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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Theodosia Bartoe Burr later Theodosia Burr Alston, was

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Speaker 1: born on June twenty first, seventeen eighty three. That makes

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Speaker 1: that two hundred and forty two years ago today, on

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Speaker 1: the day this episode is coming out. Our episode on

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Speaker 1: Her and Her Mysterious Disappearance came out on October eighteenth,

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Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, and it is today's Saturday Classic. Enjoy Welcome

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Speaker 1: to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I am Tracy V. Wilson

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Speaker 1: and I'm Holly Frye. I have a slight cold voice today,

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Speaker 1: so apologies at the side of the episode for that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we both caught some crowd while we were in New York, yep,

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Speaker 1: so that apology aside. The last time we mentioned Hamilton

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Speaker 1: on the podcast, I said it would be cool to

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Speaker 1: do an episode about one of the ladies on the

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Speaker 1: show because Hamilton's men are becoming really well represented in

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Speaker 1: our podcast archive already. So today that is what we

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Speaker 1: are doing. She's a figure who played a hugely important

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Speaker 1: role in that show, despite not singing any songs or

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Speaker 1: even ever being on stage. It's Theodosia Burr Alston.

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Speaker 2: And in keeping with our Halloween theme, because it is October,

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Speaker 2: we're going to be spending some time on her mysterious

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Speaker 2: eighteen twelve disappearance and all the stories surrounding it, some

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Speaker 2: of which are quite macab hooray McCom.

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Speaker 1: It's almost impossible to separate Theodosia Burr Alston's life from

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Speaker 1: her parents, Aaron Burr and Theodosia Barto and when they

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Speaker 1: met the elder. Theodosia was married to Jacques Marcus Privo

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Speaker 1: or Provost, depending on how you pronounce it, You're French,

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Speaker 1: you're American. He is also sometimes known as James Mark Provost,

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Speaker 1: who was an officer in the British Army.

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Speaker 2: Jacques and Theodosia had five children together, three daughters and

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Speaker 2: two sons, none of whom are the subject of this episode.

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Speaker 3: They all lived on.

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Speaker 2: A two hundred and fifty acre estate in New Jersey

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Speaker 2: known as the Hermitage, and they lived there along with

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Speaker 2: Theodosia's widowed mother and an enslaved household staff. When the

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Speaker 2: Revolutionary War started. Jacques, who had risen to the rank

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Speaker 2: of lieutenant colonel in earlier wars, returned to service in

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Speaker 2: the army. He became second in command to his brother Augustine,

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Speaker 2: and Augustine is actually sometimes incorrectly named as Theodosia's husband.

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Speaker 2: Jacques's role in the British Army put Theodosia in a

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Speaker 2: precarious position because the Hermitage was in territory controlled by

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Speaker 2: the Patriots and she was entertaining a lot of their

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Speaker 2: most prominent military and political leaders there.

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Speaker 3: But somehow she managed to.

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Speaker 1: Walk a very fine line in which her husband and

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Speaker 1: most of her male relatives were fighting for the loyalist

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Speaker 1: cause while she was at home playing host to such

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Speaker 1: prominent Patriots as the Marquis de Lafayette, John Laurens, Alexander Hamilton,

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Speaker 1: Charles Lee, James Monroe, and George Washington himself. Yes, basically

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Speaker 1: the elder Theodosia was hosting the entire cast of Hamilton

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Speaker 1: at the estate. And of course, there was her future husband,

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Speaker 1: Aaron Burr, who Theodosia met at the Hermitage while her

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Speaker 1: husband was stationed in Jamaica. Aaron Burr was a notorious philanderer,

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Speaker 1: but the first time he saw Theodosia, he was totally

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Speaker 1: convinced that she was, to use a slightly more recent term,

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Speaker 1: his soulmate. This was in spite of the fact that

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Speaker 1: she was married, she was a decade older than he was,

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Speaker 1: and she already had five children. Eventually, Theodosia's husband was

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Speaker 1: recalled to Georgia, and after defeating the Patriots' forces there,

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Speaker 1: he was installed as Lieutenant governor under the British government.

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Speaker 3: That delicate line.

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Speaker 1: That Theodosia had been walking back at the Hermitage started

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Speaker 1: to falter. New Jersey law allowed the confiscation of land

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Speaker 1: belonging to loyalists, and Theodosia's husban was no longer just

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Speaker 1: an officer in the British army. He was a prominent

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Speaker 1: part of the British government in North America.

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Speaker 2: So an organized effort got underway to try to have

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Speaker 2: Theodosia and her family evicted from the Hermitage, and among

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Speaker 2: those who defended her, in part due to her connection

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Speaker 2: to so many on the patriots side, was Aaron Burr.

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Speaker 2: Theodosa did eventually leave the Hermitage because the war in

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Speaker 2: the area became way too precarious for her to be

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Speaker 2: safe there, but the organized effort to force her off

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Speaker 2: the property was ultimately dropped.

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Speaker 1: In addition to advocating for her to remain at the hermitage,

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Speaker 1: Aaron Burr spent much of the Revolutionary War preparing for

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Speaker 1: what he saw as a foregone conclusion that one day

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Speaker 1: he would marry Theodosia Prevost. As long as he was

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Speaker 1: stationed anywhere nearby, he visited her as often as he could.

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Speaker 1: In seventeen seventy nine, at the age of twenty three,

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Speaker 1: he resigned from the army because of his failing health,

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Speaker 1: and he resumed his study of law, hoping that that

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Speaker 1: would allow him to support her. He also developed a

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Speaker 1: relationship with her two sons and paid for a tutor

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Speaker 1: to see to their educations.

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Speaker 2: In December of seventeen eighty one, Theodosia Provost learned that

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Speaker 2: her first husband had died, so Aaron Burr had successfully

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Speaker 2: waited out their relationship. This information actually came to her

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Speaker 2: second hand from a loyalist newspaper. She never got official

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Speaker 2: word on it from the British Army. Aaron Burr at

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Speaker 2: the time was in the middle of applying for admission

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Speaker 2: to the New York Bar, which he earned on April seventeenth,

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Speaker 2: seventeen eighty two. And then on July second of that year,

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Speaker 2: he and Theodosia married at the Hermitage, which she had

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Speaker 2: returned to earlier in the year, once it was safe

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Speaker 2: for her to be back there. From there they moved

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Speaker 2: to Albany, where Aaron Burr set up a profitable law practice.

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Speaker 1: And their early marriage was, by all accounts, a very

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Speaker 1: happy one. Theodosia was extremely intelligent, she was very well read,

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Speaker 1: and she and her husband shared a keen interesting culture

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Speaker 1: and art. Aaron Burr saw his wife as an intellectual equal,

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Speaker 1: and he trusted her to handle aspects of his business

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Speaker 1: for him. Their marriage also raised an eyebrows since, in

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Speaker 1: addition to the part where he'd visited so much before

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Speaker 1: her husband died, she wasn't wealthy, and she also was

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Speaker 1: not considered to be particularly attractive, and it was assumed

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Speaker 1: that Aaron Burr would marry someone rich or beautiful or both.

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Speaker 2: They made their Albany residence into a place that was

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Speaker 2: home to French literature and fine art, and on June

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Speaker 2: twenty first, seventeen eighty three, their daughter, who was christened

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Speaker 2: Theodosia Barto Burr. The following July, they nicknamed her Miss

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Speaker 2: Press and in their letters to each other and eventually

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Speaker 2: to her, they called her Theo. Although the Burrs occupied

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Speaker 2: a prominent place in Albany society and his law practice

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Speaker 2: was successful, Aaron Burr wanted to pursue even greater opportunities.

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Speaker 2: He was, as was the case through.

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Speaker 1: Much of his life, short on liquid funds, so he

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Speaker 1: borrowed money from an uncle to relocate the family to

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Speaker 1: New York City.

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Speaker 2: Theodosia wound up being nearly the entire focus of her

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Speaker 2: parents and especially her father's ambitions. Her three half sisters

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Speaker 2: aren't really mentioned much in the historical record, and they

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Speaker 2: disappear from it all together. By seventeen ninety one. Her

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Speaker 2: two half brothers were already old enough to work as

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Speaker 2: clerks in their father's law office. By the time that

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Speaker 2: she was born. They both had to swear allegiance to

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Speaker 2: the United States, since they had been sent to fight

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Speaker 2: with the British when they were little. Her sister, Sally,

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Speaker 2: was born on June twentieth of seventeen eighty five, but

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Speaker 2: she died at the age of only three, and the

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Speaker 2: younger Theodosia also had two brothers who were both still born,

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Speaker 2: so it was really Theodosia, who Aaron Burr started grooming

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Speaker 2: for some future greatness as part of his own personal legacy,

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Speaker 2: and we're going to talk about how he did that,

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Speaker 2: but first we're going to pause for a quick little

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Speaker 2: sponsor break. Both of her parents absolutely adored the young

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Speaker 2: theodo Ja Burr, and they raised her in a home

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Speaker 2: that was nurturing and loving. And if they had not,

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Speaker 2: if they had been distant and cruel people, she could

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Speaker 2: have easily buckled under her father's demands because his plan

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Speaker 2: for her education was intense. Aaron Burr is often described

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Speaker 2: as giving his daughter an education that would have been

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Speaker 2: expected for a young man from a prominent family, but

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Speaker 2: it really goes way farther than that. His expectations for

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Speaker 2: her were incredibly high, and he got to work on

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Speaker 2: shaping her into a person who could meet those expectations.

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Speaker 2: Basically as soon as she was born.

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Speaker 1: She had multiple tutors dedicated to different subjects, with multi

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Speaker 1: hour blocks every day devoted to practicing them. It was

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Speaker 1: a wide ranging education, with its only notable omission being religion,

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Speaker 1: something people were still commenting on the odditya of one

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Speaker 1: hundred years later, Theodosia was a brilliant student. Even as

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Speaker 1: a young child. She was writing her father letters by

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Speaker 1: the age of three, and writing them well by the

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Speaker 1: age of five. At the age of eight, she was

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Speaker 1: assisting her half sister Luisa, who was more than a

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Speaker 1: decade older, with her math. At ten, she spoke both

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Speaker 1: French and Latin, and her penmanship looked like it belonged

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Speaker 1: to a professional calligrapher. And also at that age she

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Speaker 1: had reportedly read all six volumes of Edward Gibbons The

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Speaker 1: History and Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. She

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Speaker 1: was widely regarded as a prodigy. Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication

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Speaker 1: of the Rights of Woman is often credited as having

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Speaker 1: inspired Erin Burr to secure this education for his daughter,

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Speaker 1: and he definitely did read that work in seventeen ninety three,

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Speaker 1: after which he called it a work of genius. But

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Speaker 1: by that time, Theodosia's education was already well underway. All

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Speaker 1: of those accomplishments that Tracy spoke of just a moment

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Speaker 1: ago had already happened.

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Speaker 2: What A Vende of the Rights of Women did do

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Speaker 2: was make Aaron Burke consider thinking about the education of

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Speaker 2: other girls, and the way he thought about his own daughters.

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Speaker 2: He became one of the very few men who was

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Speaker 2: outspokenly supportive of Wolstencraft's work, especially as it related to

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Speaker 2: the education of girls.

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Speaker 3: And young women.

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Speaker 2: He imagined that Theodosia could provide a living example that

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Speaker 2: girls could and should be educated and could excel in school.

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Speaker 2: He wrote of his daughter, quote, I hope yet by

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Speaker 2: her to convince the world what neither sex appears to

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Speaker 2: believe that women have souls. Even though Theodosia excelled at

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Speaker 2: her studies and grew into a lively accomplished young woman,

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Speaker 2: this wasn't without its problems. Aaron Burr spent as much

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Speaker 2: time at home as he could, but his work did

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Speaker 2: keep him away for long stretches. This was especially true

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Speaker 2: when he started his political career, which began with a

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Speaker 2: term in the New York Assembly the year after Theodosia

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Speaker 2: was born, and whenever he was gone, it was up

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Speaker 2: to Theodosia's mother to carry out the exacting educational plans

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Speaker 2: that he had created. So just overseeing her daughter's education

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Speaker 2: might not have been too much for the elder Theodosia

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Speaker 2: to handle, but simultaneously she also had to oversee the

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Speaker 2: management of their various New York City households, including the

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Speaker 2: enslaved staff. She was also entrusted with carrying out various

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Speaker 2: business matters on her husband's behalf. At the same time,

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Speaker 2: her health had already been really poor even before her

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Speaker 2: second marriage.

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Speaker 1: Toward the end of seventeen ninety three, the elder Theodosia's

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Speaker 1: health really started to fail, and she was given a

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Speaker 1: wide range of treatments, from hemlock to laudanum, to wine

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Speaker 1: to mercury, and none of this worked, and she died

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Speaker 1: at home on May eighteenth of seventeen ninety four. The

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Speaker 1: actual cause of death was most likely stomach cancer. The

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Speaker 1: young Theodosia was only ten when her mother died. She

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Speaker 1: had been the person most responsible for her mother's care

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Speaker 1: in the last months of her life. Her father, by

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Speaker 1: then a senator, returned to work almost immediately. Theodosia threw

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Speaker 1: herself into her studies, and she gradually started taking on

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Speaker 1: additional duties that had formerly been handled by her mother.

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Speaker 1: The Burrs had multiple residences in and around New York,

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Speaker 1: but following the death of his wife, Aaron and Theodosia

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Speaker 1: made a mansion known as Richmond Hill. Their primary home,

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Speaker 1: and that is the younger Theodosia.

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Speaker 3: We're speaking of.

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Speaker 1: An enslaved staff of approximately ten people saw to the

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Speaker 1: day to day care and management of the property, including

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Speaker 1: cook's maids, coachmen, a valet, and a doormen. By her

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Speaker 1: early teens, Theodosia was officially the mistress of the house,

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Speaker 1: and by running the household and acting as hostess, Theodosia

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Speaker 1: met and interacted with an incredibly posh list of guests,

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Speaker 1: including politicians, statesmen, and war heroes. Her education was also

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Speaker 1: still ongoing even as she was basically running the household.

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Speaker 1: Around the time of her mother's death, she acquired a

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Speaker 1: new teacher from France known as Madame de Sinot, who

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Speaker 1: was governess to Natalie Delage de Valeude. The two of them,

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Speaker 1: along with Sinnat's own daughter, had fled the French Revolution,

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Speaker 1: and upon arriving in New York, Madame de Sinat had

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Speaker 1: set to work establishing a school to cater to the

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Speaker 1: children of prominent families. There she lived and worked from

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Speaker 1: a residence that Burr also used as an office, and

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Speaker 1: Natalie and Theodosia, who were about the same age, became

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Speaker 1: best friends. In eighteen hundred two things happened that would

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Speaker 1: radically change Theodosia's life. One was an incredibly convoluted presidential election,

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Speaker 1: which would ultimately wind up with her father becoming the

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Speaker 1: third vice president of the United States. The other is

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Speaker 1: that she met South Carolina planter Joseph Alston. Joseph was

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Speaker 1: wealthy and educated, and he had practiced law before turning

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Speaker 1: his attention to agriculture. His rice plantation on the Wacamaw

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Speaker 1: River covered more than six thousand acres, which were worked

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Speaker 1: by more than two hundred enslaved Africans.

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Speaker 2: Theodosia was definitely attracted to Joseph, but one of the

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Speaker 2: hallmarks of her education had been rational thought. She believed

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Speaker 2: they were much too young to get married. That she

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Speaker 2: was only seventeen and he was twenty one. She thought

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Speaker 2: a way more appropriate age for a man to get

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Speaker 2: married was thirty. She told Joseph she would only agree

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Speaker 2: to marry him if he made an argument strong enough

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Speaker 2: to convince her that it was the best thing to do,

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Speaker 2: along with easing her concerns about what life would be

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Speaker 2: like as the wife of a planner in South Carolina.

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Speaker 2: He returned with a letter that was clearly influenced by

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Speaker 2: his time in law, in which he suggested that the

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Speaker 2: negative things she'd heard about plantation life were just rumors

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Speaker 2: spread by northern abolitionists, that Charleston was a beautiful and

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Speaker 2: cosmopolitan city, that there were other educated and intelligent women

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Speaker 2: in South Carolina, and that the primary arguments against marrying

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Speaker 2: young were discretion and fortune, the two of them, he reasoned,

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Speaker 2: had plenty of. Theodosia finally agreed with him, and they

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Speaker 2: got married in Albany on February second of eighteen oh one.

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Speaker 3: In spite of.

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Speaker 2: Her youth, Theodosia was probably the most educated woman in

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Speaker 2: the United States at the time.

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Speaker 1: Just over two weeks later, the House of Representatives, having

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Speaker 1: voted on the matter thirty six times, finally elected Thomas

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Speaker 1: Jefferson to be the third President of the United States,

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Speaker 1: making Burr his vice president. Almost immediately, Burr nominated Joseph

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Speaker 1: Alston as Charge de fair to the US Minister to France,

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Speaker 1: imagining that Theodosia might continue her education there, but Joseph

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Speaker 1: decided to stick with his plantation.

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Speaker 2: We will get to Theodosia's married life and her eventual

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Speaker 2: disappearance after another quick sponsor break. In seventeen oh one,

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Speaker 2: Theodosia and Joseph departed on a bridal tour, simultaneously starting

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Speaker 2: a trend by being the first prominent couple to visit

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Speaker 2: Niagara Falls on their honeymoon. By the time they got

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Speaker 2: home again, Theodosia was pregnant and a son, Aaron Burr Alston,

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Speaker 2: was born around May twenty second of eighteen oh two.

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Speaker 2: His grandfather wanted so badly to be present for the

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Speaker 2: birth of his grandson that he actually left the Capitol

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Speaker 2: while Congress was still in sessions so he could get

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Speaker 2: there in time. The young Aaron's birth was long and difficult,

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Speaker 2: and the delivery caused a uterine prolapse. A minor prolapse

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Speaker 2: often doesn't require much medical treatment, but Theodosia's case was severe.

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Speaker 2: It caused her extreme pain for the rest of her life,

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Speaker 2: along with irregular and very painful periods, and it also

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Speaker 2: made her unable to have any more children and led

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Speaker 2: to recurring infections. Since there was no reliable way to

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Speaker 2: treat these infections, they threatened her life on more than

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Speaker 2: one occasion. The field of gynecology really didn't exist yet,

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Speaker 2: and no one fully understood what was going on or

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Speaker 2: how to treat it. Plus, the symptoms that she was

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Speaker 2: experiencing were so taboo and they caused her so much

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Speaker 2: embarrassment that when she wrote to a doctor to describe

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Speaker 2: what was happening to her, she did it all in

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Speaker 2: third person. About three weeks after her son's birth, Theodosia

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Speaker 2: and the baby boarded a ship to go to New

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Speaker 2: York to stay with her father for several months.

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Speaker 3: Which became an annual event.

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Speaker 1: This was as much about trying to recover from the

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Speaker 1: birth of her son as it was about trying to

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Speaker 1: recover from culture shock. The South was, as a whole

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Speaker 1: deeply religious, and Theodosia was not. She was also just

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Speaker 1: not what anyone expected of a planter's wife. Although Charleston

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Speaker 1: society might have been more welcoming of an exceptionally educated woman,

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Speaker 1: a swampy rice plantation on.

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Speaker 3: The Wakama River was far far from there.

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Speaker 2: Plus, although Aaron Burr enslaved people at his New York estates,

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Speaker 2: and Theodosia had been responsible to some extent in their

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Speaker 2: management while she was running the household, he had also

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Speaker 2: allowed them all to learn to read and write, and

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Speaker 2: he had argued in favor of New York's gradual amann

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Speaker 2: it a patient Act which went into effect in seventeen

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Speaker 2: ninety nine. So people who owned lots of slaves not

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Speaker 2: necessarily the biggest fan of Aaron Burr and his politics.

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Speaker 2: But as Joseph's wife, it was Theodosa's responsibility to manage

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Speaker 2: and monitor the domestic life and health of the whole

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Speaker 2: enslaved workforce, and essentially to act as its quartermaster in

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Speaker 2: accordance with Southern expectations. This was a world away from

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Speaker 2: New York, where running her father's household had meant arranging

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Speaker 2: dinners and soires for presidents and diplomats. That had not

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Speaker 2: meant things like distributing annual cloth and allotments to hundreds

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Speaker 2: of enslaved people. Theodosia and her husband definitely missed each

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Speaker 2: other in these annual stretches of months and months when

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Speaker 2: she was away, but South Carolina just did not feel

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Speaker 2: like home to her, and New York did. Then.

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Speaker 1: On July eleventh, eighteen oh four, when she was twenty one,

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Speaker 1: Diodosia's father shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel, and Hamilton,

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Speaker 1: of course, later died of that wound. Aaron Burr was

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Speaker 1: charged with murder, but he was never tried. There is

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Speaker 1: a whole podcast about this in the archives, so we're

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Speaker 1: not going to go into deep detail on that.

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Speaker 2: As a note, only because people have written in to

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Speaker 2: ask us about it. You will sometimes hear that Aaron

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Speaker 2: Burr's real motive for this duel was that Alexander Hamilton

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Speaker 2: knew he was committing incest with Theodosia and had been

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Speaker 2: spreading that around. But this really comes from Gorvidal's nineteen

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Speaker 2: seventy three novel Burr, and his logic as a writer

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Speaker 2: was basically that it was the one thing he could

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Speaker 2: think of that would make Aaron Burr angry enough to

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Speaker 2: kill Alexander Hamilton. There's really no evidence that there was

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Speaker 2: physical incest going on, but it is absolutely true that

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Speaker 2: Burr's relationship with his daughter did not have anything like

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Speaker 2: what we would call healthy emotional boundaries today at all.

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Speaker 2: She became a definitely became an emotional surrogate for her

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Speaker 2: mother after her mother's death, and their relationship was intense

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Speaker 2: in a way that would not strike people as normal.

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Speaker 1: The duel with alexand Hamilton was not Burr's only crime.

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Speaker 1: He also embarked on a weird scheme to invade Mexico,

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Speaker 1: separate off the western part of the US territory, and

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Speaker 1: succeed setting all of that up as his personal empire,

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Speaker 1: with Theodosia succeeding him as empress after his death. There

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Speaker 1: is a whole episode about that in the archive as well,

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Speaker 1: and that is actually going to be our Saturday Classic

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Speaker 1: this week. Yeah, that seems like a bizarre story to

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Speaker 1: bring up and not really get into it, but this

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Speaker 1: episode is not about Aaron Burr, so we will leave

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Speaker 1: that to past hosts to cover on Saturday. Long story short,

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Speaker 1: Aaron Burr was arrested for treason on February nineteenth, eighteen

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Speaker 1: oh seven, and he faced trial in Richmond, Virginia. In

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Speaker 1: spite of her health, Theodosia and her husband traveled there

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Speaker 1: to be with him throughout the proceedings. Even though he

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Speaker 1: was acquitted.

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Speaker 2: On September first, his reputation was ruined and he became

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Speaker 2: the target of public outrage even more than he already

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Speaker 2: had for killing Alexander Hamilton. Theodosia's reputation was tarnished by

365
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Speaker 2: association as well. Aaron Burr fled to Europe, hoping to

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Speaker 2: make a brief escape while the outrage blew over, but

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Speaker 2: when he tried to return, he was refused a passport

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Speaker 2: and he was barred from re entering the country for

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Speaker 2: more than four years. Theodosia went from supporting her father

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Speaker 2: while on trial to trying to convince his adversaries to

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Speaker 2: let him back into the country. He was finally allowed

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Speaker 2: to return in eighteen twelve, and he arrived on May fourth.

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Speaker 2: His homecoming was soon marred by tragedy. Aaron Burr Alston

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Speaker 2: died on June thirtieth, eighteen twelve, of a summer fever

375
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Speaker 2: or possibly malaria, and Theodosia was absolutely distraught at the

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Speaker 2: death of her son. The only thing that motivated her

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Speaker 2: to go on living was the idea of being reunited

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Speaker 2: with her father.

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Speaker 1: Of course, this was during the War of eighteen twelve.

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Speaker 1: Theodosia's husband had been elected governor of South Carolina and

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Speaker 1: was brigadier general of the state militias, so he could

382
00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:04,120
Speaker 1: not accompany her on this trip. An overland voyage would

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00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:06,639
Speaker 1: have been far too long and uncomfortable for someone with

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Speaker 1: her physical condition, so the only way she could get

385
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Speaker 1: to her father was by sea. It would take less

386
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Speaker 1: than a week, but it was an already uncertain means

387
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Speaker 1: of travel through an active warzone that was also infested

388
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Speaker 1: with pirates. Theodosia's husband thought this was an incredibly dangerous idea,

389
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Speaker 1: but she was so devastated and so sick that he

390
00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:30,240
Speaker 1: couldn't even consider trying to stop her from going. So

391
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Speaker 1: she departed from Georgetown, South Carolina, aboard a small pilot

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Speaker 1: boat called the Patriot, on December thirty first, eighteen twelve.

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Speaker 1: Some accountsless this is the thirtieth. Doctor Timothy Ruggles Green

394
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Speaker 1: went with her because of her illness and her health,

395
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Speaker 1: and she probably had a maid and maybe a cook

396
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Speaker 1: with her as well. Joseph boarded the boat with them.

397
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Speaker 1: He kissed Theodosia goodbye, and then he rowed himself back

398
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Speaker 1: to shore alone. Once the Patriots slipped out of view,

399
00:22:58,640 --> 00:22:59,879
Speaker 1: it was never seen again.

400
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Speaker 2: For weeks, both Aaron Burr and Joseph Alston held out

401
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:08,200
Speaker 2: hope that Theodosia was still somehow alive. The two men

402
00:23:08,240 --> 00:23:12,560
Speaker 2: wrote each other increasingly frantic letters, especially after they heard that,

403
00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:15,280
Speaker 2: in spite of the fine weather in Georgetown, when the

404
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:18,840
Speaker 2: ship set sail, a heavy storm had struck the coast

405
00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:21,040
Speaker 2: of North Carolina not long after she left.

406
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Speaker 3: They clung to.

407
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:25,560
Speaker 1: Hope for weeks, but when it eventually became clear that

408
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:30,359
Speaker 1: Theodosia was gone, they were both broken men. Joseph Alston

409
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 1: completed his term as governor in eighteen fourteen, after weathering

410
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Speaker 1: a number of scandals and blackmail attempts related to that

411
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Speaker 1: Mexico invasion plot, which he had contributed money to. He

412
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Speaker 1: died on September tenth, eighteen sixteen, at the age of

413
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Speaker 1: thirty seven. Aaron Burr died twenty years later, and in

414
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 1: the years after Theodosia's disappearance, he had put everything that

415
00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: reminded him of her out of sight. Speculation about what

416
00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:59,679
Speaker 1: happened started immediately after the disappearance of the Patriot, and

417
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:03,919
Speaker 1: it cantinued for decades. To quote a New York Times

418
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Speaker 1: piece written for the one hundredth anniversary of the disappearance,

419
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:11,000
Speaker 1: summing up what all that speculation had been for all

420
00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:14,600
Speaker 1: those decades, Quote, what happened to Theodosia Burr Alston, the

421
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:17,560
Speaker 1: beautiful daughter of Aaron Burr, vice President of the United

422
00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:21,159
Speaker 1: States and the reigning bell of diplomatic society? Was she

423
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:24,680
Speaker 1: shipwrecked in a storm at sea. Was she kidnapped by pirates?

424
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:27,120
Speaker 1: Was she forced to walk the plank into the ocean?

425
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:30,440
Speaker 1: Was she held a prisoner? Was she abandoned on an island?

426
00:24:30,760 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 1: Was she the ill fated victim of her father's political enemies?

427
00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:37,560
Speaker 1: Was her life the absolution which washed the stain of

428
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:42,320
Speaker 1: Alexander Hamilton's blood from her father's hands. The only thing

429
00:24:42,320 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: that we know for sure is that they were not

430
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Speaker 1: stopped by the British Navy. In nineteen ninety eight, James L.

431
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:51,840
Speaker 1: Mitchie scoured the logs of all British ships that had

432
00:24:51,840 --> 00:24:54,920
Speaker 1: been patrolling off the Carolina coast, and none of them

433
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:57,480
Speaker 1: had any record of an encounter with the Patriot.

434
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 2: There are naturally a slew of eerie and sometimes Macob's

435
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,520
Speaker 2: story is about what happened to the Patriot and everyone aboard,

436
00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:08,280
Speaker 2: and some of them emerged while Theodosia's husband and father

437
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 2: were still alive. Theodosia's best friend, Natalie, had a series

438
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 2: of premonitions that made her fear for Theodosia's life in

439
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:19,479
Speaker 2: October of eighteen thirteen, So this was well after the

440
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 2: Patriots set sail, but before she had heard anything about

441
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 2: what had happened. She ended a letter to a friend quote,

442
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:27,960
Speaker 2: I think she must be dead.

443
00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:34,440
Speaker 1: A series of pirates also gave multiple contradictory deathbed confessions

444
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 1: about having captured the Patriot and killed everyone aboard, including Theodosia.

445
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:43,639
Speaker 1: A June twenty third, eighteen twenty article and The Mercantile

446
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:48,879
Speaker 1: Advisor reported that Jean Defarge and Robert Johnson, privateers aboard

447
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:52,120
Speaker 1: the Patriot, had confessed to taking over the ship two

448
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 1: or three days into the journey, trapping everyone in the hold,

449
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 1: stealing all of the valuables, and sinking the boat on

450
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: their way out. Although they were tried, convicted, and executed

451
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: for this crime, they also said the Patriot left from

452
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: Charleston when it really left from Georgetown, and they also

453
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 1: said that the weather had been good the whole time,

454
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:14,200
Speaker 1: So there were a lot of contradictions in their account.

455
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:18,439
Speaker 2: It seems maybe weird that somebody would make up a

456
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 2: confession to a crime that would get them executed, but

457
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 2: like they were on trial for other stuff as well,

458
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:25,399
Speaker 2: So if this is a whole made up story, it

459
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:28,719
Speaker 2: was made up to bring them personal infamy because they

460
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 2: already knew that regardless of what all they testified to

461
00:26:31,800 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 2: they were going to be executed. Another confession made by

462
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 2: James Burdick, who was known as Old Frank, was reported

463
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:43,159
Speaker 2: from Michigan in eighteen fifty. He had made an agreement

464
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:46,119
Speaker 2: with some neighbors that they could have his house after

465
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:48,520
Speaker 2: he died if they looked after him in his old age.

466
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:51,120
Speaker 2: So in his final years, as they were taking care

467
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 2: of him, he told them all kinds of stories about

468
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:57,120
Speaker 2: his time as a pirate, including that he had captured

469
00:26:57,160 --> 00:27:00,880
Speaker 2: the Patriot and given Theodosia a choice of becoming concubine

470
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 2: or walking the plank. According to Verdic, she chose the latter, saying,

471
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:09,119
Speaker 2: quote vengeance's mind saith the Lord, I will repay on

472
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 2: her way down. There's no substantiation on this story, and

473
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:17,920
Speaker 2: walking the plank is also way more associated with sensational

474
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:22,120
Speaker 2: fiction than with anything actual pirates did. Plus, as we've

475
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:26,239
Speaker 2: said before, Theodosia was not really a religious woman. This

476
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:29,440
Speaker 2: I captured the Patriot and made Theodosia walk the plank

477
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 2: story became a common theme, appearing not only in the

478
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 2: deathbed confessions of other purported pirates, but also the plot

479
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 2: of several sensational novels.

480
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:41,399
Speaker 3: Not every novel ended with a plank walk though.

481
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:45,120
Speaker 1: In Blenner Hassett or The Decrees of Fate, a romance

482
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:48,280
Speaker 1: founded upon events in American History, which was a book

483
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:51,359
Speaker 1: published in nineteen oh one, the pirate captain falls in

484
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:55,240
Speaker 1: love with Theodosia and she is accidentally shot by someone.

485
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:59,200
Speaker 3: In the navy who was aiming for him. Yeah, the guy.

486
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:01,959
Speaker 2: Who wrote this book wrote another book that was also

487
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:04,879
Speaker 2: a fictionalization of her life, and he used all his

488
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,359
Speaker 2: research for this to make one of the to write

489
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 2: one of the first biographies of her, which you can

490
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 2: find on the internet at archive dot org.

491
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 3: It'll be linked in the show notes.

492
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 2: But in a way it's frustrating to read because it

493
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:21,959
Speaker 2: has chapters and chapters and chapters that are about her

494
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:27,080
Speaker 2: ancestors before it actually gets to her, and then it's

495
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:30,920
Speaker 2: very clear that there is some bias involved and how

496
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 2: he tells the story of her life. Anyway, outside the

497
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 2: world of piracy, we're leaving pirates behind. There is a

498
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 2: grave at Saint Paul's Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Virginia that

499
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 2: is known as the Grave of the Female Stranger. So,

500
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 2: according to the lore, a man and a woman arrived

501
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 2: in Alexandria in eighteen sixteen, and the woman was very sick.

502
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 2: When a doctor was summoned, the couple would permit no

503
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 2: questions about who they were. The woman died on October

504
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:02,200
Speaker 2: fourteenth of eighteen sixteen, and was buried in a grave

505
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 2: under an inscription that begins quote to the memory of

506
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 2: a female stranger whose mortal sufferings terminated on the fourteenth

507
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 2: day of October eighteen sixteen, aged twenty three years and

508
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 2: eight months. One theory, even though this was a couple

509
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 2: of years after she disappeared, and she would have been

510
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 2: older than twenty three, as at the identity of the

511
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 2: woman buried in this grave as Theodosia Burr Alston.

512
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 1: Fifty seven years after the disappearance of the Patriot, a

513
00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:36,240
Speaker 1: doctor named W. G. Poole was summaring at Nagshead, North Carolina,

514
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 1: when he was called on to see an elderly woman

515
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:42,840
Speaker 1: known as Missus Mann. As a gesture of thanks and

516
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 1: in lieu of cash payment, she gave him an oil

517
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 1: portrait of a lady which he had admired. While he

518
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 1: was attending to her in her home.

519
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 2: Doctor Poole tried to get Missus Mann to tell him

520
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 2: where this picture had come from, and she finally told

521
00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 2: him that her husband had been a wrecker, basically somebody

522
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 2: who made a living by salvaging wrecked ships off of

523
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 2: the outer banks, and sometimes these outer banks wreckers are

524
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 2: known as bankers.

525
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:07,720
Speaker 3: He and some.

526
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 2: Others had found a ship completely abandoned, and in some

527
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 2: versions of the story nothing seemed to miss and a

528
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 2: meal was even laid out on the table, and other

529
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 2: accounts everything was in disarray. But regardless, this painting was

530
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 2: purportedly from one of the cabins on the boat, which

531
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 2: clearly belonged to a woman. Somebody eventually suggested that this

532
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 2: painting was off Theodosia Burr Alston.

533
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 1: It's hard to determine whether this painting, known as the

534
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 1: Nag's Head Portrait, really is Theodosia. The two authenticated portraits

535
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 1: of her don't look anything alike, and the Nag's Head

536
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 1: portrait doesn't look like either of them either. Members of

537
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: the Burr family insisted that it was her, but several

538
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 1: of the Alstons disagreed.

539
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 2: At this point, it's not really possible to determine if

540
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 2: this is really a painting of Theodosia burr Alston. But

541
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 2: it's one of the most talked about theories for not

542
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 2: even really a theory for her disappearance, like if she

543
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 2: did if she was on the boat and that was

544
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 2: a picture of her, that part makes sense because maybe

545
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 2: she was carrying this painting of herself to her father,

546
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 2: who was she was going to visit. But it raises

547
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 2: lots of questions about when she would have sat for

548
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 2: the painting, and then of course what happened to everyone

549
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 2: on the boat when they either abandoned it or were

550
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 2: taken off of it, leaving the painting behind. We're going

551
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 2: to end on what's probably the creepiest story and also

552
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 2: the most recent. Ja Elliott of Norfolk, Virginia reported a

553
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 2: story in nineteen ten that he had heard earlier from

554
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 2: people living in the area. A woman's body in fine

555
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:42,400
Speaker 2: clothing had washed up on the coast in January of

556
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 2: eighteen thirteen, and then a gentleman who found the body

557
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 2: had buried it on his farm, but before doing so,

558
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 2: he had cut three of its fingers off so he

559
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:55,160
Speaker 2: could remove rings that she was wearing. When he later

560
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 2: had a daughter, she was born with the same three

561
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 2: fingers missing. It said that the reason that it was

562
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 2: almost one hundred years before anybody had suggested that maybe

563
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,120
Speaker 2: this was Theodosia was that nobody had written the area

564
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 2: knew about Theodosia's disappearance, but as soon as he heard

565
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 2: about it, he made that connection. So there's most of

566
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:17,920
Speaker 2: the weird theories about what maybe happened. The most logical

567
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 2: theory is probably that the boat sank in a storm

568
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 2: like that seems like the most straightforward one, but having

569
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 2: so many weird stories about other people's claiming that they

570
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 2: captured it to spirates or that they they saw her

571
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 2: somewhere afterwards. Like, there's a bunch of other weird rumors

572
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 2: that we didn't really get it to of, like, oh,

573
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 2: I definitely saw her somewhere.

574
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 3: She was definitely alive.

575
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 1: There's that way that when any mystery exists in the

576
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 1: public consciousness, people step in to fill in the blanks,

577
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 1: even when those are not accurate at all.

578
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, this.

579
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 2: Was all over newspapers, and I read a whole bunch

580
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 2: of things from like one hundred year old copies of

581
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 2: like the New York Times in the Boston Globe, obviously

582
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 2: scanned and on the internet. I didn't go dig them

583
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 2: physically up, but they're kept being all these reports about her,

584
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 2: like she really was a famous person when she died,

585
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 2: although at that point, like her association with her father's

586
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 2: killing of Alexander Hamilton and weird scheme to take over

587
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:23,719
Speaker 2: his own personal empire like that had people didn't have

588
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:27,240
Speaker 2: maybe quite as much of a glowing perception of her.

589
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 2: But she and her husband were definitely famous figures when

590
00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 2: she vanished, and the story of her disappearance was just

591
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 2: this huge source for rumors and gossip for decades after

592
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 2: it happened. Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday.

593
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 2: If you'd like to send us a note, our email

594
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 2: addresses History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can

595
00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 2: subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, podcasts, or

596
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:09,760
Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows. MHM