February 13, 2023 • 55 mins
🎙️
Shawn Curtis is a 24-year veteran Social Studies Teacher with a Master's in Education. He has been a teacher in Wyoming, New Jersey, Ohio, and Indiana and has taught a variety of subjects that have included Economics, Government, and yes our favorite...History!
Shawn has studied culture all over the world, from working in a Russian Orphanage, helping construct a school in Guatemala, to leading students to Greece, Italy, France, and this summer to Eastern Europe.
2 summers ago, they received a grant from the Eli Lilly Foundation to travel Route 66 for 2 weeks and record American culture in a pandemic world.
Shawn's TRUE historical passion is the stories of the underdog and those that history has wounded. His classroom is framed with pictures of figures like Jack Johnson, Josh Gibson, and Aaron Burr.
Shawn has been a card-carrying member of the Aaron Burr Association ever since he first discovered the history of Aaron Burr at the University of Wyoming in the 90s, and he has been working to clear Burr's name ever since.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Scott (00:39):
welcome to Talk With History.
I'm your host Scott, here withmy wife and historian Jen.
Hello.
On this podcast, we give you insightsto our history inspired World Travels
YouTube channel journey, and examinehistory through deeper conversations
with the curious, the explorers,and the history lovers out there.
Now tonight, as you can see, wefinally have another guest back
(01:02):
on, first Guest of the New Year.
Today we are joined by SeanCurtis, a colleague of Jen's,
teacher and card carrying memberof the Erin Burr Association.
Welcome, Sean
Shawn (01:12):
Hello.
Thank you for having me.
Scott (01:15):
Absolutely happy to have you.
Now, before we get into chatting withSean, I do want to ask for anybody
that's watching the live stream, go aheadand give it a, like, share the video.
If you are listening on the Talk withHistory podcast, please share it.
Leave us a review on Apple Podcast orSpotify, wherever you're listening,
because the reviews truly helpus grow and the sooner you give
us those likes, the sooner we cancatch up to the History Channel.
(01:37):
Yes.
With their millions uponmillions of followers.
So please help us out.
, we're coming for you.
History Channel.
Shawn (01:43):
All they're talking about is aliens and Nazis, right?
So you've
Scott (01:45):
yeah, we're gonna, we can bring history back to the History channel
if they ever want to have a song.
So,
all right, now our.
Shawn (01:53):
right?
They've burned out all their
Scott (01:54):
That's right, that's right.
Now our guest tonight is SeanCurtis, as I said earlier, and Sean
is a 24 year veteran social studiesteacher with a master's in education.
He's been a teacher in Wyoming, NewJersey, Ohio, and Indiana, and has
taught a variety of subjects that haveincluded economics, government, and
yes, our favorite history, . Shawnhas studied culture all over the world
(02:18):
from working in a Russian orphanage,helping construct a school in Guatemala
to leading students to Greece, Italy,France, and this summer to Eastern Europe.
Two summers ago, he even received agrant from the Eli Lilly Foundation to
Travel Route 66 for two weeks to recordAmerican culture in a pandemic world.
(02:38):
That's such a cool opportunity Now,Sean's true historical passion is
the stories of the underdog andthose that history has wounded.
His classroom is framed with picturesof figures like Jack Johnson,
Josh Gibson, and yes, Aaron Burr.
Sean has been a card carrying member ofthe Aaron Burr Association ever since
(02:58):
he first discovered the history of AaronBurr at the University of Wyoming, but
way back in the nineties, and he has beenworking a clear burr's name ever since.
So, welcome and thank you so muchfor joining us tonight, Sean.
Yes, thank
Shawn (03:10):
century, right?
Scott (03:11):
That's right, tell us a little bit about yourself, maybe
some stuff I didn't cover, and howyou discovered Aaron Burr and , got
hooked on that underdog history
Shawn (03:21):
sure.
Let me clear up one historicalmistruth right away.
Scott (03:25):
All right.
Shawn (03:26):
in the Aaron Bur Association, our dues are due on Aaron Burr's
birthday, which is February 6th.
And this year I did notsend them in on time.
I
Scott (03:36):
Oh, no.
Shawn (03:37):
So the check is getting to the people.
So right now, be honest,I'm between my cards,
Scott (03:44):
Okay.
All right,
Shawn (03:45):
Stuart, if you're listening, they're on their way.
And I will be an Aaron BurrBerg card caring member again
great, a great question.
So, when I went to the Universityof Wyoming in education and had to
take quite a few history classes andI took, actually took an extra year.
One of the classes Itook was a class with Dr.
Frank Van Nas called History of the USWest, which I've had the opportunity to
(04:07):
teach at, at, at, at high school as well.
So it's been fun.
But the thing that stands out the mostin my mind from that semester was he was
talking about the treason trial of AaronBurr and how Aaron Burr was accused by
Jefferson of trying to secede the westernhalf of the United States from the east.
A lightning moment I thought.
I've never heard this in anyhistory class I've ever been in.
(04:29):
I, we all took US history, wetook US history in whatever grades
we had to take at eighth grade.
11th grade took so many historyclasses in college for US history
cuz you take the basic US historyand then the social history.
And never once did I hear anythingabout Aaron Burr other than
he killed Alexander Hamilton.
Of course the famous milk ad, withthe peanut butter and the Aaron
Jenn (04:50):
Yeah.
With the peanut butter.
Commercial (05:02):
And that was the Vienna wood dancing D one of my all-time favorites.
And now let's make that randomcall with today's $10,000 question.
It's a tough one.
Who shot Alexander Hamiltonin that famous duel?
All right, let's go to thephones and see who's out there.
(05:24):
Hello, hello for $10,000.
Who?
Sh.
Excuse me.
Hang on.
Lemme mom, I'm afraidyour time is almost done.
I'm sorry.
Maybe next time
(05:48):
got.
Jenn (05:49):
Yeah.
That's how people knew that
before
Shawn (05:52):
It's, yeah.
Yeah.
It's all people ever talked aboutwas all Aaron Burr was, was the
killer of Alexander Hamilton.
Scott (05:59):
Mm-hmm.
. Yep.
Shawn (06:00):
I thought, oh my gosh, this guy has a whole life beyond the Hamilton
story, where he was embroiled in thesepolitics in the west and arrested and
taken to a treason trial on horsebackwith John Marshall presiding and his
lawyer was Washington Irving and LutherMartin and in Henry Clay as a lawyer.
(06:21):
And he was embroiled into stuff withAndrew Jackson and, and William Henry
Harrison, and so many great names inAmerican history that were all tied
to this trial that he was a part of.
And gosh, I've, this is so new, thishistory that they've just left him out.
It's settled law thatAaron Burr was a villain.
He killed Hamilton and that was it.
Scott (06:42):
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (06:43):
weirdly enough I was walking around campus one day and the
library was having a book sale.
and I went in Cuz oh Books,history . And they had a 25
cent copy of Gore Dolls Burr,
just sitting on the tablethat no one was buying.
Pick it up and read it.
(07:03):
And I was just, I was hooked.
All the things that Burr did and hisideologies, how he tried to get women
the right to vote and fought for win'srights, and fought to free the slaves
Mannu mission in New York and broughtwater to the people of New York.
He's the inventor of Chase ManhattanBank, where he brought freshwater
to people, the cure cholera, thatHamilton and him were law partners and
(07:26):
tried the first murder trial togetherin New York and that they, hung out.
And all this story upon storywithin, and I know it's historical
fiction, but I was, this is amazing.
And so what else can I doto find more about this?
And so I, it.
The early days of the internetback then, and looked up stuff.
And they told me that there was aprofessor from American University in
(07:49):
Washington DC named Samuel Engel Burr, whohad taught long ago a class on Aaron Burr.
And Kim, the founder of the movement.
He had formed the Aaron Bur Association.
And I said, gosh, wherecan I find this guy's work?
And so I looked and theysaid, you can find this work
at the University of Wyoming.
(08:09):
What?
And so I went in the library andsure enough, weird coincidence, Sam
Lee bur the founder of the Aaron BurAssociation, had given his entire
Aaron Bur library to whatever professorprobably Phil Roberts is what people said.
Dr.
Roberts, who you know well knownat University of Wyoming to give
him his library as colleagues.
And so down in the basement ofColi at the University of Wyoming
(08:33):
is an entire Aaron Bur library.
Dossier is on Aaron Burr fromNapoleon, his lecture notes from
his class, just on and on and on.
And I, I, I stayed down there andthat they, picked up a book called
fatal Friendship by Arnold Roo, allabout kind of the, the love hate
relationship between Hamilton and Burr.
And wrote Arnold Roo, who was stillalive at the time and said, you're
(08:57):
a member of the Bur Association.
How do I become a memberof the Bur Association?
And he gave me their, andI've been a member ever since
Scott (09:07):
Quite a history for yourself in Yeah.
In becoming involved in that.
Now if I, if I'm gonna step back alittle bit, cuz I'm definitely gonna
dive down some of those rabbit holeswith you here in, in just a little bit.
Yes.
I wanna do that too.
But one of the things that I,I wanna touch on really quickly
first is the video, right?
So , we just posted our videoabout the, , the grave site
(09:27):
of the female stranger, right?
In, in Alexandria.
Yes.
And one of it sounds like one ofthe running theories that this grave
site is potentially the grave site ofAaron Burr's, daughter Theodosia burr.
. Alston.
Now.
. For folks who have watched the video,and if you're watching this video or
listening to the podcast after the fact,I encourage you to go watch the video.
(09:48):
Mm-hmm.
and I'm curious if that's a, a runningtheory that that's discussed in, in
the Aaron Bur association's circles.
Cuz I think Yeah, I think youwere one of the earlier comments
that we saw on the on the video.
Shawn (10:00):
So we would probably be in disagreement with it,
Scott (10:05):
Okay.
Yeah.
Cuz
Jenn (10:06):
you probably don't give it any
credence probably,
Shawn (10:09):
heard all kinds of stuff that it's almost like an Anastasia type deal where
Scott (10:13):
Yeah.
Oh,
Shawn (10:14):
forward afterwards and pretending to be theodosia.
Cuz she was, she was quitethe celebrity of the time.
As far as women went, she was outspoken.
She was well learned.
She, they said she had an IQ of 175,
Scott (10:30):
Whoa.
Wow.
Shawn (10:31):
yeah.
, right?
And she, Erin, and that, that waspurposeful because Burr was such
a huge supporter of women's rightsand he hadn't been necessarily
a supporter of women's right.
Early on in his life at Princetonwhen he was young and in the
military where he was drifting.
But once he met her mother, TheodosiaTheodosia was a big fan of Mary Wall.
(10:52):
Stone Craft.
The early feminist writer,Mary Shelly's mom, and
Jenn (10:56):
Mary Shelly's mom.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (10:58):
he read it and absorbed it.
And when they had, theyactually had four kids.
Thei had kids from her firstmarriage with George Prevo.
She was much older than her.
They had four kids together.
Two of them died as Stillbirths.
Their daughter Sally died when she wastwo, and Theodosia was the only child to
live on, and she was his pride and joy.
And so one of the things he'll write andwrite to Theodosia his wife, and then I'll
(11:22):
write a lot to Theodosia, his daughter.
Was that through them, they taught himwhat he didn't know before and what
wasn't popular at the time that women.
Are powerful, that women can think thatwomen have an equality that they deserve.
And so he was gonna prove it through her.
So they raised her to speak Greek,Latin, French language upon language
(11:43):
upon language study, mass study
Scott (11:45):
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (11:46):
could debate anything at any party with anybody.
And so she was popular and
Scott (11:51):
Yeah,
Shawn (11:52):
of a huge figure of the day.
And so, yeah, like I said, it's almostan Anastasia type thing where people were
claiming to be her, but the letters thatthey wrote to each other were legendary.
Matthew Davis, his biographer kept alli the letters that he didn't burn when
he was editing burr's life is that, thislove story between father and daughter.
(12:15):
And HW Brands wrote a really good bookcalled The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr.
Which is all about thatrelationship between him and Theo.
And if it was her in that grave and shelived two years beyond her death there's
no correspondence between the two of them.
And he
Jenn (12:36):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Why would she not talk to her
Shawn (12:38):
Yeah.
Why would she not talk to him?
Why would she not write to her husbandwho was also devastated and basically
led to his death from misery sickness?
So
Scott (12:48):
I think , you're a lot like Jen when it comes to history.
, you're not gonna sugarcoat it.
, this is the fact, this is.
, it seems very improbable.
. And, and I think even Jen talksthrough that in the video.
Mm-hmm.
a little bit.
You talk through
of like This doesn't make sensethat it would be her Yeah.
Because of these reasons and those
Shawn (13:03):
Yeah, and showing up with a new husband and I, I was reading that
some people thought it was Napoleon indisguise dressed like a woman that he'd
escaped, and that's before he went back
Jenn (13:14):
stay
Shawn (13:14):
recapture France.
And there's just a whole lot of differentpeople that it might've been, but it
just, for us, it, I would, I wouldassume, but I don't wanna speak for the
whole Aaron Bur association, but it,it just, from the biographies and the
readings, there's just no correspondence.
Jenn (13:28):
Yeah.
So one of the questions I hadfor you, Sean was one of these
portraits of Theodosia andthere's a couple portraits of her.
They ended up at Yale and eventhough Burr is associated with
Princeton, because and he's buried atPrinceton, her portraits are at Yale.
(13:50):
And why are her portraits at Yale?
Shawn (13:53):
So it's a, it's a family history.
The burs, the familyburr is from Connecticut.
They're from Fairfield, Connecticutwith the first Burr, who is j
Huber came over from England.
They centered themselves as ministersand reverends in Connecticut.
They were very well-to-do ReverendFamily, the burs, and they married
into other Reverend families.
(14:13):
So, for example, Aaron Burr's Grandpawas Jonathan Edwards, the founder of
The Great Awakening as a preacher.
On his mother's side.
So the Edwards married the
Scott (14:23):
Wow.
Shawn (14:24):
and so the Yale archives is all the Burr family papers from all the births
in Connecticut and Aaron Burr's stuff
Jenn (14:33):
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (14:34):
mixed in because it was passed down to cousins and then
the cousins donated to Yale.
Burr's family were the foundersof Princeton with Jonathan
Jenn (14:45):
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (14:46):
So his dad, Aaron Burr Sr, was one of the founding fathers of Princeton.
And Burr went there and he is buriedthere and his father's buried there.
His mother buried nearby,
Scott (14:55):
That's, that's one of the things that I appreciate about having
subject matter experts like yourselfon, on history topics like this.
Because to your point we opened upsaying like, yeah, everybody knows
Burr for . basically two things.
Yeah.
Shooting Hamilton and possibly, all, allthis bad stuff he was accused of later.
But there's, there's so manyinteresting things, right?
As someone who is around in such api, , the core pivotal era mm-hmm.
(15:19):
, of the founding of this country.
It's, now that you talk about it, I'mnot surprised that his family founded.
An institution here.
Yeah.
And was, was, working, and worked with,numerous famous other historical figures.
But again, when it comes down to highschool history, you get, you don't
(15:39):
get to get into the weeds like that.
You get the, yep.
Here's the two sentences about the thirdvice president of the United States.
Mm-hmm.
. And that's most, that's mostly it, right?
We don't get
Shawn (15:49):
Well, and even some of the books just don't even research at all.
They use lazy research because for them,Aaron Burr's, life of Settled History.
I have a AP textbook we used in ap.
His AP u s history.
that said Aaron Burr was guiltyof Seceding the West when John
Marshall found him not guilty andseven courts found him not guilty.
(16:11):
But the book says hewas guilty cuz it's lazy
Jenn (16:14):
settled history, I like that term.
Yeah.
Settled history is like what peoplejust assume Aaron Burr was a villain
Shawn (16:21):
right.
Jenn (16:22):
because like it's, it's just settled.
Like that's who he isand that's, and it, you
know,
Shawn (16:27):
my favorite Aaron Sorkin line in the social network is
Every creation myth needs a devil.
Scott (16:32):
Hmm.
Shawn (16:32):
And Aaron burs that devil.
Scott (16:33):
yeah.
Jenn (16:34):
Got you.
Sure.
Yeah.
So, so what's the biggestmisconception then about Burr if
you know that he wasn't a devil?
That he's not this like lackadaisicalguy like in Hamilton who doesn't pick
a side and is cowardice in a way.
Like that's not who he is.
Shawn (16:50):
Well.
So with that Aaron Burr wouldwrite about politics as a game.
He wrote, it's a game for fun, for profit.
He saw the sport in it.
He saw what he could do with it.
He saw that he could maneuver through it.
And so, that's not really offcharacter for him as much as it is.
I, what I like about the musical isfor the first time, somebody kind of
(17:11):
little bit put some empathy into him,like he's not just this cold calculating
person who shot Alexander Hamilton.
He is got feelings.
He loves his daughter,he loves the country.
But his life was set for him.
If you're gonna talk about like earlyprivilege in America, his life was
created for him and he hated it.
(17:31):
He didn't want the life for him.
They wanted him to be a minister.
So they sent him to Princetonto train him to be a minister.
He ran away from home quite frequently.
I mean his, well, when he was young.
So his mom and dad both died whenhe was a kid and his sister Sally.
And then they moved in with JonathanEdwards and his wife Jonathan Edwards, of
(17:52):
course being very stern sinners from thehands of an angry God minister, right?
And then they died.
Scott (17:58):
Yeah.
Fire.
Fire and brimstone.
Shawn (18:00):
Yeah, Firestone, find God and before it's too late, and then they died.
And so Aaron Burr and his sister wereleft basically as orphans as little kids.
And they moved in with his unclein Connecticut, who was also,
they pushing the Reverend thing.
And Aaron Burr ran away from homeagain, again and again, again.
He was gonna be a lawyer andhe became like one of the best
(18:21):
lawyers as far as people could see.
He was ki like I said, aimless in wherehe wanted to be and what he wanted to do.
And whereas Hamilton obviously wasmore focused, but it allowed, I think
if you read the books, Aaron Burr,to be friendlier more of somebody
you'd want to hang out with, lessof an ideologue than Hamilton was.
(18:44):
I think it was one of the writers,I think it was either Arnold Roo
or Thomas Fleming who said thatHamilton was com very combative.
He was his way or no way.
And if you crossed him, you were finished.
Burr was just like, let's hang out.
Let's talk politics, let'splay chess, let's have parties.
Scott (19:01):
Yeah.
Shawn (19:01):
so I don't think that was too far off in the play.
But the idea that he didn't lovethe country and want the same
things, what he did, he fought,he's a revolutionary soldier.
He is famous for the Battle of Quebec,where he carried General Montgomery
out of the battlefield on his back.
When General Montgomery was shot, whichdrew his attention to George Washington,
(19:23):
who made him one of his aides, which
Scott (19:26):
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (19:27):
Burr was not the best military aid.
That's where he about Hamilton.
He would read George Washington's mail.
He's famous in some circles, insome theories that he would pass a
rumor that George Washington shouldbe called his Royal Pear Shapeness.
Cause tiny head big,
Scott (19:42):
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Shawn (19:45):
his,
Scott (19:47):
Yeah.
So, so you, yeah.
So, so you mentioned some ofthe accuracies in inaccuracies
of of Hamilton, like when, whenHamilton first came out, right?
We, we have to, let's justbroach the Hamilton topic now,
the play and all that stuff.
Like, I have the book when,when that first came out,
when it first hit the scene.
Like h how did, how didthe whole you your what?
(20:08):
What'd you call yourselfearlier before we were on air?
The, the Burr rights.
The bur
rights.
Is that, how did the Bur Rightcommunity react to, to Hamilton?
Yeah.
And just kind of like, what was a littlebit of a vilification, of Aaron Burr.
It's, it twofold,
Jenn (20:20):
right?
Because Aaron Burr is telling thestory, so it's cool that he gets to
narrate a whole story, but then itis ki you're not telling a complete
Scott (20:28):
story.
Shawn (20:29):
There's a, there's a lot of omission in it
Scott (20:32):
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (20:34):
from my thought, I just, I would say that, and again, not speaking for
everybody, but just knowing what I knowand knowing kind of the, the pain of
people who support Aaron Burr, it's a longhistory of trying to fight against the.
Scott (20:51):
Yeah.
Yeah,
Shawn (20:52):
lot of people still who have a very vested interest in keeping Aaron Burr
from a positive view in the history books.
And it's in the lecture notes of SamuelBurr, he writes that he wrote a book
about Theodosia and Burr's relationship.
And the publisher told him if thiswas anti bur I'd publish it, but
it's pro-Burr so I can't publish it.
Cuz he's seen as a
Scott (21:12):
interesting.
Oh
Shawn (21:13):
And I've faced off against people before who tell me that I'm a traitor.
That I support a traitor, that Ican't possibly love this country
because my idol is a traitor.
And again, he was declarednot guilty of treason, but,
and there was never any proof.
And John Marshall declared it, but theydon't understand, what led to that duel.
(21:35):
And because there's so little informationand for B for Bird actually comes back
to theodosia, the, the sadness of it.
is, he had documents, he had papers,he had records of the times of all
these people he associated with.
But when he fled to Europe after thetreason trial, he left it with her and she
was bringing it back to him on the ship.
(21:58):
And
Jenn (21:59):
the Patriot
Scott (21:59):
that was lost.
Oh,
Shawn (22:01):
went with it, like all these
Scott (22:03):
okay.
Shawn (22:04):
And so what's left is his private journal, which was edited
by Matthew Davis and any letters hehad in correspondence he had after.
And then there's some things ofletters that they've gathered from
other people, like he was friendswith like Jeremy Bentham and England
and Andrew Jackson and all thesepeople that have letters from him.
(22:25):
But he, he can't defend himself.
And so he became a victim of peoplere-editing history to pigeonhole him
into the villain and he can't fight back.
And so,
Jenn (22:37):
Well, okay, so let's hit on those two things.
What do people not know about the dual,like the dual with Alexander Hamilton?
In the musical.
They make it about the
election, but it wasn't about the
Shawn (22:50):
like, if people were critical of it, they would say,
wait, it took four years for hisanger to boil over to a dual.
Cause they didn't shoot till1804 and the election was 1800.
So that's one of the things that I, Iliked the music, but that omission in
itself really changes the focus of it.
Cuz again, it might come back toTheodosia and people will disagree
(23:13):
with this or agree with that.
It's a theory.
Aaron Burr put up with a lotof criticism in his life, like
a lot, especially in 1800.
Thomas Jefferson was very good athaving people installed in Democratic
Republican post offices, newspaperoffices that would just smear, read mail,
publish mail, and Burr took a a on thechin in that and didn't go to War's.
(23:39):
Jefferson, he took on his vice presidentrole and Jefferson was really cold to him.
And there's classic fights betweenthe two of them, like where Jefferson
tried to impeach Justice Chasebecause he was Federalist and Burr
as president of the Senate stood inhis way and said, we can't turn this
chamber into a political monster.
Yeah, so that, that in themusical I'm like, there's a
(24:00):
four year gap people come on.
It's
Jenn (24:02):
Mm-hmm.
. Yeah.
Yeah.
They're not fighting about the
Shawn (24:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Burr stopped famously, and this isone thing people probably don't know,
is when the Maria Reynolds affair broke,which I was actually really happy, was
in the play, cuz for a very long time,I don't think Hamiltonians were very
pleased with the Maria Reynolds affair.
I remember asking about it once at theGrange Hamilton's house, and it was not
received well by the tour guide . Andthat was back in like the early nineties.
(24:28):
James Monroe was responsiblefor publishing that story or so
Hamilton thought and Hamiltonchallenged him to a duel.
So Hamilton and Monroe almostwent to Duel and Burr was the one
who stood in the way and stoppedit and negotiated the dual out.
So they didn't fightand Burr did that a lot.
Like Hamilton would lose histemper, Burr would guide his temper
(24:51):
away cuz they were law partners.
They lived down the street whenthey lived in lower Manhattan.
The question has always been what wouldbreak Aaron Burr to the point where he'd
be willing to go to Wee Hawk and, andhave pistols cuz he wasn't a good shot.
People were, well, he waswell known as big a bad shot.
He was well known as beingsomeone who didn't play things
(25:13):
based on anger and honor.
Like he took a lot of names,he took a lot of abuse and
didn't declare duals on people.
Hamilton had been involvedin almost 11 duals or close
duals And obviously his son.
This is a family streak,
pistols.
were his brother-in-law's.
Angelica's husband John Church,who also wasn't a lot of duals.
(25:34):
And so, The one theory that people haveand that people have arrived at is the
thing that would break Aaron Burr isif you took down his relationship with
Theodosia because he loved her morethan life and she with the death of
her mom and his wife was his hostess.
Like, just like Thomas Jeffersonand his daughter, she was his
host this after his wife died.
(25:55):
While we know is that Hamilton wrotein a newspaper, Wal Burr was running
for governor of New York and willinglyBurr changes the Federalist Party cuz
the Democrat Republicans had abandonedhim and that was seen as opportunism.
And Hamilton wasn't pleased because he'shead of the Federalist Party or was,
and he got hold of his media buddiesand he wrote in the paper and spread a
(26:18):
rumor that said, if you think Burr isbad, I have an even worse opinion and
I know something even worse about him,or more despicable he says about him.
And so, Goral and other people speculatethat what that was was he was accusing
Aaron Burr of incest with Theodosia.
He would, in private letters, when theywould cipher, he would often write, cuz
(26:41):
he was clever, Hamilton was very clever.
He would write Greek character names forlike Jefferson and like having two faces.
And he'd write these names forpeople based on Greek mythology.
And with Burr it was close to, hewould sometimes write it according
to some theories that Burr was hischaracter in Greek mythology who
(27:01):
was sleeping with his own family.
And so,
Jenn (27:04):
And that was enough to push Burr over the edge?
Shawn (27:07):
wrote him a letter and he said, Hey, what is this
opinion that you have of me?
And that's all we know.
Like, we don't know what it was.
Hamilton wrote him back, but Hamiltonwas so over it like, it's, it's a funny
exchange even though it led to death.
Hamilton instead of apologizingwrote a letter back criticizing
(27:28):
Aaron Burr's grammar.
Like, what's the matter?
Don't you know how to, don't you knowhow to challenge somebody to a duel?
Don't you know how the stuff starts?
Where's your, where's your commas?
Where's your sentence structure?
Scott (27:38):
Talk, talk about a hothead, that, that's Hamilton.
that's, that's,
Shawn (27:42):
back,
like, what are you doing?
And he wrote, hit back.
And it went on for a month untilBurr told him, look, I want you to
apologize for every bad thing you'veever said about me in your life, to
anybody you've ever said anything.
And Hamilton said, no,I'm not gonna do that.
So you better just challenge me.
And so they went to Wee Hawking.
Scott (28:02):
Yeah.
Wow.
That's, that's why, it's, it's so funny.
Like,
Jenn (28:06):
so they don't really even get into that.
They, they just gloss over all of that.
Makes it easier for
Scott (28:11):
It's so fun to kind of hear, hear this, this perspective, right?
Because again, I, I joke allthe time on the podcast, like,
I am not a history buff, right?
, I, I, I could like tell you a littlebit about what Hamilton the play
was at, was about, but like, Ican't re speak to it intelligently.
No.
But one of the things you saw once that,that I've enjoyed when we've been down
to Colonial Williamsburg a whole bunchof times, and we've talked once or twice
(28:32):
about some of the reenactors there.
And so Martha Washington, we'vegot to see her a couple times.
And we saw a solo performance that shedid for like the audience one time,
and she was very good about answeringquestions from the kids in the audience.
So when she would talkabout whatever era mm-hmm.
she was, saying she was in, whetherit's, pre, before her husband was
president or after she was newly elected.
(28:53):
Yeah.
Newly elected.
He was newly elected.
She would answer questions fromthe audience and she would, if a
kid was raising their hand, shewould always go right to the kid.
And of course, so of course a couple,one or two Hamilton questions came up.
And even she in her characterwould very politely right.
As.
I guess you would expect of a woman , and,who's the . First Lady or whatever
would make these like sly kind of digs.
(29:14):
Like, oh, I don't, I'm not gonnareally talk too much about Hamilton.
There's a reason they call him the
Tom Kat and this, that, and the other.
Shawn (29:20):
because
Scott (29:22):
That's, that's right.
So it's, it's always interestingfor me to hear more about this.
And one of the questions we actually hadin the chat from Facebook was, are there,
do you know of any Aaron Bur Reenacters?
This is a friend of ours, Doug McLarty.
Mm-hmm.
Like there are for Jeffersonor Hamilton, and we've come
across other, other Reenacters.
Have you ever seen or comeacross any Aaron Burr?
(29:43):
Reenacters?
Yeah.
I, I imagine that'd be a little bit more
rare.
Shawn (29:46):
it's gonna be rare, but I'll tell you in 2004, We in the Aaron
Bur Association had a reenactment ofthe duel for the 200th anniversary
of the due with the hamiltonians.
Scott (29:57):
Oh,
cool.
Shawn (29:59):
There were sit-downs, there were lots of conversations, there
was compromises that were made.
Who's gonna get to speak first,who's gonna get to give the
first interview to the media?
And in that dual, we had AntonioBurr, who's one of our most prominent
members, and very scholarly.
If I know things about AaronBurr, he knows everything.
(30:21):
, Aaron Burr is quite
Scott (30:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Shawn (30:23):
He's one of our vice presidents of the organization.
He played Aaron Burr in that reenactment.
So, but otherwise, very uncommon.
Definitely the guy the guy who
Jenn (30:34):
I thought you talked to someone at the Capitol building?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
I thought you talked to someone atthe Capitol building in DC who played
Burr, and you asked him a couplequestions and he knew some of the stuff.
I remember you postingsomething like that on Facebook,
Shawn (30:50):
yeah, I mean there was, during Obama's first inauguration, they had
the Jefferson, the guy who was the mostprominent Jefferson Reactor, who I've
met several times at several conferences.
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
In my I may have gotten into itwith the Jefferson Read actor, cuz
he called Aaron Burris Scoundrel.
I told him I'd give him a, I toldhim I'd give him a book list to read
Scott (31:13):
Oh my
Shawn (31:14):
never heard about Andrew Jackson being involved in the trees in trial.
And I said, well baby, you need toread some of these books so that Mr.
Jefferson
Scott (31:21):
Yeah.
Shawn (31:21):
George Washington didn't wanna talk to me Afterwards.
He goes, you don't have any questionsfor me, do you like, I'm good.
I'm just, I'm just a punk kid who
One last thing about the duel, becauseI do want to get this out there because
it's one of those unco un unknown thingsand it's definitely not in the play.
He does mention the play once that,when, the, in the rap that Hamilton
(31:41):
was wearing his glasses, right?
Which came from Hamilton second penPendleton, Nathaniel Pendleton the,
so Chase Manhattan, the bank in NewYork City has the guns because Aaron
Burr is the founder of the ManhattanCompany, which became Chase Manhattan.
They're in a vault.
One time I was sweet talk enough whenI lived in New York City to get in
(32:03):
there and got to put on the whitegloves and I got to hold the guns.
Scott (32:08):
No
way.
That's so cool.
Shawn (32:10):
in the seventies for the, by out all the fields and they're, and
again, they're John Church's guns, sothey're Hamilton's brother-in-laws.
They're the same guns that Philipwas killed with cuz he used them in
Scott (32:22):
Yes.
Shawn (32:23):
family used these guns and there's a reason they used these guns
is in 19, the, the paperwork they gaveme that in 1976 for the bicentennial,
they were gonna make cast molds of theguns to put out, like, to sell like
Franklin Min or whatever they're doing.
Jenn (32:40):
Replicas.
yeah.
Shawn (32:41):
had to open the guns and when they opened the guns, they found something
that nobody had known before, that theseguns were completely set up to win.
John Church was a cheater in these guns.
So first of all, they'rewaited in the front.
, which is illegal in dueling cuzthe gun was supposed to fly, right?
You weren't supposed toactually kill anybody.
(33:02):
It was just supposed toshow up and be a man.
And then the gun would fly up.
The bullet would flyoff and you'd be like,
Scott (33:07):
Just, just because the
kick.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (33:08):
let's hook it out now.
Because we, we did it, we showed we were
Scott (33:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Shawn (33:12):
Secondly, they both have sites, which there should not be sites and guns.
But the real trick was there wasa spring inside of both guns.
And that if you push the triggerforward, sort of backwards, it
released a tension mechanism insideso that you're not putting as much
pressure on the back pole of the gun.
All you have to do is tap it.
(33:33):
And so whoever knew to push thetrigger forward just had to tap
the pistol and the bullet wouldfly faster than the other gun.
And
Scott (33:41):
Whoa.
Shawn (33:42):
speculation Hamilton, Pulse is going well.
According to Hamilton secondPendleton, Hamilton was gonna fire
into the air cuz he is a gentlemanand didn't want burn him to die.
But again, Hamilton hadbeen in lots of dues
at that point hated Burr with a passionand, had lost his own political affair.
And I think it's Roo who speculates, hewas also dying possibly of stomach cancer
(34:03):
at the same time and was hiding it.
And this is a way to take athimself and Burr in the speculation.
Again, it's all speculation.
Burr second William VanNess said thatHamilton was practicing his shot,
holding the gun, aiming, and then heput on his glasses so he can get a
good shot and that he brought the gundown and as he brought the gun down,
(34:25):
it fired quickly and went into a tree.
So the possibility, again,putting it out there.
No proof, but the guns themselves wouldlead you to believe that if that is true,
that Hamilton had pushed the triggerforward and misfired on that quick shot
or maybe accidentally pushed the triggerforward and misfired on the quick shot,
(34:47):
and then Burr just hit a lucky bullet
Scott (34:48):
I have ne I've
Shawn (34:49):
and penetrated Hamilton in two different ways that killed him.
And nobody ever talks about that
Scott (34:54):
No,
that's super.
I've never heard that about the gunsand yeah, like I've, I think I've
heard a little bit about like, himputting the glasses on that he's
intending to take the be right.
A little bit of here andthere, but nothing like that.
That's, that changes the whole
Shawn (35:09):
does, and it's
Scott (35:10):
That's
Shawn (35:11):
papers they give out at the Chase Manhattan Bank.
I just don't know how many people know.
That they've got the archives thereof it and that they cracked it open
in the seventies to, to know that.
And again, all speculation, all youhamiltonians out there, I don't know.
There's no proof justputting it out there.
You do your own critical thinking.
All do my critical thinking and I'm gonnastand with Burr second in his perspective.
(35:36):
You stand with your perspective.
It's
Scott (35:38):
yeah.
. So moving on to the Treason trial.
So I, so I'm curious becauseagain, this is one of those
things, for , the general learner.
, I've probably heard about it.
I was like, oh, yeah, you, I neverheard he got put on trial for
something or other, some sort oftreason, but I was like, yeah.
Then nothing ever happened.
What's , the backstory on
Shawn (35:53):
the backstory is obviously Burr was out of power.
Not
Scott (35:56):
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (35:57):
like a vice president who killed the most popular Secretary of
the Treasury who invented our economicsystem, , and he was tried for murder.
Scott (36:04):
Yeah.
Shawn (36:05):
In New York, even though it was, and again, I'm not gonna
justify it, but it was completelylegal to have dues in New Jersey.
That's why they went and they went on it.
And so he was obviously disgraced.
And that's usually what happened in dues.
When you read about dues.
The person who lived is the person whothen had to bear the weight of being
an awful person for actually killing
Scott (36:27):
Yeah.
Shawn (36:28):
And so Burr lived in what is, well now what's Greenwich Village in New York?
In the village used to be, hisentire estate was Richmond Hill.
So like if you go to a restaurantdown there, one, if I see it's,
it was his carriage house.
There's Gate was at BarrackStreet, all kinds of stuff.
Actually, if you go down to the Village,I think it's on sixth Avenue and
(36:49):
fourth Street, there's a McDonald's.
And if you go to the bathrooms atthe McDonald's, there's a picture of
Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton thatthis used to be, where they walked
so, Burr is disgraced.
He's never gonna get power againwith the Democrat Republican party.
Basically Jefferson ousted him.
Jefferson had already beenangry at him for lots of stuff.
(37:10):
First of all, they tied for thepresidency, and Burr didn't refuse
it, which Jefferson wanted him to.
Okay, well you weren'tsupposed to be president.
This happened by accident.
It's my turn, basically.
And Burr says, I got asmany votes as you did.
I'm just as entitled to it as you are.
And it was actually, they set that upbecause they wanted to eliminate Adam.
(37:33):
and Burr was very popular in NewYork, so they thought he could
take the northern vote and justget squeak underneath Jefferson.
And of course, back then,if you got second place, you
became vice president, right?
And like I said, he refused toimpeach justice chase for political
reasons as president of the Senate.
And that was after he killed Hamilton.
He stood up, made an impassionedspeech in the Senate and said, if
(37:56):
we're gonna preserve something to theeffect of we're gonna preserve the
Senate, we've got to make it free ofcorruption, of political corruption.
It has to be an institutionof just an honor.
And people applauded.
And then he left.
And then basically Jeffersonwas done with him at that point,
which leads to the treason trial.
Jefferson had a vendetta against him.
Scott (38:18):
Yeah.
Shawn (38:19):
himself had so many vendettas, but whole big thing, . So Burr is outta power.
Needs power starts to make friends withkind of these people from the west,
the western farmers from Tennesseeand Kentucky that are in Ohio that are
starting to become a political forcebecause the Democrat Republicans have
(38:41):
ousted the Federalists and DemocratRepublicans of the common man.
The common farmer Burr was one of theinstrumental people in getting them the
right to vote, especially in New Yorkas Attorney General, so that, they could
vote too, not just landed property people.
And they were the party ofimmigrants and they were the party
of, like I said, farmers, likeJefferson said, gentlemen farmers.
(39:02):
And so
Scott (39:04):
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (39:04):
was hanging out with them all the time and they, their complaints
were the Mississippi River.
They had no way to transport.
. No way.
Because Spain was always there.
Spain was always doing shenanigansto New Orleans and the Mississippi
to block their transports.
And there was no way to get stuffoverland through the Appalachians.
(39:24):
Mississippi was there heart andif you're running for president or
you're looking for a popular thing,you're looking for what's popular.
And for them, Spain being the enemywas popular and he wasn't the first.
Everybody else was like, weshould go invade Florida.
We should go invade Texas.
Mexico at the time and we shouldtake Spain out cause they're
(39:46):
cutting trade on the Mississippi.
They're sending raids into Georgia.
They're from Florida.
We should take all this stuff.
And it's, it's not uncommon thateven Jefferson thought about it.
Hamilton thought about it during thequai war of 18 90, 80, formed an army.
and he was gonna march on the, on Spainuntil Adams wanting his power back,
(40:08):
signed the treaty with, with Franceso that Spain wouldn't have to fight.
And Hamilton lost his commissionpassed his anti-immigrant legislation.
So Hamilton
Scott (40:20):
Thank you.
Shawn (40:22):
the alien
Jenn (40:22):
Immigrant anti-immigrant legislation.
Shawn (40:25):
alien illegal aliens, and even immigrants, and tried to
curb people criticizing governmentfor all of his free speech.
But Burr is looking for popularity.
He's looking for a way to getback into power as far as we know.
Like I said, a lot of hisletters and a lot of speculation
exists that, why did he do that?
(40:45):
What, what actually happened at West?
Who knows?
There's so many people involvedin this that have watered it down,
changed stuff, doctored letters butbasically what's happening is Jefferson
had bought the Louisiana purchase.
And he was planning Lewisand Clark's expedition.
And one of the things Jefferson didwas appointed a guy named general James
(41:07):
Wilkinson as governor of LouisianaTerritory, like the whole territory.
And James Wilkinson had been well knownby Bird during the revolution as a guy
who played fast and loose at the rulesas a soldier, it's a possibility he tried
to launch a coup against Washington atone point that bur himself stopped by
(41:27):
taking the bullets out of the soldier'sguns before they could launch the coup.
But Wilkinson was just a, a free forall spirit who lived by his own rules.
And now we know from documents that hewas also probably a triple agent and
working for Spain at the same time.
Desy on
Scott (41:44):
Oh, holy cow.
Shawn (41:45):
our governor of Louisiana.
Scott (41:49):
Oh,
Shawn (41:49):
as Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark James Wilkinson sent pike into the West.
And what we can only assume, againthrough letters and documents is that
Pike went too far and Pike ventured inNew Mexico out of Louisiana Purchase and
Pike was arrested, taken to jail, andthen set free with some speculation that
(42:13):
Wilkinson told him to do that, to seehow far he could launch into Mexico from
Louisiana purchase before he got caught.
And so Pike was part of this
Scott (42:24):
Oh wow.
Shawn (42:26):
And then Burr went on his own expedition.
And so his involved people likeAndrew Jackson and Henry Clay
and a guy named Hyron Harron.
Lenner has it from Lenner HazardIsland between West Virginia and Ohio.
All these kind of very famous Westernlawyers and big name people out west who
were like, we also want to take out Spain.
(42:49):
And so again, we don't know what happenednecessarily, but we do know that Burr at
some point started building what couldbe perceived as an army, and a Navy,
and sailed from Lenner Hazard Islanddown the Ohio River with a Flotilla that
was backed by lots of people with moneylike Jackson, who had invited him to the
(43:10):
Hermitage and supported this endeavor.
Scott (43:13):
Oh, okay.
Shawn (43:14):
they ended up floating down the Mississippi and they ended up
setting up basically a base camp inMississippi, in Natchez, Mississippi.
That's what we knew.
. So,
Scott (43:26):
Yeah.
So, so to be honest, right.
Again, I can see how that might makethe, the current make Jefferson nervous,
a little
bit
Shawn (43:35):
But the thing
Scott (43:36):
know, not saying that what he did was right, but I
can see how he'd be like, oh
yeah, I think
you're trying to
Shawn (43:42):
be great, except for the fact that it was so out in the open, like
everybody knew what was happening.
These were like prominent people and theywere writing letters to Jefferson, Hey,
do you know what Aaron Burr is doing?
Do you know that Aaron Burr isdrifting down the Ohio River?
And it's not like it was a day trip.
It took a while, and Jeffersonknew about it for like a year
and didn't do anything about it.
Jenn (44:02):
yeah.
Shawn (44:03):
I'm just like, well keep monitoring it with the situation.
When it became politically expedientwith his embargo act that suddenly
we were gonna be at war with France,possibly England, possibly, and he
didn't want Spain getting riled up.
Then he decided it was time to arrest.
But we don't know what happened,. We don't know what happened.
(44:26):
Burr's side of the story was theywere going to set up a new territory
in Mississippi that he was gonnaestablish a life there and be a
political kind of force in, in the west.
Probably most likely what they weregonna do was use it as an invasion
point to invade Mexico at Vera.
Cause he had apparently, according topeople like Preble and Eaton who were
(44:51):
like in the Barbery wars, they saw hismaps and his map was, we're gonna launch
a, an assault on Vera Cruzs March toMexico City, which eventually we did.
The US Mexican war was basically,if that is to be true, Aaron Burr's
plan for the invasion of Mexico
And when he sold it
Scott (45:09):
Wow.
Shawn (45:10):
Napoleon's dossier that he also proposed this Napoleon.
And so when the French invadedMexico, they use that plan.
But what happened was, as far as we know,James Wilkinson has a moment of panic.
Because he's allowed bur toLouisiana, Pike's been arrested.
Wilkinson is going tobe implicated in this.
(45:32):
It's probably Wilkinson'swhole plan and scheme.
Anyway, he was probably the one whowanted to cut the west from the east
cuz he wanted his own political power.
He doesn't pay beingpaid as a spy for Spain.
He starts sending correspondence toJefferson and it's heavily edited
like you can see in his letterswhere he erased words and changed
(45:52):
words in his own handwriting.
The, the letters from Burr, like,they'll say things, then he,
there's this eraser mark and it'stotally different handwriting.
Like, I'm gonna secede the west, I'm gonnatake down America, or things like that.
It was clearly
Scott (46:05):
it's, it's like if my, my kid, my kids are trying to, get,
get outta school and they just
Erase it and try to reallyfake my signature there.
Shawn (46:14):
and so suddenly Jefferson's like, oh, we can't have this.
And so he sends out,Soldiers to arrest Brewer.
They chase burs of the South.
He's eventually arrestedlike Alabama ish area.
Wilkinson also sends out peopleto find Burr first, cuz then
he is like, oh, wait a minute,
Scott (46:31):
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (46:32):
what if Burr does get arrested?
And then he sings on me.
So like, it's a race to Kebo.
There's a really good book calledJefferson and the Gunman that's
like all about the race to catchbird, who's gonna win the race.
Burr was eventually knocked out, puton horseback and dragged to Virginia.
At one point he jumped off the horse andhe demanded sanctuary in South Carolina.
(46:53):
I am the vice president,please somebody save me.
But he ended up in Richmond at the trial.
And there was obviouslyall these things going on.
John Marshall was presiding.
They had the pre-hearing whereJefferson was keeping the documents
of why Burr was guilty from the court.
Marshall demanded Jefferson declaredexecutive privilege the first time
(47:15):
executive privilege is declared.
Jefferson says, I don'thave to give you why.
No, he is guilty.
And Marshall's like, you haveto let me know why he is guilty.
It's a trial.
And so Jefferson, the strictconstructivist tries to expand
the definition of treason,loosely into what Burr was doing.
And Marshall's like no, treason is anactual overt act of treason planning
(47:41):
stuff doesn't constitute treason.
And you have no overt act.
There's no point, there's no civilwar happening that you're saying
there is Burr is innocent and they,to prove treason constitution.
He two witnesses.
The only witness was JamesWilkinson Burden had, they
didn't have two witnesses.
The witnesses they had that stoodup were clearly outta their mind.
(48:03):
They were dismissedand Burr was dismissed.
And then Jefferson wasn't happy andhad him tried all over the place
and all the states he ventured to.
And Henry Clay was hislawyer in Kentucky and.
Burr left.
He's like, I can't do this.
And he fled to Europe and wentto England, tried to sell his
Scott (48:20):
That's when he
Shawn (48:21):
And then tried to sell his plan to France and Napoleon wouldn't
let him out of France becausehe didn't want some other leader
knowing about his plans from Mexico.
And Jefferson wanted him there causehe didn't want Burr coming back.
Eventually Burr had to sneak backin the country in 1812, dressed
as a Frenchman with a goatee and amustache that his name was Adolphus.
Scott (48:44):
Oh my gosh.
Shawn (48:44):
But his luggage said ab.
Jenn (48:46):
when Theodosia goes to see him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's when Theodosia goes to
see
Shawn (48:51):
her letter says, I'm back in
New York, and that's early 1812.
She doesn't know at thetime Aaron Burr had died.
His, her son, his onlygrandson who he called Gampi.
Jenn (49:02):
Yes.
Shawn (49:04):
and she was sick from the death and it had been a rough childbirth.
Anyway, she'd been really sicksince she gave birth to him.
It led to a lot of feverand internal bleeding.
And so she wasn't able to leave tillDecember 31st and she set sail with his
Scott (49:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, we
Shawn (49:19):
see him.
Scott (49:20):
with his papers.
Shawn (49:22):
all we know is that a British fleet, cuz it's about the war.
It's the war of 1812.
And so a British fleet pulled thepatriot over, pull over , and did a
check, said that she was on board.
That was the last time we heard of her.
Then she vanished and either, like yousaid in the video, a hurricane destroyed
the boat, which is obviously very likely.
(49:44):
But in 1820 there were two piratesin a jail cell in New Orleans who
said that they had killed her.
That they'd taken her and killedher and made her walk the plank.
and she drowned,
burr would for the two months cuznobody knew what happened to the ship.
And Olson was out of his mind,Burr was out of his mind.
(50:05):
Burr would go down to the NewYork Harbor every day and stand
on the harbor for hours they said.
And just wait for the ship to come in
Scott (50:11):
Oh.
Shawn (50:12):
never came in.
And so, but, and the lettersstopped being written, so
Scott (50:18):
yeah.
Ship graveyard.
Yeah.
Well, this is, Sean, this is awesome.
This, this is, this hasbeen absolutely amazing.
We've been, we've been goingfor an hour, and I feel like it
went by in about five minutes,
It's amazing to me, all I could thinkabout, when you were telling me all
the things that, that Aaron Bur wasdoing, I was like, this guy was a
busy.
man.
He did all this stuff.
(50:38):
He was in, he was involved in all thisdifferent politics and all this mm-hmm.
, all these different things and like,doing questionable things with a
flotilla down the, down the Mississippi.
You know why his decision or not,and then runs off to Europe and he is
interacting with Napoleon in differentcountries and comes back and, yeah.
All these crazy things.
Shawn (50:56):
They would talk about how Burr was alone and you just, you'd see
this guy shuffling up and down thestreets of New York and people were
like, well, that's, that's Aaron Burr.
And he'd ride boats on the, he'dride ferries to Wee Hawking and he'd
write letters about, that time Ishot my friend Alexander Hamilton.
And the great part about the musicalthat I do love is when they they quote
his journal, which is, if I had beensmart enough or if I'd been, kind enough
(51:22):
or patient enough, I would've seen theworld was big enough for both of us.
That comes directly from his journal.
He says, if I had read more
Scott (51:29):
That's
Shawn (51:30):
of these books rather than these books, I would've seen that It's
a, he Tristan Shandy or something.
He reads a guy who has a fly andthen lets the fly flat of the window
instead of killing it, and he says, ifI had, read more of those books than
less of the other books, then I couldhave seen The world was big enough
for Hamilton and I'd live together.
Jenn (51:49):
Yeah.
How often do you meetyour Aaron Bur society?
Do you meet monthly anddo you meet in person?
Shawn (51:55):
They, the Borough Association meets basically right now, twice a year.
We, we, with Covid, we startedmeeting on his birthday, which
again is when the dues are dues.
Sorry, Stewart, if you're watching,they're coming, which is February 6th
which at my house means birthday cake andit's, we celebrate Aaron birthday, cause
Scott (52:14):
Aw, nice.
Aw, that's awesome.
Shawn (52:15):
Usually they meet for a week long conference in September,
October revolving around somethingthat has to do with Aaron Burr.
So this year they're meeting in Virginia.
Charlottesville.
They're gonna go to Monticello.
They're gonna go to James Madison's house.
James Monroe's house.
They're gonna get tours of allof that because it's such an
important part of Burr's life
people are interested in the BoroughAssociation, I can definitely give you
(52:38):
guys the address that they can inquirefrom our president, Stuart Johnson, who
is so a lot of the Borough Associationis descendants of Aaron Burr's cousins.
Because obviously he has noofficial direct descendants.
Scott (52:53):
Yeah, we'll put the Yes, send, definitely send me the information cuz
for anybody watching or listening, , I'll,I'll put that information in , the video
description of the podcast description.
, and Sean, , this is, this hasbeen incredibly educational
for someone like me.
Yeah.
I love and really, really interestingthe stories that you've been telling.
I, I'm, , It's a little bit mindblowing for me, , for one single
(53:13):
person like this who's reallyremembered for a couple things , and
could be remembered for so much more.
Shawn (53:19):
That's usually what people ask me is where do I start?
Where do I jump off tolearn about Aaron Burr?
Scott (53:23):
Yeah, absolutely.
Shawn (53:24):
I, of always recommend Arnold Drogas book a Fatal Friendship.
If you can find a copy of it,it, I think does the best job
of being kind to both of them.
So obviously you have like JosephEllis, founding Brothers, where Burr
is a villain in that book and youhave turnout's book that is obviously
the gold standard of Hamilton.
But I like this book becauseit just portrays that their sad
(53:46):
destiny of how they both were raisedthe same way and their lives and
intertwined and law and friendship.
And it's just the, the breakdown ofa friendship to the point where one
friend kills the other and has todeal with that the rest of their.
it does a lot of great research in it.
So I would say if you're gonnastart somewhere, start with
(54:06):
Arnold RGAs, fatal Friendship.
There's a lot of great new books,Nancy Eisenberg, HW Brands, lot of
lot of bur books coming out thatpeople are starting to, to write.
Scott (54:16):
Sean, thank you so much for joining us, Mike, this, this really
has been super fun because I cantell, just like Jen here, right?
You truly do have a, a passionfor this historical topic.
And when someone has a passion likethis for a topic on history, it's so
much more fun to, to learn mm-hmm.
about that topic fromthat person, from you.
So I, I really do
(54:37):
appreciate you coming
Shawn (54:38):
you guys having me on.
Scott (54:39):
with us tonight.
And for anyone else listening, if you knowanyone else that might enjoy this podcast,
please share it with them, especiallyif they are an Aaron Burr fan because
we rely on you, our community to grow.
And we appreciate y'all every day.
We'll talk to you next time.
Thank you.
welcome to Talk With History.
I'm your host Scott, here withmy wife and historian Jen.
Hello.
On this podcast, we give you insightsto our history inspired World Travels
YouTube channel journey, and examinehistory through deeper conversations
with the curious, the explorers,and the history lovers out there.
Now tonight, as you can see, wefinally have another guest back
(01:02):
on, first Guest of the New Year.
Today we are joined by SeanCurtis, a colleague of Jen's,
teacher and card carrying memberof the Erin Burr Association.
Welcome, Sean
Shawn (01:12):
Hello.
Thank you for having me.
Scott (01:15):
Absolutely happy to have you.
Now, before we get into chatting withSean, I do want to ask for anybody
that's watching the live stream, go aheadand give it a, like, share the video.
If you are listening on the Talk withHistory podcast, please share it.
Leave us a review on Apple Podcast orSpotify, wherever you're listening,
because the reviews truly helpus grow and the sooner you give
us those likes, the sooner we cancatch up to the History Channel.
(01:37):
Yes.
With their millions uponmillions of followers.
So please help us out.
, we're coming for you.
History Channel.
Shawn (01:43):
All they're talking about is aliens and Nazis, right?
So you've
Scott (01:45):
yeah, we're gonna, we can bring history back to the History channel
if they ever want to have a song.
So,
all right, now our.
Shawn (01:53):
right?
They've burned out all their
Scott (01:54):
That's right, that's right.
Now our guest tonight is SeanCurtis, as I said earlier, and Sean
is a 24 year veteran social studiesteacher with a master's in education.
He's been a teacher in Wyoming, NewJersey, Ohio, and Indiana, and has
taught a variety of subjects that haveincluded economics, government, and
yes, our favorite history, . Shawnhas studied culture all over the world
(02:18):
from working in a Russian orphanage,helping construct a school in Guatemala
to leading students to Greece, Italy,France, and this summer to Eastern Europe.
Two summers ago, he even received agrant from the Eli Lilly Foundation to
Travel Route 66 for two weeks to recordAmerican culture in a pandemic world.
(02:38):
That's such a cool opportunity Now,Sean's true historical passion is
the stories of the underdog andthose that history has wounded.
His classroom is framed with picturesof figures like Jack Johnson,
Josh Gibson, and yes, Aaron Burr.
Sean has been a card carrying member ofthe Aaron Burr Association ever since
(02:58):
he first discovered the history of AaronBurr at the University of Wyoming, but
way back in the nineties, and he has beenworking a clear burr's name ever since.
So, welcome and thank you so muchfor joining us tonight, Sean.
Yes, thank
Shawn (03:10):
century, right?
Scott (03:11):
That's right, tell us a little bit about yourself, maybe
some stuff I didn't cover, and howyou discovered Aaron Burr and , got
hooked on that underdog history
Shawn (03:21):
sure.
Let me clear up one historicalmistruth right away.
Scott (03:25):
All right.
Shawn (03:26):
in the Aaron Bur Association, our dues are due on Aaron Burr's
birthday, which is February 6th.
And this year I did notsend them in on time.
I
Scott (03:36):
Oh, no.
Shawn (03:37):
So the check is getting to the people.
So right now, be honest,I'm between my cards,
Scott (03:44):
Okay.
All right,
Shawn (03:45):
Stuart, if you're listening, they're on their way.
And I will be an Aaron BurrBerg card caring member again
great, a great question.
So, when I went to the Universityof Wyoming in education and had to
take quite a few history classes andI took, actually took an extra year.
One of the classes Itook was a class with Dr.
Frank Van Nas called History of the USWest, which I've had the opportunity to
(04:07):
teach at, at, at, at high school as well.
So it's been fun.
But the thing that stands out the mostin my mind from that semester was he was
talking about the treason trial of AaronBurr and how Aaron Burr was accused by
Jefferson of trying to secede the westernhalf of the United States from the east.
A lightning moment I thought.
I've never heard this in anyhistory class I've ever been in.
(04:29):
I, we all took US history, wetook US history in whatever grades
we had to take at eighth grade.
11th grade took so many historyclasses in college for US history
cuz you take the basic US historyand then the social history.
And never once did I hear anythingabout Aaron Burr other than
he killed Alexander Hamilton.
Of course the famous milk ad, withthe peanut butter and the Aaron
Jenn (04:50):
Yeah.
With the peanut butter.
Commercial (05:02):
And that was the Vienna wood dancing D one of my all-time favorites.
And now let's make that randomcall with today's $10,000 question.
It's a tough one.
Who shot Alexander Hamiltonin that famous duel?
All right, let's go to thephones and see who's out there.
(05:24):
Hello, hello for $10,000.
Who?
Sh.
Excuse me.
Hang on.
Lemme mom, I'm afraidyour time is almost done.
I'm sorry.
Maybe next time
(05:48):
got.
Jenn (05:49):
Yeah.
That's how people knew that
before
Shawn (05:52):
It's, yeah.
Yeah.
It's all people ever talked aboutwas all Aaron Burr was, was the
killer of Alexander Hamilton.
Scott (05:59):
Mm-hmm.
. Yep.
Shawn (06:00):
I thought, oh my gosh, this guy has a whole life beyond the Hamilton
story, where he was embroiled in thesepolitics in the west and arrested and
taken to a treason trial on horsebackwith John Marshall presiding and his
lawyer was Washington Irving and LutherMartin and in Henry Clay as a lawyer.
(06:21):
And he was embroiled into stuff withAndrew Jackson and, and William Henry
Harrison, and so many great names inAmerican history that were all tied
to this trial that he was a part of.
And gosh, I've, this is so new, thishistory that they've just left him out.
It's settled law thatAaron Burr was a villain.
He killed Hamilton and that was it.
Scott (06:42):
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (06:43):
weirdly enough I was walking around campus one day and the
library was having a book sale.
and I went in Cuz oh Books,history . And they had a 25
cent copy of Gore Dolls Burr,
just sitting on the tablethat no one was buying.
Pick it up and read it.
(07:03):
And I was just, I was hooked.
All the things that Burr did and hisideologies, how he tried to get women
the right to vote and fought for win'srights, and fought to free the slaves
Mannu mission in New York and broughtwater to the people of New York.
He's the inventor of Chase ManhattanBank, where he brought freshwater
to people, the cure cholera, thatHamilton and him were law partners and
(07:26):
tried the first murder trial togetherin New York and that they, hung out.
And all this story upon storywithin, and I know it's historical
fiction, but I was, this is amazing.
And so what else can I doto find more about this?
And so I, it.
The early days of the internetback then, and looked up stuff.
And they told me that there was aprofessor from American University in
(07:49):
Washington DC named Samuel Engel Burr, whohad taught long ago a class on Aaron Burr.
And Kim, the founder of the movement.
He had formed the Aaron Bur Association.
And I said, gosh, wherecan I find this guy's work?
And so I looked and theysaid, you can find this work
at the University of Wyoming.
(08:09):
What?
And so I went in the library andsure enough, weird coincidence, Sam
Lee bur the founder of the Aaron BurAssociation, had given his entire
Aaron Bur library to whatever professorprobably Phil Roberts is what people said.
Dr.
Roberts, who you know well knownat University of Wyoming to give
him his library as colleagues.
And so down in the basement ofColi at the University of Wyoming
(08:33):
is an entire Aaron Bur library.
Dossier is on Aaron Burr fromNapoleon, his lecture notes from
his class, just on and on and on.
And I, I, I stayed down there andthat they, picked up a book called
fatal Friendship by Arnold Roo, allabout kind of the, the love hate
relationship between Hamilton and Burr.
And wrote Arnold Roo, who was stillalive at the time and said, you're
(08:57):
a member of the Bur Association.
How do I become a memberof the Bur Association?
And he gave me their, andI've been a member ever since
Scott (09:07):
Quite a history for yourself in Yeah.
In becoming involved in that.
Now if I, if I'm gonna step back alittle bit, cuz I'm definitely gonna
dive down some of those rabbit holeswith you here in, in just a little bit.
Yes.
I wanna do that too.
But one of the things that I,I wanna touch on really quickly
first is the video, right?
So , we just posted our videoabout the, , the grave site
(09:27):
of the female stranger, right?
In, in Alexandria.
Yes.
And one of it sounds like one ofthe running theories that this grave
site is potentially the grave site ofAaron Burr's, daughter Theodosia burr.
. Alston.
Now.
. For folks who have watched the video,and if you're watching this video or
listening to the podcast after the fact,I encourage you to go watch the video.
(09:48):
Mm-hmm.
and I'm curious if that's a, a runningtheory that that's discussed in, in
the Aaron Bur association's circles.
Cuz I think Yeah, I think youwere one of the earlier comments
that we saw on the on the video.
Shawn (10:00):
So we would probably be in disagreement with it,
Scott (10:05):
Okay.
Yeah.
Cuz
Jenn (10:06):
you probably don't give it any
credence probably,
Shawn (10:09):
heard all kinds of stuff that it's almost like an Anastasia type deal where
Scott (10:13):
Yeah.
Oh,
Shawn (10:14):
forward afterwards and pretending to be theodosia.
Cuz she was, she was quitethe celebrity of the time.
As far as women went, she was outspoken.
She was well learned.
She, they said she had an IQ of 175,
Scott (10:30):
Whoa.
Wow.
Shawn (10:31):
yeah.
, right?
And she, Erin, and that, that waspurposeful because Burr was such
a huge supporter of women's rightsand he hadn't been necessarily
a supporter of women's right.
Early on in his life at Princetonwhen he was young and in the
military where he was drifting.
But once he met her mother, TheodosiaTheodosia was a big fan of Mary Wall.
(10:52):
Stone Craft.
The early feminist writer,Mary Shelly's mom, and
Jenn (10:56):
Mary Shelly's mom.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (10:58):
he read it and absorbed it.
And when they had, theyactually had four kids.
Thei had kids from her firstmarriage with George Prevo.
She was much older than her.
They had four kids together.
Two of them died as Stillbirths.
Their daughter Sally died when she wastwo, and Theodosia was the only child to
live on, and she was his pride and joy.
And so one of the things he'll write andwrite to Theodosia his wife, and then I'll
(11:22):
write a lot to Theodosia, his daughter.
Was that through them, they taught himwhat he didn't know before and what
wasn't popular at the time that women.
Are powerful, that women can think thatwomen have an equality that they deserve.
And so he was gonna prove it through her.
So they raised her to speak Greek,Latin, French language upon language
(11:43):
upon language study, mass study
Scott (11:45):
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (11:46):
could debate anything at any party with anybody.
And so she was popular and
Scott (11:51):
Yeah,
Shawn (11:52):
of a huge figure of the day.
And so, yeah, like I said, it's almostan Anastasia type thing where people were
claiming to be her, but the letters thatthey wrote to each other were legendary.
Matthew Davis, his biographer kept alli the letters that he didn't burn when
he was editing burr's life is that, thislove story between father and daughter.
(12:15):
And HW Brands wrote a really good bookcalled The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr.
Which is all about thatrelationship between him and Theo.
And if it was her in that grave and shelived two years beyond her death there's
no correspondence between the two of them.
And he
Jenn (12:36):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Why would she not talk to her
Shawn (12:38):
Yeah.
Why would she not talk to him?
Why would she not write to her husbandwho was also devastated and basically
led to his death from misery sickness?
So
Scott (12:48):
I think , you're a lot like Jen when it comes to history.
, you're not gonna sugarcoat it.
, this is the fact, this is.
, it seems very improbable.
. And, and I think even Jen talksthrough that in the video.
Mm-hmm.
a little bit.
You talk through
of like This doesn't make sensethat it would be her Yeah.
Because of these reasons and those
Shawn (13:03):
Yeah, and showing up with a new husband and I, I was reading that
some people thought it was Napoleon indisguise dressed like a woman that he'd
escaped, and that's before he went back
Jenn (13:14):
stay
Shawn (13:14):
recapture France.
And there's just a whole lot of differentpeople that it might've been, but it
just, for us, it, I would, I wouldassume, but I don't wanna speak for the
whole Aaron Bur association, but it,it just, from the biographies and the
readings, there's just no correspondence.
Jenn (13:28):
Yeah.
So one of the questions I hadfor you, Sean was one of these
portraits of Theodosia andthere's a couple portraits of her.
They ended up at Yale and eventhough Burr is associated with
Princeton, because and he's buried atPrinceton, her portraits are at Yale.
(13:50):
And why are her portraits at Yale?
Shawn (13:53):
So it's a, it's a family history.
The burs, the familyburr is from Connecticut.
They're from Fairfield, Connecticutwith the first Burr, who is j
Huber came over from England.
They centered themselves as ministersand reverends in Connecticut.
They were very well-to-do ReverendFamily, the burs, and they married
into other Reverend families.
(14:13):
So, for example, Aaron Burr's Grandpawas Jonathan Edwards, the founder of
The Great Awakening as a preacher.
On his mother's side.
So the Edwards married the
Scott (14:23):
Wow.
Shawn (14:24):
and so the Yale archives is all the Burr family papers from all the births
in Connecticut and Aaron Burr's stuff
Jenn (14:33):
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (14:34):
mixed in because it was passed down to cousins and then
the cousins donated to Yale.
Burr's family were the foundersof Princeton with Jonathan
Jenn (14:45):
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (14:46):
So his dad, Aaron Burr Sr, was one of the founding fathers of Princeton.
And Burr went there and he is buriedthere and his father's buried there.
His mother buried nearby,
Scott (14:55):
That's, that's one of the things that I appreciate about having
subject matter experts like yourselfon, on history topics like this.
Because to your point we opened upsaying like, yeah, everybody knows
Burr for . basically two things.
Yeah.
Shooting Hamilton and possibly, all, allthis bad stuff he was accused of later.
But there's, there's so manyinteresting things, right?
As someone who is around in such api, , the core pivotal era mm-hmm.
(15:19):
, of the founding of this country.
It's, now that you talk about it, I'mnot surprised that his family founded.
An institution here.
Yeah.
And was, was, working, and worked with,numerous famous other historical figures.
But again, when it comes down to highschool history, you get, you don't
(15:39):
get to get into the weeds like that.
You get the, yep.
Here's the two sentences about the thirdvice president of the United States.
Mm-hmm.
. And that's most, that's mostly it, right?
We don't get
Shawn (15:49):
Well, and even some of the books just don't even research at all.
They use lazy research because for them,Aaron Burr's, life of Settled History.
I have a AP textbook we used in ap.
His AP u s history.
that said Aaron Burr was guiltyof Seceding the West when John
Marshall found him not guilty andseven courts found him not guilty.
(16:11):
But the book says hewas guilty cuz it's lazy
Jenn (16:14):
settled history, I like that term.
Yeah.
Settled history is like what peoplejust assume Aaron Burr was a villain
Shawn (16:21):
right.
Jenn (16:22):
because like it's, it's just settled.
Like that's who he isand that's, and it, you
know,
Shawn (16:27):
my favorite Aaron Sorkin line in the social network is
Every creation myth needs a devil.
Scott (16:32):
Hmm.
Shawn (16:32):
And Aaron burs that devil.
Scott (16:33):
yeah.
Jenn (16:34):
Got you.
Sure.
Yeah.
So, so what's the biggestmisconception then about Burr if
you know that he wasn't a devil?
That he's not this like lackadaisicalguy like in Hamilton who doesn't pick
a side and is cowardice in a way.
Like that's not who he is.
Shawn (16:50):
Well.
So with that Aaron Burr wouldwrite about politics as a game.
He wrote, it's a game for fun, for profit.
He saw the sport in it.
He saw what he could do with it.
He saw that he could maneuver through it.
And so, that's not really offcharacter for him as much as it is.
I, what I like about the musical isfor the first time, somebody kind of
(17:11):
little bit put some empathy into him,like he's not just this cold calculating
person who shot Alexander Hamilton.
He is got feelings.
He loves his daughter,he loves the country.
But his life was set for him.
If you're gonna talk about like earlyprivilege in America, his life was
created for him and he hated it.
(17:31):
He didn't want the life for him.
They wanted him to be a minister.
So they sent him to Princetonto train him to be a minister.
He ran away from home quite frequently.
I mean his, well, when he was young.
So his mom and dad both died whenhe was a kid and his sister Sally.
And then they moved in with JonathanEdwards and his wife Jonathan Edwards, of
(17:52):
course being very stern sinners from thehands of an angry God minister, right?
And then they died.
Scott (17:58):
Yeah.
Fire.
Fire and brimstone.
Shawn (18:00):
Yeah, Firestone, find God and before it's too late, and then they died.
And so Aaron Burr and his sister wereleft basically as orphans as little kids.
And they moved in with his unclein Connecticut, who was also,
they pushing the Reverend thing.
And Aaron Burr ran away from homeagain, again and again, again.
He was gonna be a lawyer andhe became like one of the best
(18:21):
lawyers as far as people could see.
He was ki like I said, aimless in wherehe wanted to be and what he wanted to do.
And whereas Hamilton obviously wasmore focused, but it allowed, I think
if you read the books, Aaron Burr,to be friendlier more of somebody
you'd want to hang out with, lessof an ideologue than Hamilton was.
(18:44):
I think it was one of the writers,I think it was either Arnold Roo
or Thomas Fleming who said thatHamilton was com very combative.
He was his way or no way.
And if you crossed him, you were finished.
Burr was just like, let's hang out.
Let's talk politics, let'splay chess, let's have parties.
Scott (19:01):
Yeah.
Shawn (19:01):
so I don't think that was too far off in the play.
But the idea that he didn't lovethe country and want the same
things, what he did, he fought,he's a revolutionary soldier.
He is famous for the Battle of Quebec,where he carried General Montgomery
out of the battlefield on his back.
When General Montgomery was shot, whichdrew his attention to George Washington,
(19:23):
who made him one of his aides, which
Scott (19:26):
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (19:27):
Burr was not the best military aid.
That's where he about Hamilton.
He would read George Washington's mail.
He's famous in some circles, insome theories that he would pass a
rumor that George Washington shouldbe called his Royal Pear Shapeness.
Cause tiny head big,
Scott (19:42):
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Shawn (19:45):
his,
Scott (19:47):
Yeah.
So, so you, yeah.
So, so you mentioned some ofthe accuracies in inaccuracies
of of Hamilton, like when, whenHamilton first came out, right?
We, we have to, let's justbroach the Hamilton topic now,
the play and all that stuff.
Like, I have the book when,when that first came out,
when it first hit the scene.
Like h how did, how didthe whole you your what?
(20:08):
What'd you call yourselfearlier before we were on air?
The, the Burr rights.
The bur
rights.
Is that, how did the Bur Rightcommunity react to, to Hamilton?
Yeah.
And just kind of like, what was a littlebit of a vilification, of Aaron Burr.
It's, it twofold,
Jenn (20:20):
right?
Because Aaron Burr is telling thestory, so it's cool that he gets to
narrate a whole story, but then itis ki you're not telling a complete
Scott (20:28):
story.
Shawn (20:29):
There's a, there's a lot of omission in it
Scott (20:32):
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (20:34):
from my thought, I just, I would say that, and again, not speaking for
everybody, but just knowing what I knowand knowing kind of the, the pain of
people who support Aaron Burr, it's a longhistory of trying to fight against the.
Scott (20:51):
Yeah.
Yeah,
Shawn (20:52):
lot of people still who have a very vested interest in keeping Aaron Burr
from a positive view in the history books.
And it's in the lecture notes of SamuelBurr, he writes that he wrote a book
about Theodosia and Burr's relationship.
And the publisher told him if thiswas anti bur I'd publish it, but
it's pro-Burr so I can't publish it.
Cuz he's seen as a
Scott (21:12):
interesting.
Oh
Shawn (21:13):
And I've faced off against people before who tell me that I'm a traitor.
That I support a traitor, that Ican't possibly love this country
because my idol is a traitor.
And again, he was declarednot guilty of treason, but,
and there was never any proof.
And John Marshall declared it, but theydon't understand, what led to that duel.
(21:35):
And because there's so little informationand for B for Bird actually comes back
to theodosia, the, the sadness of it.
is, he had documents, he had papers,he had records of the times of all
these people he associated with.
But when he fled to Europe after thetreason trial, he left it with her and she
was bringing it back to him on the ship.
(21:58):
And
Jenn (21:59):
the Patriot
Scott (21:59):
that was lost.
Oh,
Shawn (22:01):
went with it, like all these
Scott (22:03):
okay.
Shawn (22:04):
And so what's left is his private journal, which was edited
by Matthew Davis and any letters hehad in correspondence he had after.
And then there's some things ofletters that they've gathered from
other people, like he was friendswith like Jeremy Bentham and England
and Andrew Jackson and all thesepeople that have letters from him.
(22:25):
But he, he can't defend himself.
And so he became a victim of peoplere-editing history to pigeonhole him
into the villain and he can't fight back.
And so,
Jenn (22:37):
Well, okay, so let's hit on those two things.
What do people not know about the dual,like the dual with Alexander Hamilton?
In the musical.
They make it about the
election, but it wasn't about the
Shawn (22:50):
like, if people were critical of it, they would say,
wait, it took four years for hisanger to boil over to a dual.
Cause they didn't shoot till1804 and the election was 1800.
So that's one of the things that I, Iliked the music, but that omission in
itself really changes the focus of it.
Cuz again, it might come back toTheodosia and people will disagree
(23:13):
with this or agree with that.
It's a theory.
Aaron Burr put up with a lotof criticism in his life, like
a lot, especially in 1800.
Thomas Jefferson was very good athaving people installed in Democratic
Republican post offices, newspaperoffices that would just smear, read mail,
publish mail, and Burr took a a on thechin in that and didn't go to War's.
(23:39):
Jefferson, he took on his vice presidentrole and Jefferson was really cold to him.
And there's classic fights betweenthe two of them, like where Jefferson
tried to impeach Justice Chasebecause he was Federalist and Burr
as president of the Senate stood inhis way and said, we can't turn this
chamber into a political monster.
Yeah, so that, that in themusical I'm like, there's a
(24:00):
four year gap people come on.
It's
Jenn (24:02):
Mm-hmm.
. Yeah.
Yeah.
They're not fighting about the
Shawn (24:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Burr stopped famously, and this isone thing people probably don't know,
is when the Maria Reynolds affair broke,which I was actually really happy, was
in the play, cuz for a very long time,I don't think Hamiltonians were very
pleased with the Maria Reynolds affair.
I remember asking about it once at theGrange Hamilton's house, and it was not
received well by the tour guide . Andthat was back in like the early nineties.
(24:28):
James Monroe was responsiblefor publishing that story or so
Hamilton thought and Hamiltonchallenged him to a duel.
So Hamilton and Monroe almostwent to Duel and Burr was the one
who stood in the way and stoppedit and negotiated the dual out.
So they didn't fightand Burr did that a lot.
Like Hamilton would lose histemper, Burr would guide his temper
(24:51):
away cuz they were law partners.
They lived down the street whenthey lived in lower Manhattan.
The question has always been what wouldbreak Aaron Burr to the point where he'd
be willing to go to Wee Hawk and, andhave pistols cuz he wasn't a good shot.
People were, well, he waswell known as big a bad shot.
He was well known as beingsomeone who didn't play things
(25:13):
based on anger and honor.
Like he took a lot of names,he took a lot of abuse and
didn't declare duals on people.
Hamilton had been involvedin almost 11 duals or close
duals And obviously his son.
This is a family streak,
pistols.
were his brother-in-law's.
Angelica's husband John Church,who also wasn't a lot of duals.
(25:34):
And so, The one theory that people haveand that people have arrived at is the
thing that would break Aaron Burr isif you took down his relationship with
Theodosia because he loved her morethan life and she with the death of
her mom and his wife was his hostess.
Like, just like Thomas Jeffersonand his daughter, she was his
host this after his wife died.
(25:55):
While we know is that Hamilton wrotein a newspaper, Wal Burr was running
for governor of New York and willinglyBurr changes the Federalist Party cuz
the Democrat Republicans had abandonedhim and that was seen as opportunism.
And Hamilton wasn't pleased because he'shead of the Federalist Party or was,
and he got hold of his media buddiesand he wrote in the paper and spread a
(26:18):
rumor that said, if you think Burr isbad, I have an even worse opinion and
I know something even worse about him,or more despicable he says about him.
And so, Goral and other people speculatethat what that was was he was accusing
Aaron Burr of incest with Theodosia.
He would, in private letters, when theywould cipher, he would often write, cuz
(26:41):
he was clever, Hamilton was very clever.
He would write Greek character names forlike Jefferson and like having two faces.
And he'd write these names forpeople based on Greek mythology.
And with Burr it was close to, hewould sometimes write it according
to some theories that Burr was hischaracter in Greek mythology who
(27:01):
was sleeping with his own family.
And so,
Jenn (27:04):
And that was enough to push Burr over the edge?
Shawn (27:07):
wrote him a letter and he said, Hey, what is this
opinion that you have of me?
And that's all we know.
Like, we don't know what it was.
Hamilton wrote him back, but Hamiltonwas so over it like, it's, it's a funny
exchange even though it led to death.
Hamilton instead of apologizingwrote a letter back criticizing
(27:28):
Aaron Burr's grammar.
Like, what's the matter?
Don't you know how to, don't you knowhow to challenge somebody to a duel?
Don't you know how the stuff starts?
Where's your, where's your commas?
Where's your sentence structure?
Scott (27:38):
Talk, talk about a hothead, that, that's Hamilton.
that's, that's,
Shawn (27:42):
back,
like, what are you doing?
And he wrote, hit back.
And it went on for a month untilBurr told him, look, I want you to
apologize for every bad thing you'veever said about me in your life, to
anybody you've ever said anything.
And Hamilton said, no,I'm not gonna do that.
So you better just challenge me.
And so they went to Wee Hawking.
Scott (28:02):
Yeah.
Wow.
That's, that's why, it's, it's so funny.
Like,
Jenn (28:06):
so they don't really even get into that.
They, they just gloss over all of that.
Makes it easier for
Scott (28:11):
It's so fun to kind of hear, hear this, this perspective, right?
Because again, I, I joke allthe time on the podcast, like,
I am not a history buff, right?
, I, I, I could like tell you a littlebit about what Hamilton the play
was at, was about, but like, Ican't re speak to it intelligently.
No.
But one of the things you saw once that,that I've enjoyed when we've been down
to Colonial Williamsburg a whole bunchof times, and we've talked once or twice
(28:32):
about some of the reenactors there.
And so Martha Washington, we'vegot to see her a couple times.
And we saw a solo performance that shedid for like the audience one time,
and she was very good about answeringquestions from the kids in the audience.
So when she would talkabout whatever era mm-hmm.
she was, saying she was in, whetherit's, pre, before her husband was
president or after she was newly elected.
(28:53):
Yeah.
Newly elected.
He was newly elected.
She would answer questions fromthe audience and she would, if a
kid was raising their hand, shewould always go right to the kid.
And of course, so of course a couple,one or two Hamilton questions came up.
And even she in her characterwould very politely right.
As.
I guess you would expect of a woman , and,who's the . First Lady or whatever
would make these like sly kind of digs.
(29:14):
Like, oh, I don't, I'm not gonnareally talk too much about Hamilton.
There's a reason they call him the
Tom Kat and this, that, and the other.
Shawn (29:20):
because
Scott (29:22):
That's, that's right.
So it's, it's always interestingfor me to hear more about this.
And one of the questions we actually hadin the chat from Facebook was, are there,
do you know of any Aaron Bur Reenacters?
This is a friend of ours, Doug McLarty.
Mm-hmm.
Like there are for Jeffersonor Hamilton, and we've come
across other, other Reenacters.
Have you ever seen or comeacross any Aaron Burr?
(29:43):
Reenacters?
Yeah.
I, I imagine that'd be a little bit more
rare.
Shawn (29:46):
it's gonna be rare, but I'll tell you in 2004, We in the Aaron
Bur Association had a reenactment ofthe duel for the 200th anniversary
of the due with the hamiltonians.
Scott (29:57):
Oh,
cool.
Shawn (29:59):
There were sit-downs, there were lots of conversations, there
was compromises that were made.
Who's gonna get to speak first,who's gonna get to give the
first interview to the media?
And in that dual, we had AntonioBurr, who's one of our most prominent
members, and very scholarly.
If I know things about AaronBurr, he knows everything.
(30:21):
, Aaron Burr is quite
Scott (30:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Shawn (30:23):
He's one of our vice presidents of the organization.
He played Aaron Burr in that reenactment.
So, but otherwise, very uncommon.
Definitely the guy the guy who
Jenn (30:34):
I thought you talked to someone at the Capitol building?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
I thought you talked to someone atthe Capitol building in DC who played
Burr, and you asked him a couplequestions and he knew some of the stuff.
I remember you postingsomething like that on Facebook,
Shawn (30:50):
yeah, I mean there was, during Obama's first inauguration, they had
the Jefferson, the guy who was the mostprominent Jefferson Reactor, who I've
met several times at several conferences.
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
In my I may have gotten into itwith the Jefferson Read actor, cuz
he called Aaron Burris Scoundrel.
I told him I'd give him a, I toldhim I'd give him a book list to read
Scott (31:13):
Oh my
Shawn (31:14):
never heard about Andrew Jackson being involved in the trees in trial.
And I said, well baby, you need toread some of these books so that Mr.
Jefferson
Scott (31:21):
Yeah.
Shawn (31:21):
George Washington didn't wanna talk to me Afterwards.
He goes, you don't have any questionsfor me, do you like, I'm good.
I'm just, I'm just a punk kid who
One last thing about the duel, becauseI do want to get this out there because
it's one of those unco un unknown thingsand it's definitely not in the play.
He does mention the play once that,when, the, in the rap that Hamilton
(31:41):
was wearing his glasses, right?
Which came from Hamilton second penPendleton, Nathaniel Pendleton the,
so Chase Manhattan, the bank in NewYork City has the guns because Aaron
Burr is the founder of the ManhattanCompany, which became Chase Manhattan.
They're in a vault.
One time I was sweet talk enough whenI lived in New York City to get in
(32:03):
there and got to put on the whitegloves and I got to hold the guns.
Scott (32:08):
No
way.
That's so cool.
Shawn (32:10):
in the seventies for the, by out all the fields and they're, and
again, they're John Church's guns, sothey're Hamilton's brother-in-laws.
They're the same guns that Philipwas killed with cuz he used them in
Scott (32:22):
Yes.
Shawn (32:23):
family used these guns and there's a reason they used these guns
is in 19, the, the paperwork they gaveme that in 1976 for the bicentennial,
they were gonna make cast molds of theguns to put out, like, to sell like
Franklin Min or whatever they're doing.
Jenn (32:40):
Replicas.
yeah.
Shawn (32:41):
had to open the guns and when they opened the guns, they found something
that nobody had known before, that theseguns were completely set up to win.
John Church was a cheater in these guns.
So first of all, they'rewaited in the front.
, which is illegal in dueling cuzthe gun was supposed to fly, right?
You weren't supposed toactually kill anybody.
(33:02):
It was just supposed toshow up and be a man.
And then the gun would fly up.
The bullet would flyoff and you'd be like,
Scott (33:07):
Just, just because the
kick.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (33:08):
let's hook it out now.
Because we, we did it, we showed we were
Scott (33:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Shawn (33:12):
Secondly, they both have sites, which there should not be sites and guns.
But the real trick was there wasa spring inside of both guns.
And that if you push the triggerforward, sort of backwards, it
released a tension mechanism insideso that you're not putting as much
pressure on the back pole of the gun.
All you have to do is tap it.
(33:33):
And so whoever knew to push thetrigger forward just had to tap
the pistol and the bullet wouldfly faster than the other gun.
And
Scott (33:41):
Whoa.
Shawn (33:42):
speculation Hamilton, Pulse is going well.
According to Hamilton secondPendleton, Hamilton was gonna fire
into the air cuz he is a gentlemanand didn't want burn him to die.
But again, Hamilton hadbeen in lots of dues
at that point hated Burr with a passionand, had lost his own political affair.
And I think it's Roo who speculates, hewas also dying possibly of stomach cancer
(34:03):
at the same time and was hiding it.
And this is a way to take athimself and Burr in the speculation.
Again, it's all speculation.
Burr second William VanNess said thatHamilton was practicing his shot,
holding the gun, aiming, and then heput on his glasses so he can get a
good shot and that he brought the gundown and as he brought the gun down,
(34:25):
it fired quickly and went into a tree.
So the possibility, again,putting it out there.
No proof, but the guns themselves wouldlead you to believe that if that is true,
that Hamilton had pushed the triggerforward and misfired on that quick shot
or maybe accidentally pushed the triggerforward and misfired on the quick shot,
(34:47):
and then Burr just hit a lucky bullet
Scott (34:48):
I have ne I've
Shawn (34:49):
and penetrated Hamilton in two different ways that killed him.
And nobody ever talks about that
Scott (34:54):
No,
that's super.
I've never heard that about the gunsand yeah, like I've, I think I've
heard a little bit about like, himputting the glasses on that he's
intending to take the be right.
A little bit of here andthere, but nothing like that.
That's, that changes the whole
Shawn (35:09):
does, and it's
Scott (35:10):
That's
Shawn (35:11):
papers they give out at the Chase Manhattan Bank.
I just don't know how many people know.
That they've got the archives thereof it and that they cracked it open
in the seventies to, to know that.
And again, all speculation, all youhamiltonians out there, I don't know.
There's no proof justputting it out there.
You do your own critical thinking.
All do my critical thinking and I'm gonnastand with Burr second in his perspective.
(35:36):
You stand with your perspective.
It's
Scott (35:38):
yeah.
. So moving on to the Treason trial.
So I, so I'm curious becauseagain, this is one of those
things, for , the general learner.
, I've probably heard about it.
I was like, oh, yeah, you, I neverheard he got put on trial for
something or other, some sort oftreason, but I was like, yeah.
Then nothing ever happened.
What's , the backstory on
Shawn (35:53):
the backstory is obviously Burr was out of power.
Not
Scott (35:56):
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (35:57):
like a vice president who killed the most popular Secretary of
the Treasury who invented our economicsystem, , and he was tried for murder.
Scott (36:04):
Yeah.
Shawn (36:05):
In New York, even though it was, and again, I'm not gonna
justify it, but it was completelylegal to have dues in New Jersey.
That's why they went and they went on it.
And so he was obviously disgraced.
And that's usually what happened in dues.
When you read about dues.
The person who lived is the person whothen had to bear the weight of being
an awful person for actually killing
Scott (36:27):
Yeah.
Shawn (36:28):
And so Burr lived in what is, well now what's Greenwich Village in New York?
In the village used to be, hisentire estate was Richmond Hill.
So like if you go to a restaurantdown there, one, if I see it's,
it was his carriage house.
There's Gate was at BarrackStreet, all kinds of stuff.
Actually, if you go down to the Village,I think it's on sixth Avenue and
(36:49):
fourth Street, there's a McDonald's.
And if you go to the bathrooms atthe McDonald's, there's a picture of
Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton thatthis used to be, where they walked
so, Burr is disgraced.
He's never gonna get power againwith the Democrat Republican party.
Basically Jefferson ousted him.
Jefferson had already beenangry at him for lots of stuff.
(37:10):
First of all, they tied for thepresidency, and Burr didn't refuse
it, which Jefferson wanted him to.
Okay, well you weren'tsupposed to be president.
This happened by accident.
It's my turn, basically.
And Burr says, I got asmany votes as you did.
I'm just as entitled to it as you are.
And it was actually, they set that upbecause they wanted to eliminate Adam.
(37:33):
and Burr was very popular in NewYork, so they thought he could
take the northern vote and justget squeak underneath Jefferson.
And of course, back then,if you got second place, you
became vice president, right?
And like I said, he refused toimpeach justice chase for political
reasons as president of the Senate.
And that was after he killed Hamilton.
He stood up, made an impassionedspeech in the Senate and said, if
(37:56):
we're gonna preserve something to theeffect of we're gonna preserve the
Senate, we've got to make it free ofcorruption, of political corruption.
It has to be an institutionof just an honor.
And people applauded.
And then he left.
And then basically Jeffersonwas done with him at that point,
which leads to the treason trial.
Jefferson had a vendetta against him.
Scott (38:18):
Yeah.
Shawn (38:19):
himself had so many vendettas, but whole big thing, . So Burr is outta power.
Needs power starts to make friends withkind of these people from the west,
the western farmers from Tennesseeand Kentucky that are in Ohio that are
starting to become a political forcebecause the Democrat Republicans have
(38:41):
ousted the Federalists and DemocratRepublicans of the common man.
The common farmer Burr was one of theinstrumental people in getting them the
right to vote, especially in New Yorkas Attorney General, so that, they could
vote too, not just landed property people.
And they were the party ofimmigrants and they were the party
of, like I said, farmers, likeJefferson said, gentlemen farmers.
(39:02):
And so
Scott (39:04):
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (39:04):
was hanging out with them all the time and they, their complaints
were the Mississippi River.
They had no way to transport.
. No way.
Because Spain was always there.
Spain was always doing shenanigansto New Orleans and the Mississippi
to block their transports.
And there was no way to get stuffoverland through the Appalachians.
(39:24):
Mississippi was there heart andif you're running for president or
you're looking for a popular thing,you're looking for what's popular.
And for them, Spain being the enemywas popular and he wasn't the first.
Everybody else was like, weshould go invade Florida.
We should go invade Texas.
Mexico at the time and we shouldtake Spain out cause they're
(39:46):
cutting trade on the Mississippi.
They're sending raids into Georgia.
They're from Florida.
We should take all this stuff.
And it's, it's not uncommon thateven Jefferson thought about it.
Hamilton thought about it during thequai war of 18 90, 80, formed an army.
and he was gonna march on the, on Spainuntil Adams wanting his power back,
(40:08):
signed the treaty with, with Franceso that Spain wouldn't have to fight.
And Hamilton lost his commissionpassed his anti-immigrant legislation.
So Hamilton
Scott (40:20):
Thank you.
Shawn (40:22):
the alien
Jenn (40:22):
Immigrant anti-immigrant legislation.
Shawn (40:25):
alien illegal aliens, and even immigrants, and tried to
curb people criticizing governmentfor all of his free speech.
But Burr is looking for popularity.
He's looking for a way to getback into power as far as we know.
Like I said, a lot of hisletters and a lot of speculation
exists that, why did he do that?
(40:45):
What, what actually happened at West?
Who knows?
There's so many people involvedin this that have watered it down,
changed stuff, doctored letters butbasically what's happening is Jefferson
had bought the Louisiana purchase.
And he was planning Lewisand Clark's expedition.
And one of the things Jefferson didwas appointed a guy named general James
(41:07):
Wilkinson as governor of LouisianaTerritory, like the whole territory.
And James Wilkinson had been well knownby Bird during the revolution as a guy
who played fast and loose at the rulesas a soldier, it's a possibility he tried
to launch a coup against Washington atone point that bur himself stopped by
(41:27):
taking the bullets out of the soldier'sguns before they could launch the coup.
But Wilkinson was just a, a free forall spirit who lived by his own rules.
And now we know from documents that hewas also probably a triple agent and
working for Spain at the same time.
Desy on
Scott (41:44):
Oh, holy cow.
Shawn (41:45):
our governor of Louisiana.
Scott (41:49):
Oh,
Shawn (41:49):
as Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark James Wilkinson sent pike into the West.
And what we can only assume, againthrough letters and documents is that
Pike went too far and Pike ventured inNew Mexico out of Louisiana Purchase and
Pike was arrested, taken to jail, andthen set free with some speculation that
(42:13):
Wilkinson told him to do that, to seehow far he could launch into Mexico from
Louisiana purchase before he got caught.
And so Pike was part of this
Scott (42:24):
Oh wow.
Shawn (42:26):
And then Burr went on his own expedition.
And so his involved people likeAndrew Jackson and Henry Clay
and a guy named Hyron Harron.
Lenner has it from Lenner HazardIsland between West Virginia and Ohio.
All these kind of very famous Westernlawyers and big name people out west who
were like, we also want to take out Spain.
(42:49):
And so again, we don't know what happenednecessarily, but we do know that Burr at
some point started building what couldbe perceived as an army, and a Navy,
and sailed from Lenner Hazard Islanddown the Ohio River with a Flotilla that
was backed by lots of people with moneylike Jackson, who had invited him to the
(43:10):
Hermitage and supported this endeavor.
Scott (43:13):
Oh, okay.
Shawn (43:14):
they ended up floating down the Mississippi and they ended up
setting up basically a base camp inMississippi, in Natchez, Mississippi.
That's what we knew.
. So,
Scott (43:26):
Yeah.
So, so to be honest, right.
Again, I can see how that might makethe, the current make Jefferson nervous,
a little
bit
Shawn (43:35):
But the thing
Scott (43:36):
know, not saying that what he did was right, but I
can see how he'd be like, oh
yeah, I think
you're trying to
Shawn (43:42):
be great, except for the fact that it was so out in the open, like
everybody knew what was happening.
These were like prominent people and theywere writing letters to Jefferson, Hey,
do you know what Aaron Burr is doing?
Do you know that Aaron Burr isdrifting down the Ohio River?
And it's not like it was a day trip.
It took a while, and Jeffersonknew about it for like a year
and didn't do anything about it.
Jenn (44:02):
yeah.
Shawn (44:03):
I'm just like, well keep monitoring it with the situation.
When it became politically expedientwith his embargo act that suddenly
we were gonna be at war with France,possibly England, possibly, and he
didn't want Spain getting riled up.
Then he decided it was time to arrest.
But we don't know what happened,. We don't know what happened.
(44:26):
Burr's side of the story was theywere going to set up a new territory
in Mississippi that he was gonnaestablish a life there and be a
political kind of force in, in the west.
Probably most likely what they weregonna do was use it as an invasion
point to invade Mexico at Vera.
Cause he had apparently, according topeople like Preble and Eaton who were
(44:51):
like in the Barbery wars, they saw hismaps and his map was, we're gonna launch
a, an assault on Vera Cruzs March toMexico City, which eventually we did.
The US Mexican war was basically,if that is to be true, Aaron Burr's
plan for the invasion of Mexico
And when he sold it
Scott (45:09):
Wow.
Shawn (45:10):
Napoleon's dossier that he also proposed this Napoleon.
And so when the French invadedMexico, they use that plan.
But what happened was, as far as we know,James Wilkinson has a moment of panic.
Because he's allowed bur toLouisiana, Pike's been arrested.
Wilkinson is going tobe implicated in this.
(45:32):
It's probably Wilkinson'swhole plan and scheme.
Anyway, he was probably the one whowanted to cut the west from the east
cuz he wanted his own political power.
He doesn't pay beingpaid as a spy for Spain.
He starts sending correspondence toJefferson and it's heavily edited
like you can see in his letterswhere he erased words and changed
(45:52):
words in his own handwriting.
The, the letters from Burr, like,they'll say things, then he,
there's this eraser mark and it'stotally different handwriting.
Like, I'm gonna secede the west, I'm gonnatake down America, or things like that.
It was clearly
Scott (46:05):
it's, it's like if my, my kid, my kids are trying to, get,
get outta school and they just
Erase it and try to reallyfake my signature there.
Shawn (46:14):
and so suddenly Jefferson's like, oh, we can't have this.
And so he sends out,Soldiers to arrest Brewer.
They chase burs of the South.
He's eventually arrestedlike Alabama ish area.
Wilkinson also sends out peopleto find Burr first, cuz then
he is like, oh, wait a minute,
Scott (46:31):
Mm-hmm.
Shawn (46:32):
what if Burr does get arrested?
And then he sings on me.
So like, it's a race to Kebo.
There's a really good book calledJefferson and the Gunman that's
like all about the race to catchbird, who's gonna win the race.
Burr was eventually knocked out, puton horseback and dragged to Virginia.
At one point he jumped off the horse andhe demanded sanctuary in South Carolina.
(46:53):
I am the vice president,please somebody save me.
But he ended up in Richmond at the trial.
And there was obviouslyall these things going on.
John Marshall was presiding.
They had the pre-hearing whereJefferson was keeping the documents
of why Burr was guilty from the court.
Marshall demanded Jefferson declaredexecutive privilege the first time
(47:15):
executive privilege is declared.
Jefferson says, I don'thave to give you why.
No, he is guilty.
And Marshall's like, you haveto let me know why he is guilty.
It's a trial.
And so Jefferson, the strictconstructivist tries to expand
the definition of treason,loosely into what Burr was doing.
And Marshall's like no, treason is anactual overt act of treason planning
(47:41):
stuff doesn't constitute treason.
And you have no overt act.
There's no point, there's no civilwar happening that you're saying
there is Burr is innocent and they,to prove treason constitution.
He two witnesses.
The only witness was JamesWilkinson Burden had, they
didn't have two witnesses.
The witnesses they had that stoodup were clearly outta their mind.
(48:03):
They were dismissedand Burr was dismissed.
And then Jefferson wasn't happy andhad him tried all over the place
and all the states he ventured to.
And Henry Clay was hislawyer in Kentucky and.
Burr left.
He's like, I can't do this.
And he fled to Europe and wentto England, tried to sell his
Scott (48:20):
That's when he
Shawn (48:21):
And then tried to sell his plan to France and Napoleon wouldn't
let him out of France becausehe didn't want some other leader
knowing about his plans from Mexico.
And Jefferson wanted him there causehe didn't want Burr coming back.
Eventually Burr had to sneak backin the country in 1812, dressed
as a Frenchman with a goatee and amustache that his name was Adolphus.
Scott (48:44):
Oh my gosh.
Shawn (48:44):
But his luggage said ab.
Jenn (48:46):
when Theodosia goes to see him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's when Theodosia goes to
see
Shawn (48:51):
her letter says, I'm back in
New York, and that's early 1812.
She doesn't know at thetime Aaron Burr had died.
His, her son, his onlygrandson who he called Gampi.
Jenn (49:02):
Yes.
Shawn (49:04):
and she was sick from the death and it had been a rough childbirth.
Anyway, she'd been really sicksince she gave birth to him.
It led to a lot of feverand internal bleeding.
And so she wasn't able to leave tillDecember 31st and she set sail with his
Scott (49:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, we
Shawn (49:19):
see him.
Scott (49:20):
with his papers.
Shawn (49:22):
all we know is that a British fleet, cuz it's about the war.
It's the war of 1812.
And so a British fleet pulled thepatriot over, pull over , and did a
check, said that she was on board.
That was the last time we heard of her.
Then she vanished and either, like yousaid in the video, a hurricane destroyed
the boat, which is obviously very likely.
(49:44):
But in 1820 there were two piratesin a jail cell in New Orleans who
said that they had killed her.
That they'd taken her and killedher and made her walk the plank.
and she drowned,
burr would for the two months cuznobody knew what happened to the ship.
And Olson was out of his mind,Burr was out of his mind.
(50:05):
Burr would go down to the NewYork Harbor every day and stand
on the harbor for hours they said.
And just wait for the ship to come in
Scott (50:11):
Oh.
Shawn (50:12):
never came in.
And so, but, and the lettersstopped being written, so
Scott (50:18):
yeah.
Ship graveyard.
Yeah.
Well, this is, Sean, this is awesome.
This, this is, this hasbeen absolutely amazing.
We've been, we've been goingfor an hour, and I feel like it
went by in about five minutes,
It's amazing to me, all I could thinkabout, when you were telling me all
the things that, that Aaron Bur wasdoing, I was like, this guy was a
busy.
man.
He did all this stuff.
(50:38):
He was in, he was involved in all thisdifferent politics and all this mm-hmm.
, all these different things and like,doing questionable things with a
flotilla down the, down the Mississippi.
You know why his decision or not,and then runs off to Europe and he is
interacting with Napoleon in differentcountries and comes back and, yeah.
All these crazy things.
Shawn (50:56):
They would talk about how Burr was alone and you just, you'd see
this guy shuffling up and down thestreets of New York and people were
like, well, that's, that's Aaron Burr.
And he'd ride boats on the, he'dride ferries to Wee Hawking and he'd
write letters about, that time Ishot my friend Alexander Hamilton.
And the great part about the musicalthat I do love is when they they quote
his journal, which is, if I had beensmart enough or if I'd been, kind enough
(51:22):
or patient enough, I would've seen theworld was big enough for both of us.
That comes directly from his journal.
He says, if I had read more
Scott (51:29):
That's
Shawn (51:30):
of these books rather than these books, I would've seen that It's
a, he Tristan Shandy or something.
He reads a guy who has a fly andthen lets the fly flat of the window
instead of killing it, and he says, ifI had, read more of those books than
less of the other books, then I couldhave seen The world was big enough
for Hamilton and I'd live together.
Jenn (51:49):
Yeah.
How often do you meetyour Aaron Bur society?
Do you meet monthly anddo you meet in person?
Shawn (51:55):
They, the Borough Association meets basically right now, twice a year.
We, we, with Covid, we startedmeeting on his birthday, which
again is when the dues are dues.
Sorry, Stewart, if you're watching,they're coming, which is February 6th
which at my house means birthday cake andit's, we celebrate Aaron birthday, cause
Scott (52:14):
Aw, nice.
Aw, that's awesome.
Shawn (52:15):
Usually they meet for a week long conference in September,
October revolving around somethingthat has to do with Aaron Burr.
So this year they're meeting in Virginia.
Charlottesville.
They're gonna go to Monticello.
They're gonna go to James Madison's house.
James Monroe's house.
They're gonna get tours of allof that because it's such an
important part of Burr's life
people are interested in the BoroughAssociation, I can definitely give you
(52:38):
guys the address that they can inquirefrom our president, Stuart Johnson, who
is so a lot of the Borough Associationis descendants of Aaron Burr's cousins.
Because obviously he has noofficial direct descendants.
Scott (52:53):
Yeah, we'll put the Yes, send, definitely send me the information cuz
for anybody watching or listening, , I'll,I'll put that information in , the video
description of the podcast description.
, and Sean, , this is, this hasbeen incredibly educational
for someone like me.
Yeah.
I love and really, really interestingthe stories that you've been telling.
I, I'm, , It's a little bit mindblowing for me, , for one single
(53:13):
person like this who's reallyremembered for a couple things , and
could be remembered for so much more.
Shawn (53:19):
That's usually what people ask me is where do I start?
Where do I jump off tolearn about Aaron Burr?
Scott (53:23):
Yeah, absolutely.
Shawn (53:24):
I, of always recommend Arnold Drogas book a Fatal Friendship.
If you can find a copy of it,it, I think does the best job
of being kind to both of them.
So obviously you have like JosephEllis, founding Brothers, where Burr
is a villain in that book and youhave turnout's book that is obviously
the gold standard of Hamilton.
But I like this book becauseit just portrays that their sad
(53:46):
destiny of how they both were raisedthe same way and their lives and
intertwined and law and friendship.
And it's just the, the breakdown ofa friendship to the point where one
friend kills the other and has todeal with that the rest of their.
it does a lot of great research in it.
So I would say if you're gonnastart somewhere, start with
(54:06):
Arnold RGAs, fatal Friendship.
There's a lot of great new books,Nancy Eisenberg, HW Brands, lot of
lot of bur books coming out thatpeople are starting to, to write.
Scott (54:16):
Sean, thank you so much for joining us, Mike, this, this really
has been super fun because I cantell, just like Jen here, right?
You truly do have a, a passionfor this historical topic.
And when someone has a passion likethis for a topic on history, it's so
much more fun to, to learn mm-hmm.
about that topic fromthat person, from you.
So I, I really do
(54:37):
appreciate you coming
Shawn (54:38):
you guys having me on.
Scott (54:39):
with us tonight.
And for anyone else listening, if you knowanyone else that might enjoy this podcast,
please share it with them, especiallyif they are an Aaron Burr fan because
we rely on you, our community to grow.
And we appreciate y'all every day.
We'll talk to you next time.
Thank you.
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