Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1884 — A Reminiscence of Burr. [ARTICLE]

A Reminiscence of Burr.

Aaron Burr from various romantic associations, chiefly from his moral contrast to some of his better contemporaries, lias retained place as perhaps the most romantic character in American politics. Some time ago I visited his grave, at Princeton, N. J. He died in the second-story room of a hotel on Staten Island. The hotel is still standing, and I had the quaint satisfaction a few years ago of sleeping in it, a bed being made at my request there. When Burr died at this place it was supposed that he was seeking out some of his kin who lived there on Staten Island within sight of their mutual birth-place, Elizabeth, in New Jersey. The probabilities are that Burr had borrowed from his kin to that extent that he could get no more. He reached this hotel and went to bed there, was taken with a fever and died. I have perhaps related in your columns before a singular reminiscence of my own. About the time I slept in this room I was in search of some material about Cornelius Vanderbilt, father of the present magnate, and was recommended to go and see an old man named Clute, who published a newspaper on Staten Island, and was writing its history. He did not know much about Vanderbilt, but when I asked him about Aaron Burr he said, with almost a flash of pride: “Sir, you have before you the man who signed Aaron Burr’s name with Burr’s own hand for the last time in his life.” Mr. Clute continued: “I was the notary down here, and Mr. Edwards, a relative of Burr, come to me and said: ‘There is a man sick at the hotel at Port liichmond who wants to swear to an application for a pension as a soldier of the revolutionary war.’ I went around, and there I saw on the bed Col. Aaron Burr. He was a poor ruckle of little bones, without a sign of the great man of former days, muttering to himself and knowing nothing. I said: ‘Mr. Edwards, this man is not fit to swear to anything now.’ ‘Well,’ said he, ‘come around in the afternoon when he gets easier.’ I went around then,” said Mr. Clute, “and I knew him well, for I had seen the boys throw stones at him in Albany, and seen men deliberately cut him when he proposed to be introduced. He had stood every insult a proud man could stand. I made his application and committed it to Eaper, read it to him, and then I took is hand in mine,” said Mr. Clute, “to guide it while he signed his name as he feebly sat up in bed, hardly Tmowing what he was about, and a* Jr held that hand I thought to myself, Hue is tire hand that killed Hamilton.”--ft. Miss Amelia B. Edwards, the English woman who combines tlib somewhat incongiudus bharaSter of arctiiologist and novelist, began, when a child, to compose poems and stories before she knew how to write. She first appeared in print at 7 years old with a poem called the “Knights of Old, ” When she was 14 she sqnt to a magazine edited by Georgo Oruikshank

a story, on the back of which she had scribbled caricatures of the personages appearing therein. The drawings were so clever that Cruikshank went impulsively to call upon his unknown contributor, and finding to his astonishment that his contributor was a little girl, offered immediately to take her as an articled pupil and train her up to his work. This offer was declined; and putting aside pen and pencil Miss Edwards devoted herself for seven years to music, and became not only an accomplished performer but a composer. Then during a summer holiday, to write a successful story, she turned to authorship again, and has ever since been known as one of the cleverest English women novelists. Miss Edwards has a handsome head, and a face pretty, gentle, and expressive.