The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1881-06-25
AARON BURR'S LAST DAYS.
The Death Chamber Of the Friendlsss and For
saken Traitor.--The Hand that Killed Hamilton.
[IohnnY Rnanet n the New York Trihuna

Johnny Boquet in the New York TribuneI
A few months ago / took the ferry.
boat to the north, or rather the north
west shore of Staten island, and landed
at the village Immediately opposite Ber-
gen Point, called Port Richmond, SC
named because it is the water landing to
old Richmond Court House, at the cen
ter of the island. There is not O more
animated spot in the water scenery OF
New York than this. 1t shows both the
bay of New York and Newark bay, the
latter receiving the commerce of Newark
city and of the Hackensack marshes, and
of the Jersey inlets as far down as the
Raritan river. They all pass out be-
tween Port Richmond and Bergen point.
and through the Kill Won Kull, which is
only half mile wide. A sick man could
sit all day long at his window by this
water, watching tugs, propellers, pleas
ure steamers, slOOps and schooners. oys-
ter crafts and barge tows, garbage fleets,
yachts and excursion arks filled with
music and dancing, go past like process
sions ILL mirror
1t was to Port Richmond that Colonel
Burr, ex-senator and vice president of
the United States, ex-attorney general of
New York, ex-candidate for governor of
New York and minister to France, and
once almost president of theUnited States,
was brought one day in early June, at
about this present time of the year, up
on litter to die. The hotel, now called
the Continental, stands nearly as it did
that moment, right in your face, as you
turn from the water at Port Richmond and
only few hundred feet Distant vel
lowish brown hotel with a gambrel roof
and six tall, spare, thick wooden col
umns rising to the caves and inclosing
in their piazza three stories. Ascend
ing the steps to this piazza broad door
and hall are right opposite the middle of
1T, and a broad flight of naked steps
rises to the second floor and similar
hall there, and the room to the left, as
you look up from the ground, is the
room where Aaron Burr died. Under it
is the bar-room now. The chamber is
square room, with little carved bits of
carpentering about the chimney side,
and it is of respectable size, quite bed
room parlor. Mr.. Burr was borne to it
on litter from the steamboat, an old,
helpless invalid, prosecuted by bodily
decay and creditors. and the fear of dy-
ing in the street.
He had lost the confidence of man,
woman and child. Politics had spewed
HIM out thirty years before. Family
circles had tried him too often. Women
had found that he would not only kiss
but tell. Clients found that he would
sell their confidence to the other side.
And yet, forsaken, friendless and I'M
pitied, such was the mystery of this
miserable little man that half the world
said the president of the United States,
then running for the office before the
people, was the son of Aaron Burr. The
religious world remembered that the
greatest logical and theologian since
Paul had been this outcast's grandfather.
The educated class knew that the founder
of Princeton college had been Aaron
Burr's father. Lawyers knew that his
sisters husband had founded the first
law school in the New World. Once his
daughter had led the fashion and beauty
of Washington society, and married one
of the richest planters in the south. He
was about to die in sight of his birth
place at Newark, and of his orphan home
at Elizabeth, where his father and grand
father had ministered, and whence he
had entered the revolutionary army
These two towns OF New Jersey are in
plain sight, and Elizabeth is on y about
mile distant. Fifty years before being
brought to Staten island to die, young
Burr, while on Washington's staff, had
proposed to the general to head an ex-
petition against Staten island, every
Iano on1 Of 1xrhinh h0 no,
ing made it's hills his rambling ground
from the fiat, mosquito-ridden plains of
Elizabeth. 1t was, perhaps, his play
mate, Judge Edwards, resident of
Staten island, who was almost his only
visitor at the inn. The island of
Tories was now about to receive the
last mould and living shadow of Aaron
Burr.
A few moments after examining this
room / fell in with an old man of one of
Washington Irving's Dutch counte-
nances, by the name of John j. Clute.
Said L: "Sir, you are old enough to
have seen Aaron Burr on this island ?"
"Sir he replied, "you are now talk
ing to the man who held the hand of
Aaron Burr Burr when he wrote his last
signature in this world"
Iasked the particulars.
"Judge Edwards, my neighbor, came
to me and said: Mr.. Chute, there is
sick man at the Port Richmond hotel
who wishes to make an affidavit to ON
application fer pension; viii you take
his statement?' I went to the hotel with
the judge, and found small man, a
mere string Of bones. numbling to him
self in bed. ! said: This man is not
fit to make an affidavit. will not adj
minister it. WE'LL said Judge Ed
wards, suppose you come around to-
ward evening. He gets better in the
afternoons Ireturned in the afternoon,
and he was just well enough to get his
oath. He was raised up in his bed, poor
little childish thing, and I filled the
quill with ink and guided his fingers.
And, sir, could not help thinking:
This is the hand that killed Hamil-
ton 7"