Narrator (2:58)
This is a tale of two women. Two women who share the same first name. Two women that had a deep and consequential connection to an important figure in early America. Two women named Theodosia. Theodosia Bartow was born in 1746, and she was the descendant of a woman who was renowned for her beauty. Her father died a few weeks before she was born, and when she was 17 years old, Theodosia Bartow married. She married a man named James Prevost. Together, Theodosia and James had five Sally, Anna, Louisa, Mary, Louisa, Augustine and John. James Prevost was a British officer, which at the time of their marriage, more than a decade before the Declaration of Independence, was sent as this sort of ultimate Dear John letter to a despotic king of England was not a particular problem, provided a good income and allowed the Prevosts to live in a lovely home on a large parcel of land in New Jersey. They called the property the Hermitage. Eventually, being a British officer did become problematic. However, as the colonies came closer and closer to rising up, Theodosia knew that she needed to do something. The property of British soldiers was often seized, and to keep that from happening, Theodosia became a patriot. James was often sent away on missions for the British army, and while he was gone, Theodosia opened the Hermitage as a gathering place for American soldiers. When she heard that George Washington was nearby after fighting the Battle of Monmouth, she sent word to him and offered him and his soldiers her home as a reprieve. Theodosia was well educated and well read. She spoke French fluently and her aristocratic manner provided good conversation to military officers in need of time off. Theodosia's home is now a museum, and in an interview, the director of the museum said the. For a long time, we've kind of perpetuated this idea that Theodosia was a patriot, and we now really view her as a politician. When George Washington accepted her invitation, he didn't just rest his weary head for a night and ride away. No. He arrived with Alexander Hamilton and James Monroe and the Marquis de Lafayette, and they partied for four days. They drank and ate and conversed with Theodosia and her female friends. Washington spent most of his time planning the army's next move. And to say thank you for the hospitality, Washington offered Theodosia a chance to visit New York City later that summer. And he even offered to provide her A chaperone and chaperone would have been needed because her husband James was away on military service and traveling alone as a woman was not something that was considered appropriate. Future President Washington chose a young lieutenant colonel as her chaperone. Someone who had just been injured after falling from his horse at the Battle of Monmouth. Someone named Aaron Burr. After the trip, Burr spent four months recuperating from his injuries at the hermitage. How convenient. Theodosia and Aaron Burr began having an affair. Theodosia and her husband James owned slaves. We know this because there are newspaper records of an advertisement that James placed offering a reward for the return of a married couple who had run away from the Prevost home. What we don't know is how many people the Prevosts enslaved or really many details about the people that lived on their property in New Jersey. We strongly associate slavery with the Southern United States, rightfully so. But at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, slavery was actually permitted in every one of the thirteen colonies. People enslaved in the north were often house servants or they were skilled tradespeople like shipbuilders and seamstresses. And unlike the slave quarters of the south, where most enslaved people resided in separate buildings apart from the people who owned them, enslaved people in the north often slept in the same house, often in attics or basement, sometimes just on a pallet in the corner of the kitchen. And within a few months of meeting Aaron, Burr wrote to his sister and mentioned Theodosia's honest and affectionate heart. Other friends mentioned in gossip that Theodosia was clearly the object of Burr's affections. And by 1780 they were openly together. Theodosia would sometimes go to stay with Burr's sister Sally, to get away from the prying eyes and the wagging tongues of people local to her that knew her husband James, who was still, by the way, away in the British military. In December of 1781, several years after meeting Aaron Burr for the first time, Theodosia received word that her husband James died in Jamaica of yellow fever. Burr, who was done with his military service, was studying for the bar exam to become an attorney. Eric Burr is widely known to history as a ladies man. You can even see it referenced in the show Hamilton, where Burr is trying to attract the attention of the Skyler sisters. And he's like, there's nothing like summer in the city. Someone in a rush next to someone looking pretty. You know what I'm talking about. Excuse me, miss. I know it's not funny, but your perfume smells like your daddy's Got money. And then one of the Skyler sisters says, spur, you disgust me. And he says, ah, so you've disgust me. I'm a trust fund baby, you can trust me. Like. It's a reference to the fact that Burr got a route. And I'm sure Burr found Theodosia attractive, but he did like her for more than her looks. One of Theodosia's biographers says that Theodosia lacked the beauty of some of Burr's many previous loves. But what she did possess was a highly educated, razor sharp mind, a quality largely unknown, known in a society which placed little emphasis on the education of women. In case you didn't know, Burr was a literal genius. That's not hyperbole. He was incredibly smart and so you could maybe understand why he found her intellect so attractive. Theodosia's biographer goes on to say that the few surviving letters give some insight into what increasingly bound them together. An interest in the ideas of leading thinkers and thoughts touching on the meaning of life, their happiness and their future, as well as how to react to the negative opinions of others concerning their relationship. Theodosia's husband died at the end of 1781, and in 1782, Burr, who was now an attorney, decided to marry Theodosia. They had a double wedding with Theodosia's half sister at her property, the Hermitage. Here is what the show Hamilton never tells you. Theodosia was 35 years old with five children and Aaron Burr was 25. That is not mentioned. Nowhere in the show does tell you that Theodosia was already married with five children and was 10 years older than him. Also, the show Hamilton, which I love, does not mention that Aaron Burr and Theodosia had four children together and only one of them lived. And the one that survived was a daughter that Aaron Burr insisted on naming Theodosia just to make this podcast confusing. That's the only reason their daughter Theodosia was born the year after they got married in 1783.
