The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1881-11-25
DEATH CHAMBER OF BURR.

A few moons ago took the ferryboat
to the north, or rather northwest, shore
Of Staten Island. and landed at the vii
lage Immediately opposite Bergen
Point, called Port Richmond, so named
because it is the water landing to old
Richmond Court House, at the center
of the island. There is not more an
mated spot in the water scenery of
New York Bay than this. 1t shows
both the Bay OF New York and Newark
Bay, the latter receiving the mmerce
of Newark city and of the Ha;kensack
marshes, and of the Jersey inlets as far
down as the Raritan River. They all
pass out between Port Richmond and
Bergen Point through the Kill Won
Kull, which is only half mile wide. A
sick man could sit all day long ut his
window by this water watching tugs,
propellers, pleasure-stcamers, sloops
and schooncrs, oyster crafts, RATS and
barge lows. garbage fleets, yachts, and
excursion arks filled with music and
dancing go past like professions in a
mirror.
1t was to Port Richmond that Col.
the United States. ex-AtlOrney General
of New York. ex-candidate for Govern
or of New York and for Minister to
France, and once almost President of
the United States, was brought one day
in early June upon litter to die. The
hotel, now called the Continental,
stands nearly as it did at that moment,
right in your face as you turn from the
water at Port Richmond, and only a
few hundred feet distant-a yellowish
brown hotel with gambrel roof and
six tall. spare, thick wooden columns
rising to the caves and 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 a similar hall
there, and the room to the left. rs you
look up from the ground, is the room
where Aaron Burr died. Under it is
the bar-room now. The chamber is a
square room, with little carved bits of
carpentering about the chimney side,
and it is of respectable size-quite q
bedroom parlor. Mr.. Burr was borne
to il on litter from the steamboat, an
old. helpless invalid, prosecuted by bod
lily decay and creditors, and the fear of
dying 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 conf Ience TO the other side.
The religious world remembered that
the greatest logician 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. Law
yers 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 So
cietv, and married one of the richest
planters of the South.
He was about to die in sight of his
birthplace al Newark and of his orphan
home at Elizabeth, where his father and
grandfather had ministered. and
whence he had entered the revolution
ary army. These two towns of New
Jersey are in plain sight, and Elizabeth
is only about mile distant. Fifty
years before being brought to Staten
Island to die, young Burr. while on
Washington's staff, had proposed to
tho General 70 head an expedition
against Staten Island, every lane and
corner of which he knew. having made
its hills his rambling-ground from the
flat, mosquito-ridden plains of Eliza
beth. 1t was perhaps his playmate's
son. Judge Edwards, a resident of
Staten Island, who was almost his only
ONLY visitor at the inn. That island of
Tories was now about to receive the
last mould and living shadow of Aaron
Burr.
TIE LAST WITNESS.
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 S. Clute.
He was writing local history. since
published. Said ], "Sir, you are old
enough to have seen Aaron Burr on this
island.'
Sir" he replied, "you are now
talking to the man who held the hand
of Aaron Burr when. he wrote his last
signature in this world"
l asked The. particulars.
Judge Edwards, my neighbor, came
to me and said, Mr.. Clute, there is a
sick man at the Port Richmond Hote.
WHO wishes TO make all affidavit to an
application for peusion; will you take
his statement" | went 10 the hotel
with the judge, and found small man.
a mere string of bones, mumbling to
himself in bed, l said, This man is
not fit to make an affidavit. will not
administer it. Well said Judge Ed
wards, suppose YOU come around to-
ward evening: He gets better in the
afternoons l returned in the after
noon, and he was just well enough to
give his oath. He was raised up in his
bed, u poor little childish thing, and l
filled the quill with ink and guided his
fingers. And. sir. 1 could not help
thinking, This is the hand that killed
Hamiltonr "-Johnny Bouquet, in N.