Duel with the Devil (34 page)

  
1
the office of Nicholas Cruger
:
NYG
, 22 October 1799.

  
2
It abutted an icehouse
:
NYDA
, 16 May 1800.

  
3
Cruger had personally hired
: Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton
, 31.

  
4
36 Greenwich Street
:
Longworth’s American Almanack
(1800), 220.

  
5
“rather a shabby affair”
: Duras, “Alexander Hamilton’s Place in History,” 329.

  
6
“These things are to be admitted”
: Alexander Hamilton to James Bayard, 16 January 1800 [i.e., 1801],
Works of Alexander Hamilton
, 6:420.

  
7
prone to furnishing a space with a plain pine desk
: Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton
, 338.

  
8
“Returned as being more than is proper”
: Allan McLane Hamilton,
Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton
, 189.

  
9
“He is far more
cunning
”: Alexander Hamilton to James Bayard, 16 January 1800 [i.e., 1801],
Works of Alexander Hamilton
, 6:423.

10
“The truth is, with great apparent coldness”
: Ibid.

11
“Little Burr” … “We have always been opposed”
:
Papers of Alexander Hamilton
, 26:269.

12
Ruddy and red-haired
: Fleming,
Duel
, 3.

13
“rocking the cradle and studying”
: Allan McLane Hamilton,
Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton
, 149.

14
a job that, ironically, paid rather poorly
: Ibid., 163

15
not Hamilton’s usual line of work
:
Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton
, 1:687.

16
a client accused in 1786 of dueling
: Ibid., 689

17
a single murder case … a few shoplifting charges
: Ibid., 690

18
“I remark as I go along everything”
: Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton
, 642.

19
octagonal dining and parlor rooms
:
Papers of Alexander Hamilton
, 25:40.

20
tens of thousands of dollars into debt
: Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton
, 724.

21
“My country estate, though costly”
: Allan McLane Hamilton,
Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton
, 419.

22
fishing on the Harlem River
: Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton
, 584.

23
nicknamed her house’s tomcat Hamilton
: Rogow,
Fatal Friendship
, 55.

24
questionable transactions with an embezzler
: Fleming,
Duel
, 15.

25
“My real crime is an amorous connection”
: Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton
, 533.

26
Burr’s decision to serve as the mistress’s divorce lawyer
: Isenberg,
Fallen Founder
, 121.

27
save Hamilton from dueling with James Monroe
: Ibid., 163.

28
“He has lately by a trick”
: Alexander Hamilton to James Bayard, 16 January 1800 [i.e., 1801],
Works of Alexander Hamilton
, 6:424.

29
assembled every Monday and Thursday
:
Historic Buildings Now Standing
, 44.

30
plumbing-supply outfit … “Lead Pipes to convey”
:
NYDA
, 25 January 1800.

31
“five acres of putrid mud”
:
NYCA
, 19 April 1799.

32
toll bridge … building one across Lake Cayuga
:
NYCA
, 30 September 1800.

33
“a Tontine for raising Capital”
: Aaron Burr to Robert R. Livingston, 20 September 1799,
Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr
, 1:406.

34
“suicide and the hands of justice always being excluded”
:
NYWM
, 18 March 1800.

35
“We die reasonably fast”
: Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton
, 192.

36
Hamilton’s support for any Burr plan would come at a price
: Hammond,
Banks and Politics in America
, 151.

37
not the bill Burr presented
: Ibid., 152.

38
“begotten it on the body of the Legislature”
: Reubens, “Burr, Hamilton and the Manhattan Company,” 603.

39
“His object” … “was a bank”
:
Memoirs of Aaron Burr
, 1:417.

40
disenfranchised acquire property and qualify to vote
: Reubens, “Burr, Hamilton and the Manhattan Company,” 579.

41
“is now
totally
destroyed
”: Larson,
Magnificent Catastrophe
, 98.

42
“All will depend on the city election”
: Ibid., 92.

43
“The Collect is made the foundation of a Bank”
:
NYCA
, 29 April 1799.

44
“a regular Roman triumph”
: Friedman and Israel,
Justices of the Supreme Court, 1789–1978
, 396.

45
He’d gone to school with Hamilton
: Allan McLane Hamilton,
Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton
, 154.

46
to college with Burr
: Rogow,
Fatal Friendship
, 24.

47
aide-de-camp to George Washington
: Livingston,
Livingstons of Livingston Manor
, 232.

48
an explosive sense of humor and an equally unpredictable temper
: Friedman and Israel,
Justices of the Supreme Court, 1789–1978
, 396.

49
an editorial of his made a mild if careless jest
:
NYCA
, 11 May 1798.

50
The constable had refused even to arrest him
: Freeman, “Dueling as Politics,” 301.

51
“His best friends cannot lament his death”
:
NYCA
, 14 May 1798.

52
Livingston had been held
: Chester and Williams,
Courts and Lawyers of New York
, 3:1364.

53
John Young, a bassoonist
: Highfill, Burnim, and Langhans,
Biographical Dictionary of Actors
, 16:361.

54
the musician panicked and shot
: De Voe,
Market Book
, 1:342.

55
“an indecency” … “which ought never to be tolerated”
:
NYDA
, 31 July 1797.

56
“This shameful exposure was not through the wantonness”
: Quoted in De Voe,
Market Book
, 1:342.

  
1
A
T ABOUT NINE O
’
CLOCK THAT
F
RIDAY
:
Philadelphia Gazette
, 20 January 1800.

  
2
“entirely consumed” … “the heavens illuminated”
:
NYCA
, 18 January 1800.

  
3
$70,000 worth of cargo
: Ibid.

  
4
the
Olive
—went up as well
:
Philadelphia Gazette
, 20 January 1800.

  
5
the work, it was murmured, of an arsonist
:
NYMA
, 18 January 1800.

  
6
“Sworn, 18th day of January, 1800”
:
Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton
, 1:697.

  
7
she’d borne Ezra a daughter
:
Paine Family Records
, 127. The daughter in question was Mary Ann Weeks [Paine] (1798–1852).

  
8
the young carpenter was released … bail laws had been considerably loosened
:
Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton
, 1:697.

  
9
New York’s attorney general had been confined for a debt
: Fleming,
Duel
, 99.

10
“Those who dared to suppose him innocent”
: Hardie,
Impartial Account of the Trial
, iv–v.

11
“Directly in the rear of Mr. McComb’s houses”
:
NYCA
, 21 January 1800.

12
selling the $100,000 behemoth
:
NYS
, 21 November 1801.

13
building a new City Hall
: Burrows and Wallace,
Gotham
, 369.

14
Elias and Catherine Ring explained
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 24.

15
Elma told me that they were to be married
: Ibid., 29.

16
Levi’s apprentice, came forward
: Ibid., 46.

17
I saw Elma and Levi in an indecent act
: Ibid., 43.

18
another
murdered woman was found
:
NYDA
, 6 December 1799.

19
Hoffman was Colden’s brother-in-law
: Alden,
Collection of American Epitaphs and Inscriptions
, 272.

20
a newspaper brought this thunderbolt
:
NYCA
, 24 February 1800.

21
AN ACT TO PARDON JOHN PASTANO
: Hurd,
Institutional Care of the Insane
, 1:325.

22
no legal defense of insanity for a murder charge
: Ordronaux, “Judicial Problems Relating to the Disposition of Insane Criminals,” 594.

23
“Where is the magnanimous General Hamilton?”
:
GNDA
, 21 January 1800.

24
away in Albany for much of February
:
Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton
, 1:699.

25
death of George Washington was already proving disastrous
: Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton
, 600.

26
“If I should consent to the appointment of Hamilton”
: Ibid., 559.

27
justified by stoking fears of a French invasion
: Larson,
Magnificent Catastrophe
, 97.

28
“volcano of atheism, depravity, and absurdity”
:
Papers of Alexander Hamilton
, 5:391.

29
“Speculations on a probable war in Europe have almost ceased”
:
NYCA
, 16 January 1800.

30
“The French will not have any cause to regret the loss of their naval power”
: Ibid., 8 February 1800.

31
more believable tale. It came from Susannah Broad
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 46–47.

32
a basic courtesy of the road
:
By-laws and Ordinances of the Mayor
, 205. By 1839, it was, in fact, illegal to drive a sleigh without “a sufficient number of bells,” punishable by a ten-dollar fine. Similar laws were already in effect in Baltimore as early as 1797.

33
“When you hear sleigh bells jingling along the road”
:
United States Chronicle
(Providence, R.I.), 3 March 1796.

34
“I sent to take passage for to-morrow”
: Aaron Burr to Theodosia Burr, 5 March 1800,
Memoirs of Aaron Burr
, 2:144.

35
brought to them for appeal
:
NYCA
, 3 March 1800.

36
stabbed a good Samaritan
:
Albany Centinel
, 9 March 1798.

37
made a point of passing an act demanding it
:
NYCA
, 3 March 1800.

38
counterfeiting Manhattan Bank currency
:
NYWM
, 19 April 1800.

39
a $350 check drawn upon the Manhattan Bank account of Washington Irving’s brother
:
NYCA
, 21 March 1800.

40
Yes
, said Arnetta Van Norden
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 50.

41
one of the other cartmen
:
Collections of the New-York Historical Society for the Year 1885
, 246.

42
The Sunday before
, Matthew Musty recalled
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 90. Although Coleman lists his name as “Mustee,” this appears to be an error, as the name does not occur in any other documents; local directories repeatedly list a cartman named Matthew Musty.

43
Tea, ten shillings a pound
: “Journal of Joshua Brookes” The various grocery prices in this section are from Brookes’s notes from 1798 and 1802.

44
Many locals had been accustomed to using British currency
: Monaghan and Lowenthal,
This Was New York
, 3.

45
He had lived and worked in his store … for years
:
Argus and Greenleaf’s New Daily Advertiser
, 11 December 1795.

46
name was prominent among Manhattan grocers
:
Longworth’s American Almanack
(1800), 192.

47
meetings of his professional brethren
:
NYMA
, 23 January 1801.

48
ice shipped out from Philadelphia had yellow fever
:
NYDA
, 5 February 1800.

49
Bonaparte had hired Thomas Paine
: Ibid., 11 February 1800.

50
“His household is
French
”: Ibid., 27 March 1800.

51
a duel between two bickering watchmakers
:
NYCA
, 3 March 1800.

52
Benjamin Holmes was finally scheduled for hanging and dissection
: Ibid.

53
city council session just having concluded the day before
:
NYDA
, 26 March 1800.

54
circuit court was to commerce the following Tuesday
: Ibid.

55
“Good morning, gentlemen”
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 82.