Name Theodosia Alston Died 1813 | Parents Aaron Burr | |
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Grandparents Aaron Burr, Sr., Esther Edwards Burr Similar People | ||
Ted Phillips on daughters and 94 Church St, home of Theodosia Burr Alston
Theodosia Burr Alston (June 21, 1783 – probably January 2 or 3, 1813) was the daughter of U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr and Theodosia Bartow Prevost. Her husband, Joseph Alston, was governor of South Carolina during the War of 1812. She was lost at sea at age 29.
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Connections between Jean Laffite and Theodosia Burr Alston
Early life
Theodosia Burr Alston was born to Theodosia Bartow (Prevost) Burr and Aaron Burr in Albany, New York in 1783, a year after they married. Her mother was the widow of Jacques Marcus Prevost (1736-1781), a British Army officer who settled in New York City; she had five other children from that marriage and was ten years Burr's senior.
Alston was raised mostly in New York City. Her education was closely supervised by her father, who stressed mental discipline. In addition to the more conventional subjects such as French (the French textbook by Martel, Martel's Elements, published by Van Alen in New York in 1796, is dedicated to Theodosia), music, and dancing, the young "Theo" began to study arithmetic, Latin, Greek, and English composition. She applied herself to English in the form of letters to her father, which were responded to promptly, with the inclusion of detailed criticism. Their correspondence numbered thousands of letters.
Theodosia Bartow Burr died when her daughter was eleven years old. After this event, her father closely supervised his daughter's social education, including training in an appreciation of the arts. By the age of 14, Alston began to serve as hostess at Richmond Hill, Aaron Burr's stately home in what is now Greenwich Village. Once when Burr was away in 1797, his daughter presided over a dinner for Joseph Brant, Chief of the Six Nations. On this occasion, she invited Dr. Hosack, Dr. Bard, and the Bishop of New York, among other notables.
Marriage
On February 2, 1801 she married Joseph Alston, a wealthy landowner from South Carolina. They honeymooned at Niagara Falls, the first recorded couple to do so. It has been conjectured that there was more than romance involved in this union. Aaron Burr agonized intensely and daily about money matters, particularly as to how he would hold on to the Richmond Hill estate. It is thought that his daughter's tie to a member of the Southern gentry might relieve him of some of his financial burdens. The marriage to Joseph meant that Theodosia Alston would become prominent in South Carolina social circles. Her letters to her father indicated that she had formed an affectionate alliance with her husband. The couple's son, Aaron Burr Alston, was born in 1802.
Following the baby's birth, Alston's health became fragile. She made trips to Saratoga Springs, New York, and Ballston Spa, New York, in an effort to restore her health. She also visited her father and accompanied him to Ohio in the summer of 1806, along with her son. There, Aaron met with an Irishman, Harman Blennerhassett, who had an island estate in the Ohio River in what is now West Virginia. The two men made plans to form a western empire, which was later joined by General James Wilkinson. Burr and Wilkinson were rumored to be plotting to separate Louisiana and parts of the western United States from America; the veracity of this claim, with Burr becoming a "king-like" figure of the separated lands, was never proven.
Trial of Aaron Burr
In the spring of 1807, Aaron Burr was arrested for treason. During his trial in Richmond, Virginia, Alston was with him, providing comfort and support. He was acquitted of the charges against him but left for Europe, where he remained for a period of four years. While he was in exile, Alston acted as his agent in America, raising money, which she sent to her father, and transmitting messages. Alston wrote letters to Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin and to Dolley Madison in an effort to secure a smooth return for her father. He returned to New York in July 1812, but his daughter could not quickly join him. Her son had succumbed to a fever and died on June 30, and the anguish involved nearly killed Alston. She had to wait until December before she could make the journey.
Disappearance
The War of 1812 had broken out in June between the United States and Great Britain. Her husband was sworn in as Governor of South Carolina on December 10. As head of the state militia, he could not accompany her on the trip north. Her father sent Timothy Green, an old friend, to accompany her. Green possessed some medical knowledge.
On December 31, 1812, Alston sailed aboard the schooner Patriot from Georgetown, South Carolina. The Patriot was a famously fast sailer, which had originally been built as a pilot boat, and had served as a privateer during the War of 1812, when it was commissioned by the United States government to prey on English shipping. It had been refitted in December in Georgetown, its guns dismounted and hidden below decks. Its name was painted over and any indication of recent activity was entirely erased. The schooner's captain, William Overstocks, desired to make a rapid run to New York with his cargo; it is likely that the ship was laden with the proceeds from its privateering raids.
The Patriot and all those on board were never heard from again.
Suggested explanations
Following the Patriot's disappearance, rumors immediately arose. The most enduring was that the Patriot had been captured by the pirates Dominique You or "The Bloody Babe"; or something had occurred near Cape Hatteras, notorious for wreckers who lured ships into danger.
Her father refused to credit any of the rumors of her possible capture, believing that she had died in shipwreck, but the rumors persisted long after his death and after around 1850 more substantial "explanations" of the mystery surfaced, usually alleging to be from the deathbed confessions of sailors and executed criminals.
There is a legend in Bald Head Island, NC, that she roams the beaches searching for the painting.
Portraits
Gilbert Stuart painted a portrait of the 11-year-old Theodosia Burr in 1794. It is now at Yale University Art Gallery.
Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint-Memin painted a profile portrait of the 13-year-old Theodosia Burr in 1796. He made an engraving of it, a copy of which is at the National Portrait Gallery.
A portrait miniature of a young woman, possibly painted by John Wesley Jarvis, is traditionally identified as Theodosia Burr Alston. Two (later?) copies of the miniature were made and are attributed to Charles Fraser. One was handed down in the Alston family, and it illustrated the cover of Richard N. Cote's 2002 biography: Theodosia Burr Alston: Portrait of a Prodigy.
Pendant portraits of Vice-President Burr and his daughter were painted by John Vanderlyn in 1802. They are at the New York Historical Society.
A circa-1811 miniature of Theodosia Burr Alston by an unidentified artist is at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina.
A Federal Era portrait of an unidentified woman by an unidentified artist was found in Nag's Head, North Carolina, in 1869. The story attached to the painting was that it had been salvaged from an abandoned ship during the War of 1812. In the 20th century, the "Nag's Head portrait" was owned by Annie Burr Auchincloss, who married the collector Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis in 1928. The couple bequeathed their collections and 14-acre farm to Yale University, which opened the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut, in 1980.