The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel (54 page)

10
. Haber,
Quest for authority
, 87.

11
. He was born on November 11, 1811 (1873 Transcript of Record, 305).

12
. BM 710-J, examination of Nelson Chase, November 21, 1837.

13
. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.

14
. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase. Whether Seth Chase was related to Nelson is unknown.

15
.
Daily Albany Argus
, January 19, 1832, [2].

16
. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.

17
. Ibid.

18
. 1873 Transcript of Record, 305–306.

19
. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.

20
. Ibid.

21
. Ibid.

22
. Ibid.

23
. Ibid.

24
. Ibid.

25
. Ibid.

26
. 1876 Bill of Complaint, letters 25 and 26; NYHS-AHMC, Jumel, Stephen, Étienne, called Ulysses, Jumel to Stephen Jumel, July 12, 1829, and August 1, 1830.

27
. On a trip to the Hudson Highlands with the Chases in late June 1832, Eliza traveled south into Manhattan and across the Hudson on the Hoboken ferry (B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase). The only reason to structure the trip that way, instead of traveling
straight north, was if she were picking up the Chases in New Jersey. Although Nelson claimed that they all began the trip at the mansion (ibid.), his statement was made many years later when he was trying to show that he and his wife had been very close to Eliza. He would not have been eager to admit that they had moved from the mansion to lodgings in New Jersey soon after their marriage.

28
. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.

29
. Ibid.;
New-York Spectator
, May 25, 1832, [3] (death notice).

1
. For these details of Burr's appearance and demeanor, see Matthew L. Davis,
Memoirs of Aaron Burr. With miscellaneous selections from his correspondence
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1837), 1:181–82; Samuel L. Knapp,
The life of Aaron Burr
(New York: Wiley & Long, 1835), 64; Charles Burr Todd,
Life of Colonel Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States
(New York: S. W. Green, Printer, 1879), 116;
Newburyport
[Massachusetts]
Herald
, July 19, 1833, 5.

2
. Parton, 661-62.

3
. Ibid., 662.

4
. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase;
History of Columbia County, New York: With illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers
(Philadelphia: Everts & Ensign, 1878): 305–306.

5
. James Stuart,
Three years in North America
(New York: J. & J. Harper, 1833), 1:190.

6
. Charles E. Rosenberg,
The cholera years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 35.

7
. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.

8
. “The Jumel estate case,”
Providence Evening Press
, February 1, 1873, [3]. In this much later testimony during the Jumel estate case, Nelson Chase indicated that the move to Saratoga occurred in August, but it is likely that he misremembered. The family would not have returned to the New York region before the announcement of the abatement of the epidemic at the end of August, and the trip to Saratoga was subsequent to the initial return. Also see note 20 below for a transaction that took place on September 13, which Eliza is said to have made immediately after her arrival in Saratoga.

9
. Stuart,
Three years in North America
, 1:129.

10
. Ibid., 1:129–30.

11
. Ibid., 1:131–32.

12
. “Preparations at Saratoga,”
American Traveler
, March 20, 1832, [2].

13
. “Rail road from Albany to Saratoga Springs,”
Commercial Advertiser
, July 9, 1832, [2].

14
.
Independence
[Poughkeepsie, New York], July 11, 1832, [4]; “The springs,”
Saratoga Sentinel
, July 31, 1832, [2];
New-York Evening Post
, August 23, 1832, [2].

15
. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.

16
. Ibid.; Stuart,
Three Years in North America
, 1:132.

17
. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.

18
. Saratoga County Clerk, Civil Court Files, 1825–1900, box A 35, Eliza Jumel vs. Jonathan Hall and John Hall. For the previous owner, Jose Villalave, see, for example, advertisements in:
Boston Gazette
, May 2, 1814, [3];
Boston Daily Advertiser
, May 5,
1814, [3];
New-York Evening Post
, May 24, 1814, [2]. By 1826, he had adopted the French honorific “monsieur” rather than the Spanish “signor” (i.e., señor) or “don”; compare the advertisements in the
Evening Post
and
Boston Daily Advertiser
with these later examples:
National Advocate
, December 18, 1826, [3];
Saratoga Sentinel
, June 25, 1833, 3.

19
. Eliza Jumel vs. Jonathan Hall and John Hall.

20
. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase; B-779, box 113, deposition of Nelson Chase; Saratoga County Clerk, Deeds Book 10, 138–40 (September 13, 1832).

1
. “The Jumel estate case,”
New York Herald
, January 30, 1873, 8; B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase.

2
. Parton, 662.

3
. Parton, 663 (for both quotations).

4
. Ibid.

5
. John E. Stillwell,
The history of the Burr portraits: Their origin, their dispersal and their reassemblage
(1928), 1-2; Davis,
Memoirs of Aaron Burr
, 1:182; Todd,
Life of Colonel Aaron Burr
, 124 (see chap. 24, n. 1); Milton Lomask,
Aaron Burr: The conspiracy and years of exile 1805–1836
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982), 373; Todd,
Life of Colonel Aaron Burr
, 116, 119.

6
. Todd,
Life of Colonel Aaron Burr
, 119 (see chap. 24, n. 1).

7
. “Madame Jumel's estate,”
New York Herald
, November 13, 1866, 5.

8
. For Burr's striking ability to read others and imply what they wished to hear, see David O. Stewart,
American emperor: Aaron Burr's challenge to Jefferson's America
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 297; Joseph Wheelan,
Jefferson's vendetta: The pursuit of Aaron Burr and the judiciary
(New York: Carroll & Graff Publishers, 2005), 84.

9
. Parton, 663.

10
. Parton, 663 (for all quotations in this paragraph).

11
. Henry Fielding,
The history of Tom Jones, a foundling
, ed. Thomas Keymer and Alice Wakely (Penguin Books, 2005), 66.

12
. “The Jumel case—the defendant's cross examination continued,”
New York Times
, Feb. 1, 1873, 8.

13
. Milton Lomask,
Aaron Burr: The years from Princeton to vice president 1756–1805
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979), 3–4, 39–42, 48–50, 53–56, 61– 63, 73–75, 119, 134–35, 141–44, 200.

14
. Samuel L. Knapp,
Life of Aaron Burr
, 84–85 (see chap. 24, n. 1).

15
. Ibid., 85; Wheelan,
Jefferson's vendetta
, 62–63.

16
. Wheelan,
Jefferson's vendetta
, 59, 62–63.

17
. Stewart,
American emperor
, 18–19, 25.

18
. Ron Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton
(New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 644–45; Wheelan,
Jefferson's vendetta
, 77–79, 82.

19
. Wheelan,
Jefferson's vendetta
, 35–37, 84–86. It has been rumored that Burr and Hamilton had been rivals over the favors of Eliza Jumel before her marriage to Stephen, but these slurs, which don't appear in print until the twentieth century, have no grounding in fact. Eliza's marriage to Burr, added to the long-standing rumors about her virtue before her first marriage, probably prompted the imaginative to see her retrospectively as one cause of the two politicians' enmity.

20
. Roger G. Kennedy,
Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A study in character
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 80–81.

21
. Nancy Isenberg,
Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr
(New York: Viking, 2007), 256–57.

22
. Knapp,
Life of Aaron Burr
, 89.

23
. Kennedy,
Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson
, 111.

24
. Ibid., 112, 128–29, 184.

25
. Wheelan,
Jefferson's vendetta
, 120. He appears to have considered Spanish-owned East Florida (approximately today's state of Florida) as a target also (Kennedy,
Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson
, 183–84). That prospect, however, would have seemed less tempting after the Jefferson administration began quiet negotiations to purchase East and West Florida (the latter now the southern portions of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama) in November 1805, although perhaps of interest again after the talks collapsed in early 1806 (Wheelan,
Jefferson's vendetta
, 129, 134).

26
. Wheelan,
Jefferson's vendetta
, 132.

27
. Ibid., 120. Stewart believes that Burr did seriously consider setting up a separate republic west of the Appalachians, but realized by 1805 that there weren't enough Westerners who favored the move, given that the United States had acquired New Orleans, which provided an outlet for trade down the Mississippi, a burning economic issue in the West (Stewart,
American emperor
, 114–15, 141). However, Kennedy points out that Burr swore to respected contemporaries, including William Henry Harrison, Henry Clay, and Andrew Jackson, that he didn't intend secession, and French intelligence agents indicated that Burr himself had never expressed any desire to break up the United States (Kennedy,
Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson
, 143–44).

28
. Wheelan,
Jefferson's vendetta
, 120, 132.

29
. Ibid., 148.

30
. Knapp,
Life of Aaron Burr
, 111.

31
. Wheelan,
Jefferson's vendetta
, 151, 237, 246.

32
. Aaron Burr,
The private journal of Aaron Burr reprinted in full from the original manuscript in the library of Mr. William K. Bixby, of St. Louis, Mo. with an introduction, explanatory notes, and a glossary
(Rochester, NY, 1903): 2:434–36.

33
. Lomask,
Aaron Burr: Conspiracy
, 392.

34
. For example, see Knapp's
Life of Aaron Burr,
published in 1835, for a sympathetic treatment of Burr's career. Davis, in his
Memoirs of Aaron Burr
, published two years later (a year after Burr's death), takes Burr's side in the treason trial and conflict with Jefferson, e.g., 2:138–39.

35
. E.g.,
N.Y. Mayor's Ct., Joshua D. Waterman and Ralph Wells vs. Aaron Burr, 1820-#1002; N.Y. Mayor's Ct., Patrick Denn vs. Aaron Burr, 1820-#258; N.Y. Com. Pl., William L. Vandevoort and John S. Van Winkle vs. Aaron Burr, 1823-#908; N.Y. Com. Pl., Francis J. Berier vs. Aaron Burr, 1825-#48; N.Y. Com. Pl., Robert A. Caldcleugh vs. Aaron Burr, 1826-#242; N.Y. Super. Ct., Thomas C. Morton and James Paton vs. Aaron Burr, 1831-#294; N.Y. Super. Ct., Thomas McKie vs. Aaron Burr, 1832-#86; N.Y. Super. Ct., Anne C. Cannon vs. Aaron Burr, 1833-#114; N.Y. Com. Pl., Hickson Sarles vs. Aaron Burr, 1835-#1022.

36
. Parton, 604–605.

37
. Burr,
Private journal
, 450.

38
. Ibid., 448.

39
. Aaron Burr,
Political correspondence and public papers of Aaron Burr
, ed. Mary-Jo Kline et al. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 2:1217.

40
. N.Y. Com. Pl., Helen M. Catlin and others vs. Aaron Burr, 1834-#282.

41
. N.Y. Super. Ct., Anne C. Cannon vs. Aaron Burr, 1833-#114.

42
. Ibid. The young man in question, Charles Burdett, was probably one of Burr's illegitimate children; see Burr,
Political correspondence
, 2:1196–97.

43
. N.Y. Ct. Ch., Aaron Burr vs. John Pelletreau and others, BM 2759B, with additional details in the bill of complaint of a subsequent suit, N.Y. Ct. Ch., Aaron Burr vs. Benjamin Waldron and Sally his wife, John L. Wilson and Rebecca his wife, BM 2758B.

44
. Samuel H. Wandell and Mead Minnigerode,
Aaron Burr: A biography compiled from rare, and in many cases unpublished, sources
(New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1925), 324.

45
. Stillwell,
History of the Burr portraits
, 64 (see chap. 25, n. 5).

46
. B-779, box 112, deposition of Nelson Chase. Although this statement was made in 1880, it is consistent with a declaration made decades earlier that he did not become intimately acquainted with Aaron Burr until “the spring of 1833”; see N.Y. Ct. Ch., Alexander L. Botts vs. Aaron Burr, BM 1710B, Part 2, deposition of Nelson Chase, March 30, 1836. There was no reason for Chase to lie in the 1836 deposition, since no legal point turned on the date of his acquaintance with Burr.

47
. N.Y. Ct. Ch., Alexander L. Botts vs. Aaron Burr, BM 1710B, Part 2, deposition of Nelson Chase, March 30, 1836.