The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1896-10-13
BILL ARP ON AARON BURR.
His Father Was Great Preacher
He Killed Hamilton Without Regret
Incidents OF His Strange Life.

He Killed Hamilton Without Regre
Incidents OF His Strange Life.
see that my old friend, Sam Carno
chan, of Rome, has recently celebrated
his eighty-sixth birthday. He is still
his friends about the good old times
He Is harness maker by trade, and
perches ON his stool and talks while ht
worSs and feels the feeling of an hon
est, industrious man. Apprentices
to the trade when he was fourteen
years old, he has continuously pursued
his calling for seventy years, and il
all that time do not suppose that hi
ever defrauded any man. l have never
heard him complain of his lot or o
hard times. l never heard him abuse
anybody more than to say, "He should
not have done that. 1t is wrong
What q pity what a pity" And ye,
he is man Of opinions and convictions
apd does not hesitate to express them
How came old Father Carnochan tC
be so industrious and work so hard and
live 50 long and enjoy life and have
good health? He says he reckons Ii
just happened so, but my opinion is
that his early habits had much to dc
with 1T. For seven years he was
bound out" as we used to call It,
Bound to saddler and harness maker
In Now York city to learn the trade.
That used to be common at the North,
and | have known some cases of the
south in the long ago, but not many.
My father had an orphan boy bound to
him for se$en years, aud the covenant
was board and clothing and two
months schooling every year and $500
in money at the end Of his time. He
was smart, handsome and willing, and
made q good merchant and married
we'll.
Mr.. Carnochan says he had to work
! diligently, and by the time his term
upon him and kept him out Of mischief.
There is the secret. But few OF our
boys have formed habit of work. If
they do any at all, they look upon it as
| a hardship.
The old man says that Aaron Burr
traded at their shop,a he remember
him well, a handsome, courtly old gen.
tleman dressed in tip-top fashion and
with manners like Lord Chesterfield =.
Years before he had been forced to
leave the country and lived in exile,
but he came back wnen the storm blew
over and he was such q great lawyer
made lots of money. He drove
fine horses and was high born aristo-
crat and never lost q minutes sleep
about killing Hamilton.
l was ruminating about that, for
there is no story like it in American
biography. The young people ought
to read it. His fathers name was
Aa:on Burr and he was u very learned
and pious preacher and teacher. He
was founder and first president of
Princeton college, and is buried there,
Il I'll i
near him. He married Esther, the
only daughter of Jonathan Edwards,
the great preacher and profound
thinker. A man whose sermons made
the people tremhle and cry out and
beg for mCrcy. The younger Aaron
had sister named Esther, and these
two were left orphans at an early age.
They had good estate and the best OF
guardians, and received q good educa-
tion. Aaron was sent to Princeton,
where he graduated with distinction.
1t was expected that he, too, would be
preacher, but he suddenly astoundcd
his friends by dcnouncing Christianity
rs a hum mbug, and declared his admira-
ton for Lord Chesterfield, whom. ho
said, was the finest gentleman in the
world. Then he studied law, and soon
became the top OF the profession
When the Revolutionary war was i'm.
pending he was given high position,
and became an Inmate OF General
Washington's family; but he did not
like Washington's steady habits aud
religious principles, and left him. At
the close of the war he married
wealthy widow-a Mrs. Provost, an
accomplished and pious Christian
woman. She became the mother of
TheodOsia, celebrated iu her day for
hnr hoantU on1 hnr ur nf in nd
heart. and universally lamcnted for
her sad and mysterious fate. Her only
child, q son, died when he was thirteen
years old, and she herself was lost at
sea but a few weeks after; no one ever
heard of the vessel after 1T sailed from
Charleston. There are many stories
about it having been seized by pirates
and ThoOdosia with other pass
engers being made to walk the fatal
plank that dropped them into the sea.
Not long before this sad event Burr
had forced Hamilton to fight u duel
with him, and killed him, not only
satisfaction. This put him under the
ban, and he had to fly to avoid arrest.
He fled to Carolina, where his daugh-
ter lived. She had married Joseph
Alston, one of South Carnlina's best
citizens, and who afterwards became
Governor of the State.
Burr was vico president OF tho
United States when he killed Hamil-
ton. After this he conceived
great political scheme to found q
linited monarchy in the Southwest,
with Now Orleans as the SCAT SCI of gov
ernment, and he was to be tht nlGn-
arch. His reasonable designs wer6
discovered, and he was arrested and
tried, aud barely escaped conviction
Theodosia saved him through her
| pleadjngs, her devotion and her fas-
cinating beauty. But such was The
public temper that he had to exile
himself and escape to Paris, whore he
lived for several years under the as
sumcd name of Arnot. When he dared
to return he resumed the practice Of
law in New York, and soon became
entangled in many scandals and in
trigues. When he was seventy years
old he was still handsome and engag.
ing, and 30 beguiled a French countess
OF great wealth that she married him.
He wasted her money 80 lavishly that
she separated from him in short time
aud he was left penniless. His few
| friends abandoned him and he died
degraded and disgraced at the age Of
four score years. In his last days he
read the Bible anew-read and ponder
ed, and with sadness and contrition
said: "There is the most perfect
system OF truth the world has ever
SEEN"
What life, what a RECORD what a
wreck Of great talents, and all because
| he fprsOOl< the teorhinpa Of bis pnblu