Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1922-02-07
THEODOSIA BURR ALSTON
Tragic StGry Of the Wife Of a South
=; y Carolina Governor.
HISTORIC MYSTERY OF The ATLANTIC
Was On Way to Visit Her Father
When Lost-one Story Has It That
She Was Taken by Pirates. .',,.,.

returned to New York, at the termina-
ton of his four years exile for treason,
and one Of his first acts was to send
for his daughter, Mrs. Theodosia Burr
Aston, wife of Governor Aston. Of
South Carolina. relates the Greenville
Piedmont. AS the, state law prohibited
the governor from leaving South Car
olina during his tenure Of office, 1t was
necessary for Mrs. Aston to make the
journey alone, save for her physician
and maid, and she sailed from Char
lesion, ON. December 30, 1912, on the
pilot boat Patriot.
AS the time drew near for the
| Patriot" to arrive at New York. Col.
Burr took up his post on the battery,
eagerly scanning the horizon for. the
first sight OF the little boat that was
bringing his daughter to him. But
day after day passed without any news
Of the ship and finally she was posted
as Missing" in which category she
remains to this day-one Of the un-
solved mysteries of the. sea. Only a
short time afterward Aston, one Of
the youngest governors South Carolina
ever had, died, supposedly of a broken
heart and the double tragedy added
the final climax. to the career of Burr
himself ,.
The loss of the Patriot" however,
was not one of the usual riddles Of the
sea, case of vessel putting out
from port never TO be heard Of again.
1t was surrounded gby a number of
circumstances which were peculiar in
the extreme, starting with the we'll
defined rumor that the pilot ship had
been boarded by pirates shortly after
leaving Charleston and that Mrs. AL
ston had been 4sold into a life Of
slavery. Two sailors arrested in New
York several years after the disap-
pearance of the boat, declared that
they had lured vessel answering the
description Of the Patriot" on to the
rocks at Nag's Head, North, Carolina,
and that, after seizing the cargo, they
had blindfolded the passengers and
crew and, had forced them to walk the
plank. At the time this was thought
to solve the mystery of the vanished
ship, but only a few, weeks later sail
or at Galveston, Texas, confessed on
his death-bed that he had been a
member of the crew of the Patriot"
and told what appeared to be a cir
cumstantially correct story Of the mu-
tiny, followed by the murder Of the Of
fcers of the ship and all the passen-
gers. 500
For more than half a century the
riddle Of the pilot boat remained
subject of discussion whenever mat
tiers of the sea, were discussed, only to
be brought once more into the lime
light of public notice shortly after the
Civil war when DR.. ". G. Pool Of Eliz-
abeth City, N. c., ciianced to visit the
cabin of poor woman at Nag's Head,
N. c., where he saw an oil portrait Of
q handsome woman: on the wall. When
asked about 1t, the dying woman de-
cIared that 1t was a relic of a strange
ship which had come ashore at Nag's
Head about the. time Of the. war Of
, l2. Her husband she said was one
of crew of wreckers who had board
ed the craft, Only to find that she had
been abandoned and set adrift with all
sails set and her rudder dashed
against her stern. Nowhere was the
slightest sign Of blood or disorder
save for the fact that some Of the bag
gage had been broken open. The por-
trait, she declared, had been brought
ashore by her husband who had found
it in one of the cabins and 1t was at
once recalled that Mrs. Theodosia Ais
ton had taken an oil painting Of her
self with her when she left Charleston,
intending to give it to her father as a
birthday present. There was no name
on the picture which DR.. Pool discov-
ered but it bore a striking likeness to
the existing portraits Of Col, Burr's
daughter.
Still another angle to the mystery
appeared only q few years ago in the
discovery of J. A.. Elliott, of Norfolk,
Va, of documents telling of a female
corpse which was washed ashore at
Cape Charles early in 1913. The only
identifying marks were three valuable
rings which corresponded in design
with those which Mrs. Aston wore.
1t appears, therefore, that there are
four distinct and different accounts
OF the final fate of Mrs. Alston-the
pirate theory, the mutiny and its ac-
companying murders, the mysterious
deserted ship and the body found on
the beach at Cape Charles. If the pi-
rates had looted the ship why he'd they
left valuable silks and laces on board?
If the sailors forced the passengers to
walk the plank, why did they overlook
Mrs. Alston's rings? Where did the
oil portrait which DR.. Pool found come
from, for the other residents of Nag's
Head had never heard Of the strange
ship from which 1t was supposed to
have been taken? Finally, what be-
came of the pilot boat Patriot" and
why was no trace of her ever discoy-