, she says, 'The indulgence you applaud in that author is the only part of his writings that I think reprehensible.'  At the same time, referring to the subject of religion in its personal relations, she declared that worlds should not purchase the little she possessed.  In all their communications we trace a sense of mutual indebtedness.  She admired his type and style of manliness.  In 1781 we observe his saying to her in familiar pen-talk, 'That mind is truly great which can bear with equanimity the trifling and unavoidable vexations of life and be affected only by those events which determine our substantial bliss.'  They were mutual helpers in their life-battle.  Years after her death, while we hear him saying, as was his wont, 'The mother of my Theodosia was the best woman and the finest lady I have ever known,' we feel assured that her loss could not be supplied by any human substitution.  He needed not only her companionship, but a kindred religious principle as a regulating force.  Had that distinguished woman lived in full possession of her queenly powers a few years longer, and been with him as his 'guardian angel' at the critical point of his life-trial, he might have come forth from it wearing the laurel of moral conquest, and exemplified the ancient saying, 'He that is slow to anger is greater than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he taketh a city.'

The biography of Colonel Burr, by James Parton, has been widely welcomed as a contribution of permanent value, not only to American literature, but to world-history.  Its achievement was an important part of his 'mission'; had he [Page 529 / Page 530] passed away without undertaking it, the lack could never have been supplied.  Although his readers may differ from him occasionally, as to sentiments incidentally expressed, we recognize throughout the skill of the artist and the fidelity of the conscientious historian.  During the closing years of Colonel Burr, to the last day of his life, September 14, 1836, the heroic elements pertaining to his gifted nature were still in lively play, and Mr. Parton's word-pictures are so clear and truthful that the reader who still remembers  the subject of the narrative as a living personality is impelled by agreeable surprises to soliloquize aloud like the stranger who had beheld the portrait by Vanderlyn, 'That's the man!'

From different quarters objections have been urged against Mr. Parton's treatment of his subject as a fanciful style of portraiture, investing an essentially defective character with a halo that renders it attractive and even fascinating to youthful minds when it should have been his aim, rather, to dispel its charm and render it repulsive.  Such criticisms are quite superficial.  A biography is not a novel; in a work of fiction a writer may create his characters, but a writer of history deals with facts.  If the biographer had represented Colonel Burr in any other light than as a mightily attractive personality, his book would have been untruthful and morally valueless.  A volume was not needed to warn any one against the fatal issues of a life utterly destitute of any element of excellence to love, honor, or admire.  But to demonstrate by a great example that a character may be eminent for virtues that command the homage of a nation and yet fell as to the realization of the chief end of life for lack of a supreme moral principle ruling within, at the very center of one's being, is to set forth the one primary lesson that our times call for, and worthy of being issued in new and improved editions for the sake of 'the generation to come.'

WILLIAM HAGUE."

Source:  Hague, William, A YOUNG STUDENT'S IMPRESSIONS OF COLONEL AARON BURR, Appleton's Journal:  A Magazine of General Literature, New Series, No. 60, pp. 525-30 (Jun. 1881).  

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I have written about Aaron Burr and his connections to Pelham as well as Augustine Prevost and the home known as the "Shrubbery" that stood on Burr's farm on many occasions.  For examples, see:

Wed., Jun. 14, 2006: Text of Deed by Which Aaron Burr Acquired Pelham Lands in 1790.

Tue., Jul. 18, 2006:  Aaron Burr Tries to Pull a Fast One in the 1790s and Must Sell His Farm in Pelham.

Thu., Jul. 27, 2006:  1799 Notice of Foreclosure Sale of Pelham Manor Lands Owned by Augustus James Frederick Prevost, Stepson of Aaron Burr.  

Tue., Jan. 10, 2006:  Mrs. Aaron Burr Describes Roads in Pelham in 1791.

Thu., Apr. 14, 2005:  The Pelham Home for Children that Once Stood on Split Rock Road.

Mon., Oct. 2, 2006:  The Revolutionary War Diary of Loyalist Joshua Pell, Jr. of the Manor of Pelham.

Wed., Jan. 31, 2007:  A Large Distillery Once Stood on the Prevost Farm in Pelham During the 1790s.  

I also have written about the Reverend William Hague who wrote his impressions of Aaron Burr as quoted above on a number of occasions.  For one example, see:

Mon., Jun. 11, 2007:  Biography of Rev. William Hague, Born in Pelham in 1808.

Archive of the Historic Pelham Web Site.

Home Page of the Historic Pelham Blog.

Order a Copy of "Thomas Pell and the Legend of the Pell Treaty Oak."