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Governor Joseph Alston’s Record in the War of 1812

July 13, 2014 in American History, general history

Joseph Alston was born in 1779 to a wealthy family in South Carolina. He attended the College of New Jersey, which was later renamed Princeton, but he never graduated. He studied law and was admitted to the bar, but he never practiced. He was a planter by trade and one of the wealthiest men in South Carolina.

Joseph Alston also had political ambitions. In furtherance of same, he married Theodosia Burr, the daughter of Aaron Burr in 1801. He was a member of the Democratic-Republican party, the same one that Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr belonged to. The marriage to Theodosia Burr took place on the eve of the resolution of the complicated election that would catapult Jefferson to the presidency and made Aaron Burr vice president. It was during a period of time when Burr’s fortune was on the rise, and prior to the duel with Hamilton and the the falling out with Jefferson that eventually snuffed out Burr’s career prematurely

The marriage to Theodosia, together with his status as a wealthy landowner and businessman, enabled Alston to win elective office. He served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from November 20, 1805 to December 10, 1812. He was a speaker of the house from 1809 to 1812, and he was chosen to be Governor of South Carolina beginning December 1 of 1812.

Joseph Alston’s wealth came primarily from rice plantations, and the labor on which his business depended was by and large slave labor. Because of the warm weather and the humidity, and because the rice paddies harbored many mosquitoes, malaria was a disease to contend with. At the time, the causes of malaria were not known, but successful planters knew that the best laborers — and the ones most likely to survive the swamps — were those imported from the Senegambia region in West Africa where they were already likely to have survived a childhood bout of malaria. For males between the ages of fourteen and eighteen they paid, in today’s money , between $11,000 and $23,000. With such an investment on the line, they wanted slaves who were likely to survive the difficult conditions.

While on average two in three West African children fell victim to malaria and died, those who survived to the age of fourteen were immune to the disease. On the other hand, the white population of South Carolina did not undergo the serious trials of their black counterparts and largely avoided exposure to malaria by going up into the mountains or leaving on some other vacation during the summer months. When Aaron Burr first gave his consent to the marriage of his daughter to Joseph Alston, the plan was that she would spend her summers up North with her father. But Burr fell on hard times, went into exile, and had only just returned to New York a ruined man in 1812.

In June of 1812, the Alstons were not able to go elsewhere to avoid exposure to malaria. War had just been declared against Great Britain. Joseph Alston had duties in the state militia. He had to stay where he was, and so did his wife, and their ten year old son, Aaron Burr Alston, was exposed to and died of malaria. Alston’s grieving wife, Theodosia, boarded the Patriot on December 31, 1812 for a trip to New York to see her father and disappeared into the mists of time. But Alston’s troubles were only just beginning.

When he tried to muster the militia to prepare for war, he encountered unexpected resistance. The problem was not that the men refused to serve against the British. The enemy they most feared was malaria. Many openly disobeyed orders, refused to serve, and when the Governor attempted to have the ringleaders tried for desertion, the court found in favor of the accused. A contemporary account of the court’s reasoning can be found in John Belton O’Neal’s Biographcal Sketches of Bench and Bar:

I knew Mr. Stark well, and had much to do with him as Solicitor; and I have no hesitation in saying, that the objection, which was urged against him, that he was ” too severe” was altogether untrue. He was a firm, just man, in the discharge of his duty; but there was no one who sooner yielded to the just claims of mercy than he did. In 1814, Mr. Stark and myself defended Colonel Starling Tucker, before the Court Martial ordered to try him, on charges preferred against him by the Commander-in-chief, Governor Allston, in relation to the service of the first class of the militia, ordered into service from the brigade, then ranked as the second, now the tenth. (Biographical Sketched of Bench and Bar, p. 68)

.The chief reason that was given in mitigation of harsh sentence was that the men required to serve were “unaccustomed to the climate.”

Immediately after the regiment encamped, a council of all the officers of the line assembled, to consult as to what should be done, as to the detailed order to throw up the tête du pont, and they unanimously advised that it should be disobeyed; and everyone from the highest to the lowest so pledged themselves. This was not only disobedience, but mutiny, and might have been visited by serious consequences; but there was a great palliation in the excited state of the men’s minds, and their belief that the duty to be done under a stern disciplinarian, and would probably be at the sacrifice of many lives, who were unaccustomed to the climate. (James Holdridge, John Belton O’Neal, sources.)

That South Carolina freemen were unaccustomed to the climate of South Carolina, though many had been born and bred there, whereas the imported slaves on the plantations in the area were accustomed to the climate, is one of the many ironies of the situation.

Alston was so incensed at having his orders countermanded and the courts siding with the deserters, that he decided to disband the militia altogether and sent everyone home. However, when a British force landed on St. Helena Island, and the coast of South Carolina was all undefended, he was forced to reverse himself. He returned to the state legislature and asked for and was granted greater war powers for mustering the state militia. But the British could not have been more immune to malaria than the Americans, so they do not appear to have stayed on St. Helena Island for long. There appears to be no record of an engagement with the enemy there.

Although the cause of malaria and effective treatments for it were not known at the time, the South Carolina planters and other free whites in peacetime found ways to protect themselves and reduce their children’s exposure to the disease, while the slaves on their plantations could not. This resulted in higher infant mortality among the slaves, but those who survived to adulthood had genetic immunity that they could even pass on to their children, while a whole generation of military age free men did not. Yet the slaves could not serve in the military unless they were first freed, and the freemen could not serve effectively without exposing themselves to the deadly disease.

As for Joseph Alston, his service as governor ended on December 1, 1814. He was not well for the remainder of his life, possibly suffering himself from symptoms of malaria. He died on September 19, 1816. Today he is remembered chiefly for the fact that he had once been married to Theodosia Burr.

Theodosia and the Pirates TheoFinalWindlass

References

The African Slave Trade and South Carolina

African-American Heritage and Ethnography

Biographical Sketches of Bench and Bar — online

James Holdridge

John Belton O’Neal, Biographical Sketches of the Bar and Bench of South Carolina, II:69-73

Malaria

Members of the 19th General Assembly — South Carolina

South Carolina Governor Joseph Alston

Starling Tucker

Tags: Aaron Burr, Aaron Burr Alston, adult mortality, Beaufort County, Camp Alston, immunity, immunity to malaria, infant mortality, James Holdridge, Joseph Alston, malaria, South Carolina, Starling Tucker, The Oaks, Theodosia Burr Alston, War of 1812 Comments Off on Governor Joseph Alston’s Record in the War of 1812

by Aya Katz

Theodosia Burr Alston’s Letters on Behalf of Burr in Exile

June 24, 2013 in American History, general history

Aaron Burr went into exile in Europe in 1808 following his acquittal in the trial for treason. At first he had high hopes of procuring funding for his interrupted Mexican expedition, but those were soon crushed when Spain and England became allies. Burr was forced to leave England, and with this began a lonely journey through Europe with ever diminishing funds. Throughout it all, Burr kept up a correspondence with his daughter Theodosia Burr Alston, whom he did not wish to alarm by his dire circumstances, but who nevertheless served as his closest confidante.

One urgent problem that delayed Burr’s return to the United States was that having given up all hope of successful funding in Europe, he did not have a passport to allow him to reenter his native land. On the 10th of November, 1810 Burr wrote from Paris:

Alas, my dear Theodosia, I have no hope of seeing you this winter. 
It is more than five months since I have been constantly soliciting 
from this government a passport for America. Fair promises and 
civil words have been received, but nothing more. It would be folly 
to hope, yet daily some new occurrence or new promise inspires new 
hope. . . . The only consolation which I can offer you for this dis- 
appointment is that my health continues unimpaired, and I have 
the present means of support. A little addition to those means would 
not be inconvenient. Continue to write to that gentleman on whose 
unpaid notes I relied, and of which not a cent has been received. . . . 
Not a line from you since August, 1809, fifteen months ago. It is 
only by mere accident that I know you were living last July. ... I 
live with a very amiable Genevoise family, of which I am a member. 
Every morning I devote half an hour, sometimes an hour, to you.

. Theodosia, for her part, made every effort that she could to secure help for her father, most notably in her letters to Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin and to the first Lady, Dolley Madison.

Below is a letter to Secretary Gallatin dated March 9, 1811 that Theodosia sent from The Oaks:

Though convinced of your firmness, still with the utmost diffidence 
I venture to address you on a subject which it is almost dangerous to 
mention, and which, in itself, affords me no claim on your attention. 
Yet, trusting that you will not withhold an opinion deeply interesting 
to me, and which your present station enables you to form with 
peculiar correctness, I venture to inquire whether you suppose that 
my father's return to this country would be productive of ill conse- 
quences to him, or draw on him farther prosecution from any branch 
of the government. 

You will the more readily forgive me for taking the liberty to make 
such a request, when you reflect that, retired as I am from the world, 
it is impossible for me to gather the general opinion from my own 
observation. I am, indeed, perfectly aware how unexpected will be 
this demand; that it places you in a situation of some delicacy; and 
that to return a satisfactory answer will be to exert liberality and 
candour; I am aware of all this, and yet do not desist. 

Recollect what are my incitements. Recollect that I have seen my 
father dashed from the high rank he held in the minds of his country- 
men, imprisoned, and forced into exile. Must he ever remain thus 
excommunicated from the participation of domestic enjoyments and 
the privileges of a citizen; aloof from his accustomed sphere, and 
singled, out as a mark for the shafts of calumny ? Why should he be 
thus proscribed and held up in execration ? What benefit to the coun- 
try can possibly accrue from the continuation of this system ? Surely 
it must be evident to the worst enemies of my father, that no man, 
situated as he will be, could obtain any undue influence, even sup- 
posing him desirous of it. 

But pardon me if my feeling has led me astray from my object, 
which was not to enter upon a discussion with you. I seek only to 
solicit an enlightened opinion relative to facts which involve my best 
hopes of happiness. 

Present, if you please, my respects to Mrs. Gallatin, and accept 
the assurances of my high consideration.

To Dolley Madison, Theodosia wrote:


Madam 
You may perhaps be surprised at receiving a letter from one with 
whom you have had so little intercourse for the last few years. But 
your surprise will cease when you recollect that my father, once your 
friend, is now in exile; and that the President can only restore him to 
me and his country. 

Ever since the choice of the people was first declared in favor of 
Mr. Madison, my heart, amid the universal joy, has beat with the hope 
that I, too, should soon have reason to rejoice. Convinced that Mr. 
Madison would neither feel nor judge from the feelings or judgment 
of others, I had no doubt of his hastening to relieve a man whose 
character he had been enabled to appreciate during a confidential 
intercourse of long continuance, and whom (he) must know incapable 
of the designs attributed to him. My anxiety on this subject has, 
however, become too painful to be alleviated by anticipations which 
no events have yet tended to justify; and in this state of intolerable 
suspense I have determined to address myself to you, and request 
that you will, in my name, apply to the President for a removal of the 
prosecution now existing against Aaron Burr. 

Statesmen, I am aware, deem it necessary that sentiments of lib- 
erality, and even justice, should yield to consideration of policy; but 
what policy can require the absence of my father at present ? Even 
had he contemplated the project for which he stands arraigned, evi- 
dently to pursue it any further would now be impossible. There is 
not left one pretext of alarm even to calumny; for bereft of fortune, of 
popular favor, and almost of friends, what could he accomplish? 
And whatever may be the apprehensions or the clamors of the igno- 
rant and the interested, surely the timid, illiberal system which would 
sacrifice a man to a remote and unreasonable possibility that he might 
infringe some law founded on an unjust, unwarrantable suspicion that 
he would desire it, cannot be approved by Mr. Madison, and must 
be unnecessary to a President so loved, so honored. Why, then, is 
my father banished from a country for which he has encountered 
wounds and dangers and fatigue for years ? Why is he driven from 
his friends, from an only child, to pass an unlimited time in exile, and 
that, too, at an age when others are reaping the harvest of past toils, 
or ought, at least, to be providing seriously for the comfort of ensuing 
years ? I do not seek to soften you by this recapitulation. I only 
wish to remind you of all the injuries which are inflicted on one of the 
first characters the United States ever produced. 

Perhaps it may be well to assure you there is no truth in a report, 
lately circulated, that my father intends returning immediately. He 
never will return to conceal himself in a country on which he has 
conferred distinction. 

To whatever fate Mr. Madison may doom this application, I trust 
it will be treated with delicacy. Of this I am the more desirous as 
Mr. Alston is ignorant of the step I have taken in writing to you, 
which, perhaps, nothing could excuse but the warmth of filial affection. 
If it be an error, attribute it to the indiscreet zeal of a daughter whose 
soul sinks at the gloomy prospect of a long and indefinite separation 
from a father almost adored, and who can leave unattempted nothing 
which offers the slightest hope of procuring him redress. What, in- 
deed, would I not risk once more to see him, to hang upon him, to place 
my child on his knee, and again spend my days in the happy occupa- 
tion of endeavoring to anticipate all his wishes ? 

Let me entreat, my dear Madam, that you will have the considera- 
tion and goodness to answer me as speedily as possible; my heart is 
sore with doubt and patient waiting for something definitive. No 
apologies are made for giving you this trouble, which I am sure you 
will not deem irksome to take for a daughter, an affectionate daughter, 
thus situated. Inclose your letter for me to A. J. Frederic Prevost, 
Esq., near New Rochelle, New York. 
That every happiness may attend you, 

Is the sincere wish of 

THEO. BURR ALSTON.

Following the unfavorable response from Mrs. Madison, Theodosia wrote to her half brother, Frederic Prevost::

Your letter enclosing that from Washington reached me just before 
I left Springville. The long expected answer from Mrs. Madison 
was such as reason and experience unmixed with hope might have 
led us to suppose it. She expresses great affection for me, calling me 
her "precious friend," pays me compliments badly turned, and regrets 
that Mr. M. finds it impossible to gratify my wishes, &c. You will 
be more pleased to hear that I have received a letter from A. B., dated 
Gottenburg, where he arrived safely but with the loss of all his luggage, 
an accident he laughs at, although he is destitute of the means of 
procuring another supply. To my inexpressible relief he says that 
he has in view some means of support which will rescue him at present 
from this state of dependence. Yet I fear that he may say so merely 
to alleviate my anxiety, for what can he do at Stockholm ?

When Burr did safely arrive in the United States in 1812, after many delays and bureacratic debacles over the coveted passport, Theodosia was not able to meet with him. First, her son died of malaria, and then she was lost on board The Patriot on her way to a long postponed reunion with her father. But what cannot be denied is that both father and daughter remained loyal and devoted to one another as long as they lived, no matter how far separated in time and space by circumstances outside their control. Theodosia’s letters on Burr’s behalf are a testament to this.

REFERENCES

Pidgen, Charles Felton. (190&)Theodosia, the First gentlewoma of her Time; the Story of her Life, and a History of Persons and Events Connected Therewith.

theodosiafirstge00pidg_djvu.txt

Tags: 1812, Aaron Burr, Dolley Madison, Dolly Madison, exile, first lady, Frederic Prevost, Gallatin, James Madison, letters, Secretary of Treasury, Theodosia Burr Alston 3 Comments »

by Aya Katz

Aaron Burr as a Father

June 15, 2013 in general history

People do not usually remember Aaron Burr as a father. They remember perhaps that he was the third vice president of the United States. They remember, if anything, that he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. They remember that he was later tried for treason, though most have forgotten that he was acquitted.. But he was also a father, and in that day and age, an exemplary parent of an unusually well educated daughter.

On July 2, 1782 Aaron Burr married Theodosia Bartow Prevost, a widow and the mother of five children by her previous husband, Major Jacques Prevost. Burr took on a paternal role toward all of his wife’s children, and their only surviving joint child, Theodosia, was born on June 21, 1873.

In letters to his wife, among various and sundry other communications, an interest in and an affection toward each of the children was manifest. For instance, in May of 1785, at the end of his letter home, he wrote:

Tell one of the boys to send me some supreme court seals; about six. I forgot them. Write me what calls are made at the office for me. Distribute my love. Let each of the children write me what they do. You may certainly find some opportunity. Adieu.

Though he was often away from home, he took an active interest in the education of his daughter. In a letter dated October 30th, 1791, he writes to his wife:

Theodosia must not attempt music in the way she was taught last spring. For the present, let it be wholly omitted. Neither would I have her renew her dancing till the family are arranged. She can proceed in her French, and get some teacher to attend her in the house for writing and arithmetic. She has made no progress in the latter, and is even ignorant of the rudiments. She was hurried through different rules without having been able to do a single sum with accuracy. I would wish her to be also taught geography if a proper master can be found; but suspend this till the arrival of the major.

Burr was a classics scholar as well as an attorney, a soldier and a statesman. He had very particular ideas about how his daughter was to be taught, and while he was not often there to do it himself, he left detailed instructions. The following quote is from a letter dated February 8th, 1793.

You may recollect that I left a memorandum of what Theo. was to learn. I hope it has been strictly attended to. Desire Gurney not to attempt to teach her any thing about the concords. I will show him how I choose that should be done when I return, which, I thank God, is but three weeks distant.

While he admitted that he had not met that many women of genius, apart from his own wife, Burr believed that the reason for this was the way girls were educated, and he wanted to make sure that his own daughter was given the best possible opportunity to excel and make the most of her native intelligence. This letter from Feb.15th, 1793 gives us such a perfect example of how Burr managed to mix his work and home life that it bears reproducing here in full:

I received with joy and astonishment, on entering the Senate this minute, your two elegant and affectionate letters. The mail closes in a few minutes, and will scarce allow me to acknowledge your goodness. The roads and ferries have been for some days almost impassable, so that till now no post has arrived since Monday.

It was a knowledge of your mind which first inspired me with a respect for that of your sex, and with some regret, I confess, that the ideas which you have often heard me express in favour of female intellectual powers are founded on what I have imagined, more than what I have seen, except in you. I have endeavoured to trace the causes of this rare display of genius in women, and find them in the errors of education, of prejudice, and of habit. I admit that men are equally, nay more, much more to blame than women. Boys and girls are generally educated much in the same way till they are eight or nine years of age, and it is admitted that girls make at least equal progress with the boys; generally, indeed, they make better. Why, then, has it never been thought worth the attempt to discover, by fair experiment, the particular age at which the male superiority becomes so evident? But this is not in answer to your letter; neither is it possible now to answer it. Some parts of it I shall never answer. Your allusions to departed angels I think in bad taste.

I do not like Theo.’s indolence, or the apologies which are made for it. Have my directions been pursued with regard to her Latin and geography?

Your plan and embellishment of my mode of life are fanciful, are flattering, and inviting. We will endeavour to realize some of it. Pray continue to write, if you can do it with impunity. I bless Sir J., who, with the assistance of Heaven, has thus far restored you.

In the course of this scrawl I have been several times called to vote, which must apologize to you for its incoherence. Adieu.

The evening after he wrote this letter, Burr read Mary Wollstonecroft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman. He liked it so much that he read it all that night and the next day, here is what he wrote to his wife:

You have heard me speak of a Miss Woolstonecraft, who has written something on the French revolution; she has also written a book entitled Vindication of the rights of Woman. I had heard it spoken of with a coldness little calculated to excite attention; but as I read with avidity and prepossession every thing written by a lady, I made haste to procure it, and spent the last night, almost the whole of it, in reading it. Be assured that your sex has in her an able advocate. It is, in my opinion, a work of genius. She has successfully adopted the style of Rousseau’s Emilius; and her comment on that work, especially what relates to female education, contains more good sense than all the other criticisms upon him which I have seen put together. I promise myself much pleasure in reading it to you.

Is it owing to ignorance or prejudice that I have not yet met a single person who had discovered or would allow the merit of this work?

Burr was a loving father, but his fondness for his daughter did not blind him to her faults, and he used a combination of severity and praise to motivate Theodosia the younger in her studies. In this letter to his daughter from January 4th, 1794, Burr is intermittently critical and yet full of praise. He does not allow Theodosia off the hook for mistakes, but he takes every opportunity to let her know how proud he is of her accomplishments.

At the moment of closing the mail yesterday, I received your letter enclosing the pills. I cannot refer to it by date, as it has none. Tell me truly, did you write it without assistance? Is the language and spelling your own? If so, it does you much honour. The subject of it obliged me to show it to Dr. Rush, which I did with great pride. He inquired your age half a dozen times, and paid some handsome compliments to the handwriting, the style, and the correctness of your letter.

The account of your mamma’s health distresses me extremely. If she does not get better soon, I will quit Congress altogether and go home. Doctor Rush says that the pills contain two grains each of pure and fresh extract of hemlock; that the dose is not too large if the stomach and head can bear it; that he has known twenty grains given at a dose with good effect. To determine, however, whether this medicine has any agency in causing the sick stomach, he thinks it would be well to take an occasion of omitting it for a day or two, if Doctor Bard should approve of such an experiment, and entertains any doubts about the effects of the pills on the stomach. Some further conversation which I have had with Doctor Rush will be contained in a letter which I shall write by this post to Doctor Bard.

My last letter to you was almost an angry one, at which you cannot be much surprised when you recollect the length of time of your silence, and that you are my only correspondent respecting the concerns of the family. I expect, on Monday or Tuesday next, to receive the continuation of your journal for the fortnight past.

Mr. Leshlie will tell you that I have given directions for your commencing Greek. One half hour faithfully applied by yourself at study, and another at recitation with Mr. Leshlie, will suffice to advance you rapidly.

While Aaron Burr started out as a married father, sharing his parental responsibilities with his wife, when their daughter was eleven, the mother died (May 18, 1794) , and Aaron Burr became a single father. He never remarried during his daughter’s lifetime, and he took full responsibility for her care and education. As a single father, Burr took an interest in his daughter’s diet, manners and education and he required her to keep a journal detailing events day by day, so that he could know about the minutiae of her life, even when he could not be there. This excerpt is from a letter addressed to “My dear Theo” from August 4th, 1794.

On my arrival here I was delighted to receive your letter of the 30th, with the journal of that and the preceding days. Your history of those three days is very full and satisfactory, and has induced me, by way of return, to enlarge on the particulars of my journey. I am quite gratified that you have secured Mrs. Penn’s (observe how it is spelled) good opinion, and content with your reasons for not saying the civil things you intended. In case you should dine in company with her, I will apprize you of one circumstance, by a trifling attention to which you may elevate yourself in her esteem. She is a great advocate for a very plain, rather abstemious diet in children, as you may see by her conduct with Miss Elizabeth. Be careful, therefore, to eat of but one dish; that a plain roast or boiled: little or no gravy or butter, and very sparingly of dessert or fruit: not more than half a glass of wine; and if more of any thing to eat or drink is offered, decline it. If they ask a reason–Papa thinks it not good for me, is the best that can be given.

It was with great pain and reluctance that I made this journey without you. But your manners are not yet quite sufficiently formed to enable you to do justice to your own character, and the expectations which are formed of you, or to my wishes. Improve, therefore, to the utmost the present opportunity; inquire of every point of behaviour about which you are embarrassed; imitate as much as you can the manners of Madame De S., and observe also every thing which Mrs. Penn says and does.

You should direct your own breakfast. Send Cesar every morning for a pint of milk for you; and, to save trouble to Madame De S., let her know that you eat at breakfast only bread and butter.

I wish you would read over your letters after you have written them; for so many words are omitted, that in some places I cannot make out the sense, if any they contain. Make your figures or ciphers in your letters, but write out the numbers at length, except dates. Adieu,

While Aaron Burr was not by any stretch of the imagination a “stay-at-home dad”, as he was always involved in practicing law and in politics, his duties as a father were always on his mind, and he corrected Theodosia’s compositions and wrote her long letters of instruction while serving in congress, putting her own letters on an equal footing with those of people who wielded political power.

When Theodosia grew up and married, Aaron Burr still took his parental duties seriously, and he was an active participant in her life as well as that of her son. As a grown woman, Theodosia served Aaron Burr as a friend and confidante, and he shared with her his joys and his sorrows, not withholding embarrassing details. She was the person to whom he wrote the greatest number of letters, and when she disappeared on board The Patriot on December 31, 1812, she was on her way to see her father, following the death of her son. Burr never got over the loss. Long after all hope had flown, he still went to the docks every day, to see if her ship would come in.

Aaron Burr was many thing: a hero of the Revolutionary War, a supporter of women’s rights before that was fashionable, a believer in the equality of the races and the sexes, a devoted husband, and a dedicated father. This Father’s Day, when you think of exemplary fathers from the past, think of Aaron Burr.

References

http://www.familytales.org/results.php?tla=aab

Tags: Aaron Burr, father's day, feminist fathers, historical fathers, Mary Wollstonecraft, Theodosia, Theodosia Bartow Burr, Theodosia Burr Alston 1 Comment »

by Aya Katz

The Courtship of Theodosia Bartow Prevost and Aaron Burr

June 8, 2013 in American History, general history

The Hermitage Credit:thehermitage.org

She was the posthumous only child of Theodosius Bartow and Anne Stillwell Bartow. Named after her father, she bequeathed her given name, which she got from a father she never met, to a daughter that she left an orphan at the age of eleven. Known for her intelligence, wit and good character, Theodosia Bartow Burr was not said to be particularly beautiful. But she was deeply loved and chosen by Aaron Burr as his bride, despite being ten years his senior and already afflicted with cancer.

The facts prior to Theodosia Bartow Prevost’s association with Aaron Burr are known only in their starkness. Following the death of her father, Theodosius Bartow, in a carriage accident, her mother Anne Stillwell married Philip De Visme and had several children by him, half-siblings of Theodosia. Theodosia grew up in an educated, intellectually stimulating household and she spoke and read French as well as English. She married Jacques Marcus Prevost and bore him five children. He was in the British army, but of French Swiss descent. The couple established themselves in Bergen County, New Jersey, in an estate called The Hermitage. Eventually, after leading several campaigns against the American revolutionaries, Jacques Prevost was serving as governor of Georgia in 1778 under the British and then was later stationed in Jamaica in 1780, but his wife Theodosia remained behind in New Jersey at the Hermitage.

It is at about this time that Aaron Burr, serving the Continental Army, came on the scene.They met in August of 1778 on a trip down the Hudson. It happened like this: General Alexander sent Burr on a spy mission after his heat stoke following the Battle of Monmouth. He was to check on British positions in preparation for a combined attack by the continental army and French regiments. At the time, the French had a fleet off Sandy Hook. Burr was ordered to West Point in July of 1778. General Washington then ordered him to escort three highly placed Loyalists under a white flag down the Hudson River to the enemy side. Theodosia Prevost, wanting to rejoin family in New York City, got permission from General Alexander to board the same ship, along with her half-sister, Caty De Visme and a servant. Burr was the one who added their names to the passenger list. The trip took five days, and that was enough time to change everything.

After that, Burr visited Theodosia Prevost and her family in the Hermitage quite frequently and even wrote to his sister Sally about her, saying she had “an honest and affectionate heart.”

After his resignation from the Army in 1779, Burr was a frequent visitor at the Hermitage. Everybody who knew them knew that they were in love. Burr’s cousin Thaddeus wrote to him: ““I won’t joke you any more about a certain lady.” In 1780, Major Prevost, Theodosia’s husband, who was serving under the British in Jamaica, was gravely injured. He sent home reports that the medical conditions there were poor, and anticipating his own death, he sent his teenaged sons who were with him back to their mother in America.

Theodosia Bartow Prevost Burr’s letters to other members of her family do not seem to have been preserved. But her letters to Aaron Burr show a remarkable ability to discuss philosophical issues as well as matters of the heart. She believed in the methods of education and the morality set forth by Rousseau in La Nouvelle Heloise, and was very much opposed to the advice of Lord Chesterfield to his son, even though Aaron Burr thought it good.

Your opinion of Voltaire pleases me, as it proves your judgment above being biased by the prejudices of others. The English, from national jealousy and enmity to the French, detract him. Divines, with more justice, as he exposes himself to their censure. It is even their duty to contemn his tenets; but, without being his disciple, we may do justice to his merit, and admire him as a judicious, ingenious author.

I will not say the same of your system of education. Rousseau has completed his work. The indulgence you applaud in Chesterfield is the only part of his writings I think reprehensible. Such lessons from so able a pen are dangerous to a young mind, and ought never to be read till the judgment and heart are established in virtue. If Rousseau’s ghost can reach this quarter of the globe, he will certainly haunt you for this scheme–’tis striking at the root of his design, and destroying the main purport of his admirable production. Les foiblesses de l’humanite, is an easy apology; or rather, a license to practise intemperance; and is particularly agreeable and flattering to such practitioners, as it brings the most virtuous on a level with the vicious. But I am fully of opinion that it is a much greater chimera than the world are willing to acknowledge. Virtue, like religion, degenerates to nothing, because it is convenient to neglect her precepts. You have, undoubtedly, a mind superior to the contagion.

When all the world turn envoys, Chesterfield will be their proper guide. Morality and virtue are not necessary qualifications–those only are to be attended to that tend to the public weal. But when parents have no ambitious views, or rather, when they are of the more exalted kind, when they wish to form a happy, respectable member of society–a firm, pleasing support to their declining life, Emilius shall be the model. A man so formed must be approved by his Creator, and more useful to mankind than ten thousand modern beaux.

Later biographers used this particular letter to explore the contrasting attitudes held by Aaron Burr and Theodosia Bartow Prevost Burr toward the subject of educating their daughter, but it is important to remember that at the time this letter was written ( February 12, 1781), they had no children in common. Theodosia was a married woman, and Aaron Burr was her suitor. And the topic of this letter was whether committing adultery is all right. Theodosia, using literary allusions to Jean-JacquesRousseau and Lord Chesterfield, was letting Aaron Burr know that she thought it was not all right. Although her husband had already died, Theodosia did not know this, and she was adamant in her insistence that self-restraint was a better course of action than giving in to passions

There was already much gossip about the couple, even though they had not in fact acted on their love and carried on their courtship mainly through correspondence. In May of 1781 Theodosia wrote to Aaron:

Our being the subject of much inquiry, conjecture, and calumny, is no more than we ought to expect. My attention to you was ever pointed enough to attract the observation of those who visited the house. Your esteem more than compensated for the worst they could say. When I am sensible I can make you and myself happy, I will readily join you to suppress their malice. But, till I am confident of this, I cannot think of our union. Till then I shall take shelter under the roof of my dear mother, where, by joining stock, we shall have sufficient to stem the torrent of adversity.

It was not until December 30, 1781 that Caty De Visme wrote to Burr from The Hermitage: “If you have not seen the York Gazette, the following account will be news to you; We hear from Jamaica that Lieutenant Col. Prevost, Major of the 60th foot, died at that place in October last.’”

They were now free to marry. But the mores of society required a suitable period of mourning. For a widow to marry after less than a year of learning of her husband’s death was scandalous. And yet they had waited so long already.

On July 2, 1782 at the wedding of Cathy De Visme to Joseph Browne, Aaron Burr, Esq., of the State of New York, was married to Theodosia Prevost, widow, of the State of New Jersey. The marriage certificate, however, is dated July 6, 1782. In any event, their daughter Theodosia was not born until June 21, 1783, proving that they had waited patiently. They married when they did not because they had to, but because they wanted to wait no more. The marriage was to last twelve years, until Theodosia Bartow Prevost Burr’s death on May 18, 1794. Aaron Burr never got over her.

References

The Letters of Theodosia Prevost Burr from FamilTales.org

http://www.thehermitage.org/history/history_people_prevost_theodosia.html

http://www.authorama.com/famous-affinities-of-history-ii-3.html

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=63069344