Aaron Burr

Martin Van Buren & Morgan Lewis: It’s Complicated

February 13, 2025 by Guest Contributor 4 Comments

Have you ever read someone’s handwriting that’s just un-readable – looked over a note from a friend or loved one and said, “how do you expect me to read this?!”

We found ourselves in this exact situation while examining three handwritten letters in Staatsburgh Historic Site’s archives. Unfortunately, we could not ask the sender what they had written, because the sender was the 8th President of the United States, Martin van Buren. [Read more…] about Martin Van Buren & Morgan Lewis: It’s Complicated

Aaron Burr As New York State’s Third Attorney General

February 13, 2025 by Historical Society of the New York Courts Leave a Comment

Aaron Burr (1756-1836) is perhaps best known as the infamous Vice President who took a rather dramatic turn in American history and shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804.

But before he became a household name for all the wrong reasons, Burr served as New York’s third Attorney General from 1789 to 1791. He was known for his legal savvy and charm, navigating the post-Revolutionary legal landscape as something of a rogue. [Read more…] about Aaron Burr As New York State’s Third Attorney General

A Republic of Scoundrels: Schemers, Intriguers, and Adventurers

January 24, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

We now have a more clear-eyed understanding of Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton; even so, they are often considered American saints, revered for their wisdom and self-sacrificing service to the nation.

However, within the generation of founders of the United States there lurked many unscrupulous figures — men who violated the era’s expectation of public virtue and advanced their own interests at the expense of others.

They were turncoats and traitors, opportunists and con artists, spies, and foreign intriguers. [Read more…] about A Republic of Scoundrels: Schemers, Intriguers, and Adventurers

General Horatio Gates in New York City: A Political Legacy

October 8, 2023 by James S. Kaplan 3 Comments

For many years New York City has not been known for its patriotic ceremonies recognizing important Revolutionary War heroes or sites.

Recently this has begun to change, beginning with the rediscovery of the grave of General Horatio Gates, who many consider the second most important American general of the American Revolution. Until about ten years ago his grave located in Trinity Churchyard in Manhattan was completely unmarked.

Gates was the commanding general at the Battle of Saratoga in October of 1777, which most historians agree was the most important battle of the American Revolution and the turning point of the Revolutionary War. He played another important role in early American politics in the city of New York after the war. [Read more…] about General Horatio Gates in New York City: A Political Legacy

A Stroll in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1854

May 22, 2023 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

The following text is an except from Fifteen Minutes around New York by George G. Foster (New York: DeWitt & Davenport 1854) and was transcribed by George A. Thompson of the Hudson River Maritime Museum.

It was very warm — a sort of sultry, sticky day, which makes you feel as if you had washed yourself in molasses and water, and had found that the chambermaid had forgotten to give you a towel. The very rust on the hinges of the Park gate has melted and run down into the sockets, making them creak with a sort of ferruginous lubricity, as you feebly push them open. The hands on the [New York] City Hall clock droop, and look as if they would knock off work if they only had sufficient energy to get up a strike. The omnibus horses creep languidly along, and yet can’t stand still when they are pulled up to take in or let out passengers — the flies are so persevering, so bitter, so hungry. [Read more…] about A Stroll in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1854

Slave-holding New York State Congressional Representatives: A Complete List

February 6, 2022 by Alan J. Singer 2 Comments

According to a Washington Post report in the early years of the American republic over 1,700 Congressional representatives, Senators and Congressmen owned enslaved people. Despite a very clear conflict of interest they voted on the laws governing the country and the enslaved population. Some Representatives served in Congress long after slavery was finally abolished in New York State.

Five of the first seven U.S. Presidents were definitely slaveholders and at least five other later Presidents had family connections to slavery. Five of the Supreme Court Justices who ruled that African Americans had no citizenship rights under the Constitution in the 1857 Dred Scott decision were slaveholders. [Read more…] about Slave-holding New York State Congressional Representatives: A Complete List

Wall Street History: The Politics of New York’s First Banks

January 10, 2022 by James S. Kaplan 1 Comment

Prior to the American Revolution, there were virtually no banks in the United States. However, Alexander Hamilton, who was George Washington’s key advisor on financial matters, was familiar with the central banks of England and the Netherlands which had been key factors in the growth of the economy of those countries.

Unlike some agrarian Virginian politicians such as Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton believed that banking and credit was the key to the nation’s future. In 1781 he encouraged Robert Morris, the recently appointed Superintendent of Finance for the Continental government, to form the Bank of North America in Philadelphia. For a time up, until the British surrender of New York, this was the only Bank in the colonies. [Read more…] about Wall Street History: The Politics of New York’s First Banks

Trump Impeachment Recalls Aaron Burr’s Treason

February 23, 2021 by James S. Kaplan 6 Comments

Donald Trump’s recent impeachment trial in which the President was accused of incitement of insurrection against the United States recalls to mind a case from more than 200 years ago.

In that case another New York politician, former Vice President Aaron Burr, whose personality was arguably not dissimilar from Donald Trump, was tried and acquitted of treason in 1807. [Read more…] about Trump Impeachment Recalls Aaron Burr’s Treason

New Historical Novel: Hamilton’s Choice by Jack Casey

May 5, 2020 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Since graduating from Yale Jack Casey has followed his love of American history to write historical novels with strong political themes.

In his new novel Hamilton’s Choice (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2020), author he offers a new answer to the 215-year-old question about why Alexander Hamilton met Aaron Burr in his fatal duel. [Read more…] about New Historical Novel: Hamilton’s Choice by Jack Casey

New Book, Programs Planned On Hamilton-Burr Letters

December 27, 2017 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown has received funding for new programs and a publication based on 35 letters between American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr – the man who killed him in a duel in 1804.

These documents, although familiar to historians, have remained largely unknown to the public until recently when they were brought to light in the song “Your Obedient Servant” from the hit Broadway musical Hamilton. [Read more…] about New Book, Programs Planned On Hamilton-Burr Letters

Review: The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel

April 9, 2016 by Kim Dramer Leave a Comment

She’s the woman who dueled with Aaron Burr and won. Move over Alexander Hamilton. The life of Eliza Jumel is a tale about a woman who pulled hard on her Yankee bootstraps to make good on the American dream.

Margaret Oppenheimer’s splendid book, The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel: Marriage and Money in the Early Republic (Chicago Review Press, 2015), takes readers along on a tale of intrigue, scandal and innuendo. Far from a steamy beach read featuring men in white wigs, this meticulously-researched tale paints a detailed and scholarly portrait of New York City and the way in which the city’s growth provided fertile ground for the ambitions of its heroine. [Read more…] about Review: The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel

Corset Portraits of the Loves of Aaron Burr

November 12, 2015 by Kathleen Hulser 2 Comments

Artist Camilla Huey has a close to the skin interpretation of founding father Aaron Burr. While we know about his schemes to gain and keep political power, Huey tempts us to think about Burr’s gender politics. Was the former Vice-President who shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel, a full-fledged Lothario, or might there be another story? [Read more…] about Corset Portraits of the Loves of Aaron Burr

Aaron Burr Revised: Conspiracy, Treason and Justice

June 16, 2015 by Kathleen Hulser 2 Comments

Who remembers Aaron Burr as anything more than Quick Draw McGraw shooting down the near-sighted Alexander Hamilton at dawn in 1804? But there is much more to the man, as Gore Vidal revealed in his intriguing 1973 historical novel, and other subsequent scholarship.

Two aspects of Burr’s varied career stand out in today’s world. First, his treason trial that closely examined issues of what counts as an act of war against one’s own government. And second, his relationships with a series of highly intelligent and accomplished women, reflecting his high opinion of the female sex and its potential. [Read more…] about Aaron Burr Revised: Conspiracy, Treason and Justice

The Albany Connections of Burr, Hamilton, and Schuyler

May 14, 2015 by Peter Hess 10 Comments

During the Revolutionary War, Alexander Hamilton served as an artillery captain and later a colonel and trusted aid to General George Washington. Colonel Aaron Burr also served in the Colonial Army and accompanied Benedict Arnold on his march through the Maine wilderness and his failed attempt to capture Quebec.

Burr had been with General Richard Montgomery when Montgomery was shot and killed in Quebec. Later in the war, Burr was placed in charge of a regiment and his troops were stationed in Westchester County, New York. [Read more…] about The Albany Connections of Burr, Hamilton, and Schuyler

Aaron Burr

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