Aaron Burr

Aaron Burr entered Princeton University at the age of 13 and graduated in 1772. He started to study theology, but turned to law. He was a Captain in the Revolutionary War, and was promoted to Lt. Colonel after the battle of Lexington and Concord.

He returned to law after the war and was admitted to the NY Bar in 1782. It was at this time his rivalry with Alexander Hamilton begun.

In 1782 Burr married Theodosia Bartow Prevost, the widow of a British army officer who had died in the West Indies during the Revolutionary War. They had two daughters. While their younger daughter, Sarah, died at age three, their older daughter Theodosia Burr, born in 1783, became widely known for her beauty and accomplishments. She married Joseph Alston of South Carolina in 1801, and died either due to piracy or in a shipwreck off the Carolinas in the winter of 1812 or early 1813. Aaron Burr and his first wife were married for twelve years, until her death from cancer.

He gained a seat in the NY Assembly in 1779, and was sent to the newly formed US Senate in 1791.

In the Presidential election of 1800, he came in 2nd to Thomas Jefferson, and served as Vice President. The political rivalry between Hamilton and Burr reached its notorious conclusion when Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel on July 11, 1804 in Weehawken, NJ. Hamilton was mortally wounded and Burr escaped but eventually returned to Washington to finish out his term at Vice President.

In August 1807, Burr was arrested and tried for treason, charged with trying to form a republic. He was acquitted and went abroad. He returned and practiced law in NY.

In 1833, at age 77, Burr married again, this time to Eliza Bowen Jumel, the extremely wealthy widow of Stephen Jumel. When she realized her fortune was dwindling from her husband's land speculation, they separated after only four months. During the month of their first anniversary, she sued for divorce, citing infidelity, and it was granted on the day of his death. Those papers were served to Burr on his deathbed by Alexander Hamilton's elder son, whose father Burr had killed, an irony which was surely not lost on the younger Hamilton.

Burr died at Port Richmond, Staten Island on September 14, 1836.