Claiborne guardian. [volume] (Homer, La.) 1877-188?, 1881-08-17
AARON BURR.
A Visit TO the Place Where Ne Closed Nj,
Unhappy Life.


northwest shore of Staten Island.
and landed nj the village, immedi.
ately opposite Bergen Point, called
Port Richmond, 80 named because
it is the water landing to old Rich
mond Court House, M the centre of
the island. There is not a more aui
mated spot in the water scenery OF
New York Bay than this. 1t shows
both the Bay of New York aud
Newark Bay, the latter receiving
the commerce of Newark City aud
of the Hackensack marshes, and of
the Jersey inlets as far down as the
Raritan river. They all pass ont
between Port Richmond and Der
gen Point, through the Kill Won
Kull. which is only half mile wide.
a sick man could ait all day long at
h $ window by this water, watching
tugs, propelIers, pleasure steamers,
sloops and schoonrrs, oyster crafts,
RATS AVID barge ,ows, garbage fleets,
yachts and excursion aIks filed
with music and dancing, go past
like professions in mirror.
1t was to Port Richmond that
Colonel Burr, ex-senator aud Vice.
Presider of the United States, ex.
Acknowledgement of New York, ex.
candidate for Governor of New York
and for Minister to France, and
once almost President of the United
States, was brought one day in ear
~ June, at about this present time
of year, upon a litter, to die. The
hotel, now called the Continental,
stands nearly rs il did at that mo.
ment, right in yonr face as you
turn from the water at Port Rich
mond and only a few hundred feet
distant-a yellowisb brown hotel
with n gambrel roof and tall, spare,
| thick wooden columns rising to the
caves aud inclosing in their piazza
three stories. Ascending the steps
, to this piazza a broad door and hall
are right opposite the middle Of it,
and a broad flight of naked steps
rises to the second floor and SINH
lar hall there, and the room to the
4 left, as YOU look up from the ground,
is the room where Aaron Burr died
/ Under it il the bar room now. The
chamber is square room. with lit
tie carved bits of carpentering about
the chimney side, and il IL of ~.
spectacle size. quite a bedroom
parlor. Mr.. Burr was borne TO it
on II litter from the steamboat, an
old, helpless invalid, prosecuted by
bodil, decay aud creditors, and the
fear of dying in the street.
He had lost the confidence of man,
woman and child. Politics had
Spcwed him ont thirty years before.
Family circles had tried him too of.
ten. Woman had found that he
would not only kiss but tell. eli.
ents found that he would sell their
confidence Ia the other side. And
Yet forsaken. iricndless and unpit-
led, 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 magi
elan and theologian since Paul had
been this outcast's grandfather
The educated class knew that the
founder of Princeton College had
been Aaron Burrs father. Lawyers
knew that his sisters husband bad
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 of the
South. He was about TO die il
sight of his birthplace az Newark
and of his orphan home at Eliza
beth. where his father and grand
father had ministered, and whenc,
he had entered the Revolutionary
Army. These two towns of New
, Jersey are in plain sight, aud Eliza
beth il only about mile distant.
Fifty years before being brough
a To Staten Island to die, young Burr
| while on the Washington staff, la,
r proposed TO the general to head al
expedition against Staten Islam,
;. and every lane aud corner of wblcl
he knew, having made its hills hi
!, rambling ground from the fiat, me
squlto ridden plains of Elizabeth
-. II was perhaps his playmate's son
4 Judge Edwards, a resident of State
:, Island, who was almost his only vi.
itor AT the inn. That island OF 1,
ries vas now about to receive tn
D. last mould and living shadow G
Aaron Burr.