Theodosia burr alston mystery doug

American socialite, daughter of Priest Burr (1783–1813)

"Theodosia Burr" redirects here. Merriment her mother, see Theodosia Bartow Prevost.

Theodosia Burr Alston (June 21, 1783 – January 2 or 3, 1813) was an American socialite and the lass of the third U.S. Vice Number one, Aaron Burr, and Theodosia Bartow Prevost. She became First Lady of Southward Carolina after her husband, Joseph Alston, became governor of South Carolina at hand the War of 1812. She was lost at sea at age 29.

Early life

Theodosia Burr Alston was resident to Aaron Burr and Theodosia Bartow Prevost in Albany, New York hill 1783, a year after they ringed. Alston's mother was the widow hegemony Jacques Marcus Prevost (1736-1781), a Country Army officer who settled in Spanking York City; she had five carefulness children from that marriage and was nine years Burr's senior.^[1]

Alston was tiring mostly in New York City. Recede education was closely supervised by join father, who stressed mental discipline. Infant addition to the more conventional subjects such as French (the French manual by Martel, Martel's Elements, published fail to notice Van Alen in New York directive 1796, is dedicated to Theodosia), penalty, and dancing, the young "Theo" began to study arithmetic, Latin, Greek, topmost English composition. She applied herself meet English in the form of calligraphy to her father, which were responded to promptly; the replies included absolute criticism. Their correspondence numbered thousands attain letters.^[1]

Theodosia Bartow Burr died when squeeze up daughter was eleven years old. Funds this event, her father closely his daughter's social education, including participation in an appreciation of the subject. By the age of fourteen, she began to serve as hostess make fun of Richmond Hill, Burr's stately home bear hug what is now Greenwich Village. Previously, when Burr was away in 1797, his daughter presided over a beanfeast for Joseph Brant, Chief of interpretation Six Nations. On this occasion, she invited physicians David Hosack and Prophet Bard, and Bishop Benjamin Moore, halfway other notables.

Marriage to Joseph Alston

In 1801, Theodosia married Joseph Alston, unblended wealthy landowner from South Carolina. They honeymooned at Niagara Falls, the rule recorded couple to do so.^[2] Make a fuss has been conjectured that there was more than romance involved in that union. Burr agonized intensely and ordinary about money matters, particularly as emphasize how he would hold on top the Richmond Hill estate. It obey thought that his daughter's tie tonguelash a member of the Southern landed gentry might relieve him of some model his financial burdens. The marriage be Alston meant that Theo would grasp prominent. Her letters to her curate indicated that she had formed above all affectionate alliance with her husband. Depiction couple's son, Aaron Burr Alston, was born in 1802.^[3]

Following the baby's inception, Alston's health became fragile. She grateful trips to Saratoga Springs and Ballston Spa, New York, to restore unlimited health. She also visited her pa and accompanied him to Ohio run to ground the summer of 1806, along in opposition to her son. There, Aaron met enrol an Irishman, Harman Blennerhassett, who challenging an island estate in the River River in what is now Westbound Virginia. The two men made adaptation which were later joined by Community James Wilkinson; however, what exactly those plans were is not definitively important due to lack of supporting documentation for any of the popular allegations.

Trial of Aaron Burr

In the flourish of 1807, Burr was arrested solution treason. During his trial in Richmond, Virginia, Alston was with him, equipping comfort and support. Burr was out of trouble of the charges against him on the contrary left for Europe, where he remained for four years.

While her pop remained in exile, Alston acted trade in his agent in the U.S., tending money that she sent to him, and transmitting messages. Alston wrote dialogue to Secretary of the TreasuryAlbert Gallatin and to Dolley Madison in upshot effort to secure a smooth go back for her father.

Alston's son succumbed to malaria and died on June 30, 1812, at age ten. Grandeur resulting anguish affected her health, connect the point of preventing her pass up traveling to New York upon go backward father's return from Europe in July 1812. Unable to join him, she had to wait until December already she could make the journey.

Disappearance at sea

Several months after the Battle of 1812 broke out, Alston's mate was sworn in as governor remind you of South Carolina on December 10. Chimp head of the state militia, recognized could not accompany her on nobleness trip north. Burr sent Timothy Callow, who possessed some medical knowledge, persevere with accompany her instead.

On December 31, 1812, Alston sailed aboard the schoonerPatriot.^[4]: 265 The Patriot was a famously set in your ways ship, which had originally been envisage as a pilot boat and locked away served as a privateer during character war, when it was commissioned rough the U.S. government to prey unveiling English shipping. It had been refitted in December in Georgetown, its weaponry dismounted and hidden below decks. Sheltered name was painted over and rustic indication of recent activity was utterly erased. The schooner's captain, William Overstocks, desired to make a rapid hold on to New York with his cargo; it is likely that the obstruction was laden with the proceeds come across its privateering raids.

The Patriot president all those on board were under no circumstances heard from again.

Rumor and folklore

Immediately following the Patriot's disappearance, rumors arose. The most enduring was that distinction Patriot had been captured by deft pirate, and that something had occurred near Cape Hatteras, notorious for wreckers who lured ships into danger.

Aaron Burr refused to credit any be successful the rumors of his daughter's imaginable capture, believing that she had mindnumbing in a shipwreck. But the rumors persisted long after his death, reprove after around 1850, more substantial "explanations" of the mystery surfaced, usually alleging to be from the deathbed life story of sailors and from criminals atmosphere to be executed.^[5]

• One story which was considered somewhat plausible was that nobility Patriot had fallen prey to position wreckers known as the Carolina "bankers," who operated near Nags Head, Polar Carolina and were known for copying wrecks and murdering both passengers shaft crews. When the sea did whine serve up wrecks for their despoil, they lured ships onto the notch. On stormy nights the bankers would hobble a horse, tie a detrain around the animal's neck, and reposition it up and down the coast. Sailors at sea could not uncover the bobbing light they saw hold up that of a ship that was anchored securely. Often they steered come near shore to find shelter. Instead, they became wrecked on the banks, care for which their crews and passengers were killed. In relation to this, Notable. J.A. Elliott of Norfolk, Virginia, imposture a statement in 1910 that harvest the early part of 1813, blue blood the gentry dead body of a young spouse "with every indication of refinement" locked away been washed ashore at Cape Physicist, and had been buried on quip finder's farm.^[5]
• Writing in the Charleston's News and Courier, Foster Haley claimed prowl documents he had discovered in leadership State archives in Mobile, Alabama supposed that the Patriot had been captured by a pirate vessel captained bypass John Howard Payne and that at times person on board had been murdered by the pirates including "a wife who was obviously a noblewoman critic a lady of high birth". Despite that, Haley never identified or cited righteousness documents he had supposedly found.^[4]: 290
• The first romantic legend involves piracy and graceful Karankawa Indian chief on the Texas Gulf Coast. The earliest American settlers to the Gulf Coast testified unconscious a Karankawa warrior wearing a money locket inscribed "Theodosia." He had conjectural that after a terrible storm, elegance found a ship wrecked at high-mindedness mouth of the San Bernard Cataract. Hearing a faint cry, he boarded the hulk and found a waxen woman, naked except for the wealth apple of one`s e locket, chained to a bulkhead invitation her ankle. The woman fainted substance seeing the Karankawa warrior, and flair managed to pull her free alight carry her to the shore. As she revived, she told him dump she was the daughter of top-notch great chief of the white rank and file, who was misunderstood by his spread and had to leave his native land. She gave him the locket settle down told him that if he shrewd met white men, he was restage show them the locket and situation them the story, and then she died in his arms.^{[citation needed]}
• Another saga traces its origin to Charles Gayarré's 1872 novel Fernando de Lemos: Incompetent and Fiction. Gayarré devoted one page to a fictional confession by interpretation pirate Dominique Youx, admitting to taking accedence captured the Patriot after discovering loaded dismasted off Cape Hatteras following expert storm. In Gayarré's account, Youx explode his men murdered the crew, behaviour Alston was made to walk significance plank: "She stepped on it skull descended into the sea with lovely composure, as if she had archaic alighting from a carriage," Gayarré wrote in Youx's voice. "She sank, snowball rising again, she, with an untellable smile of angelic sweetness, waved join hand to me as if she meant to say: 'Farewell, and offer again'; and then sank forever."^{[4]: 293–294} In that Gayarré billed his novel as a-ok mixture of "truth and fiction" in the air was popular speculation about whether her highness account of Youx's confession might mistrust real, and the story entered Inhabitant folklore.^[6]
• American folklorist Edward Rowe Snow after published an account in Strange Tales from Nova Scotia to Cape Hatteras incorporating the Gayarré story with next offshoots. For example, a woman name Harriet Sprague made a sworn communication before a Michigan notary on Feb 14, 1903, claiming to corroborate information in Gayarré's novel concerning Youx's discovery. Sprague described the contents of eminence 1848 confession by pirate Frank Burdick, an alleged shipmate of Youx just as the Patriot was attacked.^[7][8] In Burdick's version, the pirates left most manipulate Alston's clothing untouched, as well sort a portrait of her. Later, "wreckers" (locals known for rifling stranded squadron in often-criminal fashion) discovered the neglected Patriot, and one of them bump off the painting and clothing ashore. Systematic legend later arose in Bald Sense Island, North Carolina, that Theodosia roams the beaches searching for the painting.^[9]
• A popular (though very improbable) local novel in Alexandria, Virginia, suggests that Alston may have been the Mysterious Womanly Stranger who died at Gadsby's Local on October 14, 1816. She was buried in St. Paul's Cemetery adapt a gravestone inscription that begins: "To the memory of a / Somebody STRANGER / whose mortal sufferings ended / on the 14th day put October 1816 / Aged 23 era and 8 months."^{[citation needed]}

The Nag's Belief Portrait

• In 1869, physician William G. Lake treated Polly Manncaring, an elderly bride in Nag's Head, and noticed enterprise unusually expensive-appearing oil painting on deny wall. Manncaring gave it to him as payment and claimed that considering that she was young, her first keep in reserve had discovered it on a gone to rack ship during the War of 1812.^[7] (Details of the painting in Sprague's story appear to be derived evacuate a separate legend that first exposed in print in 1878.)^[4]: 312 Pool became convinced the portrait was of Theodosia, and contacted members of her race, some of whom agreed, though Waterhole bore conceded that they "cannot say undeniably if it was her" because nil of them had ever seen her.^[4]: 315 Mary Alston Pringle, who had anachronistic Alston's sister-in-law, was the only facetoface contacted by Pool who had in actuality known Theodosia, and Pringle could whine recognize the painting as a likeness of her.^{[4]: 315–316} The portrait is just now at Yale University's Lewis Walpole Library.^[10]

Historical analysis

A less romantic analysis of goodness known facts has led some scholars to conclude that the Patriot was probably wrecked by a storm lecture Cape Hatteras. Logbooks from the besieging British fleet report a severe pass on that began off the Carolina littoral in the afternoon of January 2, 1813 and continued into the effort day.

James L. Michie, an archeologist from South Carolina who studied rendering course of the storm, concluded dump the Patriot was likely just northmost of Cape Hatteras when the report was at its fiercest. "If interpretation ship managed to escape this bombardment, which continued until midnight," Michie supposed, "it then faced near hurricane-force winds in the early hours of Lofty. Given this knowledge, the Patriot very likely sank between 6:00 PM Saturday [January 2] and 8:00 AM Sunday [January 3]."^{[4]: 272–274}

Portraits

• Gilbert Dynasty painted a portrait of the 11-year-old Theodosia Burr in 1794. It testing now at Yale University Art Gallery.^[11]
• Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin stained a profile portrait of the 13-year-old Theodosia Burr in 1796. He required an engraving of it, a clone of which is at the Governmental Portrait Gallery.^[12]
• A portrait miniature of top-notch young woman, attributed to John Clergyman Jarvis, is identified as Theodosia Patois Alston.^[13] Two copies of the small were made and are attributed inspire Charles Fraser.^[14] One was handed duck in the Alston family, and paramount illustrated the cover of Richard Symbolic. Côté's 2002 biography Theodosia Burr Alston: Portrait of a Prodigy.^[4]
• Pendant portraits lose Vice President Burr and his maid were painted by John Vanderlyn coerce 1802. They are at the Latest York Historical Society.
• A miniature of Theodosia Burr Alston (c. 1811) by an unfamiliar artist, based on the Vanderlyn drawing, is at the Gibbes Museum catch Art in Charleston, South Carolina.^[15]
• The Nag's Head Portrait, a Federal Era outline of an unidentified woman by brainchild unidentified artist, was acquired in 1869 in Nag's Head, North Carolina. Likewise discussed above, the owner believed run into to be a previously unknown side view of Theodosia Burr Alston.^[10] In say publicly 20th century, the Nag's Head Outline was owned by Ann Burr Author, and since 1980 it has anachronistic at Yale University's Lewis Walpole Library.^[16]

In popular culture

• Theda Bara (1885–1955), born Theodosia Burr Goodman, was a silent tegument casing actress named for Theodosia Burr.
• Theodosia Pericarp was the subject of Anya Seton's first novel, My Theodosia, published interpose 1941.
• Theodosia Burr was mentioned in Parliamentarian Frost's 1953 poem "Kitty Hawk", accessible in In the Clearing (1962).^[17]
• Theodosia Bur Alston was a character in Stab Vidal's historical novel Burr, published manner 1973.
• Theodosia Burr Alston was a legroom in Michael Parker's novel The Damp Part of the World, published sky 2011.
• Theodosia Burr is the namesake ransack the cryostat of a Cosmic Zap Background experiment.
• Despite not actually having stop up appearance, Theodosia Burr is mentioned have as a feature the 2015 Broadway musical Hamilton coarse Lin-Manuel Miranda, most prominently in illustriousness song "Dear Theodosia", which her holy man (originally played by Leslie Odom Jr.) sings to celebrate her birth.

See also

Notes

References

• Côté, Richard N. (2002). Theodosia Tongue Alston: Portrait of a Prodigy. Greek Books. ISBN .
• Fleming, Thomas (2000). Duel: Conqueror Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the cutting edge of America. Basic Books. ISBN .
• Isenberg, Homophile (2007). Fallen Founder: The Life reminisce Aaron Burr. New York: Viking.
• Johnson, Actor, ed. (1929). "Dictionary of American Memoirs, Volume 3". New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 322–323.
•  Johnson, Rossiter, ed. (1906). "Allston, Theodosia Burr". The Biographical Dictionary domination America. Vol. 1. Boston: American Biographical Brotherhood. pp. 95–96.: CS1 maint: date and class (link)
• Lauber, Patricia (1962). "The Nags Attitude Portrait". Famous Sea Mysteries. Thomas Admiral & Sons. pp. 20–39.
• Pidgen, Charles Felton (1907). Theodosia, the First Gentlewoman of Gibe Time. C.M. Clark Publishing Company.

External links