Aaron Burr Archive 80 MS Pages With Hamilton Associations and Dirty Real Estate Deals!

The documents in this small archive highlight the desperate financial condition of Vice President Aaron Burr. Drawing repeatedly on friends for money, he apparently conveyed twenty lots that he owned in New York City (in modern Greenwich Village) to at least two or three friends or used them to secure loans. At the very least, he was not clear in his financial dealings. Timothy Green, Robert Swartwout, and David Gelston—all personal friends and political and financial supporters of Burr—each claimed ownership of the lots.

In 1807, Burr had planned to develop new streets of houses on the Richmond Hill property that he had acquired in 1794, but he had too few funds. He mortgaged the equivalent of 240 lots for $38,000 to the Bank of the Manhattan Company, which Burr had founded in 1799 ostensibly for providing clean drinking water but primarily as a banking alternative to Alexander Hamilton's Bank of New York.

This archive includes several documents from two court cases about the lots—Green v. Swartwout and Dunham and Gelston v. Green. Together, these documents provide Green's defense of his right to the twenty lots. The documents also include a series of questions to be posed to American painter John Vanderlyn, then in Paris and another friend of Burr's, to support Green's claim. Other documents in the collection deal with Green's financial interactions with other creditors, including Asa Danforth Jr. and

AARON BURR, Archive of Correspondence and Legal Documents relating to Timothy Green, 1797-1810. 10 documents, 80 pp. General toning; some edge and fold tears; notice glued to backing paper; very good.

Highlights and Excerpts
- John Wilks, Partially Printed Notice Signed, to Timothy Green, December 5, 1797, 1 p.:
"I am desired to inform you that Aaron Burr's Note for Thirteen hundred Dollars, endorsed by you was protested yesterday Evening, for non-payment, and that the Holder looks to you for payment of it."

- Asa Danforth Jr., Autograph Letter Signed, to Timothy Green, March 11, 1806, 3 pp.:
"I am now anxious to be delivering the Salt, I can command somthing more than the support of my little family. But its Salt only."
"We find by our late papers that a compromise has taken place between Mr Clinton & Mr Burrs friends You are sensible that I should never stain paper on a subject of this kind except where it touches the interest of that man, who possesses the greatest of talents. I pray for his welfare that he may be placed in a high station. Yet I dislike the way in which he is coming forward—but any way rather than to be kept down."
Asa Danforth Jr. (1768-ca. 1821) was born in Massachusetts and settled in Onondaga County, New York, in 1788 with his family. He incurred heavy debts speculating in land in New York state and nearby Upper Canada. He initially tried to recruit settlers for Upper Canada, then agreed to build a road using recruited labor. His primary creditor was Timothy Green, and when Danforth returned to New York to recruit more workers in March 1800, Green had him arrested and jailed for debt. Danforth agreed to accept Green's terms, signed a confession of judgment, and gave Green a $6,000 bond. When Canadian authorities refused to pay Danforth for the completed road, Green again had him jailed for debt. He later developed a salt-making business in Salina, New York, but remained indebted to Timothy Green, who occasionally had him jailed until leasing Danforth's salt privileges in 1811.
George Clinton succeeded Aaron Burr as Thomas Jefferson's vice president during his second term (1805-1809).

- Jacob Van Ness, Autograph Letter Signed, to [Timothy Green?], July 27, 1807, 12 pp.:
"Your sevl favors, the first Charging me with the Robbery of a Note–the second Acknowledging the rect of the Order on Capt Martin & your last informing me that payt is required Instanter of my Note to your brother are recd."

Jacob Van Ness (1772-1847), as a student in the law office of his cousin William P. Van Ness, Aaron Burr’s second, carried Burr’s challenge to Alexander Hamilton before their fateful duel in July 1804. Van Ness went on to serve as county clerk for Dutchess County, New York, from 1815 to1819 and again from 1821 to 1825. He served as postmaster of Poughkeepsie from 1819 to 1821 and represented Dutchess County in the New York state assembly in 1830.

- Bill of Complaint in Green v. Swartwout and Dunham, August 24, 1809, 13 pp.:
"Humbly complaining Sheweth unto your Honor your Orator Timothy Green of the fifth ward of the City of New York in the State of New York Counsellor at law, That on or about the tenth day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eight at the City County and ward aforesaid your orator was seized in his demesne as of fee of and in twenty lots of Ground situate lying and being in the eighth ward of the said City being part of that portion of the estate of Aaron Burr which formerly belonged to Elbert Herring and which lies easterly of the land lately held by the said Aaron Burr under the lease of the Corporation of Trinity church...." [lots located in modern Greenwich Village]
"your orator further sheweth unto your honor that on the said tenth day of June in the year one thousand eight hundred and eight your orator having occasion to raise certain sums of money your orator did apply to one Robert Swartwout of the said City of New York Merchant to aid and assist your orator with such sums of money as your orator might have occasion for which the said Robert Swartwout agreed to do either by loaning or advancing such sums of money as your orator might have occasion...."
"your orator further sheweth unto your honor that the said Robert Swartwout pursuant to the said agreement and being secured as aforesaid did at different times after the said tenth day of June in the year one thousand eight hundred and eight make certain loans and advances of money to your orator and there was and still is an open running account of debt and credit between your orator and the said Robert Swartwout in Sundry business in which they were engaged and mutually interested."
"he the said David Dunham fraudulently, corruptly and illegally did loan to the said Robert Swartwout the sum of six thousand at and after the usurious rate of interest of one per cent per month being twelve per cent per annum exclusive of the legal interest of seven percent per annum contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided and for the security of the repayment of the said sum of money so advanced by the said David Dunham to the said Robert Swartwout as aforesaid together with the interest to grow due thereon he the said Robert Swartwout…did…mortgage to the said David Dunham the aforesaid twenty lots of ground to secure to him the repayment of the said sum of six thousand dollars...."
"the said Robert Swartwout having made default in the repayment of the said sum of money and the interest thereon to the said David Dunham in order to recover the same or to make to himself a comple[te] and absolute title to the said twenty lots of ground which your orator charges and alledges are worth a much greater sum of money hath according to the form of the statute in such case made and provided caused the twenty lots of ground to be advertised for sale...."
"All which actings and doings of the said Robert Swartwout and David Dunham and their confederates are contrary to equity and good conscience and tend to the manifest wrong, injury and oppression of your orator."
Robert Swartwout (1779-1848) was a friend and supporter of Aaron Burr, who shot Richard Riker, a supporter of Alexander Hamilton, in the leg in a duel in November 1803. He served in the War of 1812 and was appointed brigadier general and Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army on March 21, 1813, a position he held for three years. After the war, he resumed his merchant career and began the New Jersey Salt Marsh Company in 1820 to reclaim salt marshes for habitation and agriculture.
David Dunham (1772-1823) was a prominent merchant in New York City.

- Timothy Green, Answer in Gelston v. Green, two drafts, ca. August 1809, totaling 38 pp.
Collector of the Port of New York, merchant, and former state senator David Gelston (1744-1828) sued Timothy Green in a bill in chancery over the same 20 lots. Gelston was also a close friend and political associate of Aaron Burr. Gelston also served as James Monroe's initial second in a near-duel with Alexander Hamilton in 1797. Later, Aaron Burr stepped into the role of Monroe’s second and avoided the duel. Gelston argued that Burr had deeded the lots to him. Green insisted that Aaron Burr sold the lots to him in October 1802 for $5,000 in partial payment of a debt of $9,000.
"this Defendant however well knows that the said Aaron Burr was largely indebted to the said Complainant at the time when the said Conveyance to him by the said Aaron Burr is alledged by the Complainant to have been made."
"And this Defendant further answering saith that he doth expressly and positively deny that he ever did release or reconvey in any manner whatever to the said Aaron Burr the said twenty Lotts of Ground or any of them as the Complainant hath in his Bill of Complaint untruly alledged, this Defendant on the contrary insisting that he made an absolute purchase thereof in fee simple as herein before stated without any actual or implied trust whatever relative thereto between him this Defendant and the said Aaron Burr...."

- Abbreviation of Bill and Responses in Gelston v. Green, ca. August 1809, 6 pp:
Provides a point-by-point summary of the assertions in Gelston's bill of complaint and the responses from Green's answer.
"That on or about the 5th Novr 1803 Compt agreed to purchase 20 lots of land for $5300 from Aaron Bur who represented himself to be the true owner in fee simple subject only to encumbrance of a certain mortgage from the Defdt & Mary his wife to the said Aaron Burr and by him assigned to the President and Directors of the Manhattan Company on which there remained due $3000-which the Complainant agree to pay and also to pay the balance being $2300 to the said Aaron Burr."

- [James Scott Smith], Autograph Note Initialed, to Timothy Green, n.d. [ca. September 1809], 1 p.:
"I will take it as a particular favor if you will call upon me this morning before you go down in Town."
James Scott Smith (1765-1810) was born in New York, and his uncle Joshua Hett Smith was implicated in the spying of John Andre and the treason of Benedict Arnold, having hosted their meeting at his house in Haverstraw on September 22, 1780. After the teenage James Scott Smith witnessed the arrest of his uncle, he joined a British regiment. He studied law in England with his expatriate uncle and returned to America in 1785. He developed a law practice in Poughkeepsie and served as the first mayor there in 1799. He later moved to New York City, where he practiced law and went into debt, likely in land speculations.

- James Scott Smith, Autograph Letter Initialed, to Timothy Green, September 19, 1809, 3 pp.:
"I wish, if possible, to avoid returning to New York at present, for besides being pestered by a number of petty duns which you know I cannot bear, I am liable to an execution on a Judgement in the Mayors Court for $150...."
"I left the City or rather Mabies house in such a hurry having heard that the execution above alluded to was in the Sheriffs hands and that there were warrants out for me, that matters were left in the confusion you find them."
"This letter is sent by a black man named Peter a hand on board the Fox–Captn Noyells—she lays in the Hoboken ferry [levee?]"

- Interrogatories for John Vanderlyn, Paris, France, in Dunham v. Green et al., ca. November 1810, 3 pp.:
"Third. Are you acquainted with Aaron Burr late of the City of Newyork Esquire, if yea, how long have you known him?
"Fourth. Was you, or was you not, present at a conversation between the Defendant Timothy Green and the said Aaron Burr in the City of Newyork sometime in the autumn of the year of our Lord one thousand Eight Hundred and two or at some other and what time, concerning [lost] from the said Aaron Burr to the said Timothy Green; if yea state the particulars of such conversation so far as you remember the same?
"Fifth. Have you, or have you not, any knowledge respecting a conveyance made by the said Aaron Burr to the said Defendant Timothy Green sometime in the autumn of the year Eighteen hundred and two and in the month of October in that year, or at some other and what time, for twenty lots of ground in the City of Newyork?"
In an effort to prove the accuracy of his claim to have purchased the lots from Burr in October 1802, Green sought the testimony of John Vanderlyn (1775-1852), an American painter then in Paris. Vanderlyn was a protégé of Aaron Burr, who sent him to Paris in 1796. When Vanderlyn returned to the United States in 1801, he lived in the home of Vice President Aaron Burr and painted portraits of Burr and his daughter. Vanderlyn returned to Europe in 1803 and remained there until 1815. When Burr fled to Paris, Vanderlyn supported him.

Aaron Burr Jr. (1756-1836) was the third Vice President of the United States, serving during Jefferson's first term, through March 4, 1805. Born in New Jersey, Burr graduated from the College of New Jersey (Princeton University) in 1772, at age 16. He studied law and became an attorney before serving as a Continental Army officer in the American Revolutionary War, in which he distinguished himself at the Battles of Quebec, New York, and Monmouth. After leaving the army in 1779, he practiced law in New York City and helped form the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party. He served as Attorney General of New York from 1789 to 1791 and represented New York in the U.S. Senate from 1791 to 1797. While Vice President, on July 11, 1804, Burr fatally wounded Alexander Hamilton in a duel. With his political fortunes in decline, Burr is reputed to have formed a conspiracy to establish a private army and set up an empire from portions of Mexico (then belonging to Spain) and/or Louisiana (a U.S. territory). Burr was brought to trial on charges of treason on August 3, 1807, with U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall presiding, and acquitted on September 1. Following the trial, he lived in Europe in self-imposed exile for four years, then returned to New York in 1812 to practice law.

Timothy Green (1765-1813) was born in Massachusetts and graduated from Rhode Island College (Brown University) in 1786. He married Mary Martin of Providence and practiced law in Worcester, Massachusetts, briefly before moving to New York City in 1793 or 1794. While continuing the practice of law, Green engaged in commerce and land speculation with his brothers and other relatives in Columbia, South Carolina. While traveling by sea from Georgetown, South Carolina, to New York City in January 1813, Green and Burr's daughter Theodosia Burr Alston were lost at sea aboard the Patriot.

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