Posted on 07/05/2004 5:25:23 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Keith Meyers/The New York Times
Against the Manhattan skyline, a
bust of Alexander Hamilton
stands near where Aaron Burr
shot him on July 11, 1804, in
Weehawken, N.J.
WEEHAWKEN, N.J. - It has been 200 years, minus a few days, since Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel here. Weehawken and the duel have been tied together in an often-uncomfortable knot ever since.
While neighboring Hoboken is known as the birthplace of Frank Sinatra and, some say, the game of baseball, the duel of July 11, 1804, continues to serve as Weehawken's main claim to fame. And that has not always sat well with residents.
"Legend and myth blend around the most historic spots. But it is not so in Weehawken," reads a 1912 travel article. "The community doesn't seem to care for the tragedy that has attracted historians and fictionists."
Even the precise site of the duel near the banks of the Hudson River has been swept underfoot as developments for the old railroad and the Lincoln Tunnel took shape.
The town's resident historian, Edward A. Fleckenstein, says that although the duel is the biggest event to ever occur in Weehawken, officials have not given it its due. In fact, he says, "We buried it."
But that is changing. The township is sponsoring a series of events this week marking the duel's 200th anniversary. Tours are being offered Thursday through Saturday to historic sites in Weehawken and the New York area that are connected to Hamilton and Burr.
At 10:30 a.m. Sunday, July 11, a re-enactment of the duel will be performed by descendants of Hamilton and Burr, who will arrive by boat at a park near the cliff where the duel is believed to have occurred. In the afternoon, two plaques will be dedicated, and a series of speeches and discussions about the duel will follow.
Douglas Hamilton, 53, an I.B.M. salesman from suburban Westerville, Ohio, will play his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather during the re-enactment. Hard feelings between the descendants of Hamilton and Burr have persisted through every generation, he said, but perhaps this is the year the families can finally make peace. "It just takes time for some of those wounds to heal," he said.
The site was already established as a favorite spot for duelists by the time Burr and Hamilton arrived to settle a political and personal argument that had been going on for years. Dueling was illegal in both New York and New Jersey, but Weehawken was mostly a virgin forest estate, Mr. Fleckenstein said, and far enough out of the way to avoid the authorities.
Burr had dueled there five years before, against Hamilton's brother-in-law, but all the bullets had missed their mark. Two years after that, Hamilton's eldest son was killed in a duel there.
"It was a wilderness, pretty much," said Mr. Fleckenstein, who lives near the Weehawken cliffs in the same house he was born in 84 years ago.
Burr and Hamilton had journeyed by boat from Manhattan in the early morning with only their oarsmen, their seconds and a doctor. Within hours, Hamilton was back on the shore of his adopted New York with a mangled liver and a .554-caliber ball in his spine.
Hamilton, the nation's first treasury secretary, whose influence on the young nation went far beyond his foremost title, died the next day. Murder charges were filed against Burr and later dropped, and his popularity and career declined.
It would take only a short time after the duel for the first monument to appear. The St. Andrew's Society of the State of New York placed it there to honor a fellow Scotsman, Hamilton. It stood almost 14 feet tall, and the inscription did not mention Burr.
The monument was vandalized, and pieces of it were hauled away. It was gone by 1821, according to Lauren Sherman of the Weehawken Historical Commission. Most historians say the bottom of the monument adorned a bar in Manhattan's Bowery district. Some of it now resides on the fourth floor of the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan, although in its sad state it seems to honor a man named ALEXANDER HAMIL.
By the 1830's, the monument was replaced with two granite blocks, one for each duelist, but they too disappeared, and their fate is unknown, Ms. Sherman said.
On the duel's 90th anniversary, in 1894, a stone bust of Hamilton was erected and placed atop the rock on which he supposedly rested after being struck by Burr's bullet. Hamilton looked out on slowly expanding Weehawken from his cliff-top perch, with Midtown Manhattan growing behind him. Yet again, the bust's days were numbered.
"The honored, cherished stone bust of Alexander Hamilton was taken and thrown off the cliff and destroyed" on Oct. 14, 1934, said Mr. Fleckenstein, who blamed partisan activists trying to disgrace the government. "People should have displayed shock, but well, there was no shock."
Within a year, Weehawken's mayor decided it was time to finally commemorate the duel properly - and permanently - by replacing the deposed stone bust of Hamilton with a bronze one. Again, there was no thought to a bust for Burr.
At the unveiling ceremony, Hamilton Fish, the Republican New York congressman, whose great-grandfather was a friend of Hamilton, took the opportunity to blast Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. His remarks nearly touched off a riot, Mr. Fleckenstein said.
"It shocked everybody out, especially the Democrats," he said.
There was little fanfare in 1904, for the 100th anniversary, Mr. Fleckenstein said. In 1976, for the nation's bicentennial, the mayor and a council member re-enacted the Hamilton and Burr roles but only after the chairwoman of Weehawken's bicentennial committee spoke out against reopening old wounds by drawing attention to the deadly duel.
While the town has named an avenue and a park after Hamilton, Burr has made do with Burr Place, a street that is less than a football field long.
This will all change on July 11. One plaque to mark Weehawken's dueling grounds and another to note the Hamilton-Burr duel specifically, will be placed near the bronze bust of Hamilton. About 100 descendants of the two families are expected to attend the event.
Antonio Burr, 51, a Manhattan psychologist who will play the role of Aaron Burr, says that for years the Burr family has felt slighted by how their ancestor has been treated by Weehawken, the nation and history itself.
"He killed the guy, and he paid the price for it," Mr. Burr said.
He speaks sharply of the town's refusal in recent years to let the Aaron Burr Association erect a bust of their own. "It was very simple, but perhaps the time was not right," he said.
Now Weehawken is welcoming the family to town and their input in the commemoration events. "Obviously, over time, perspective changes," said Richard F. Turner, the mayor.
The township's newfound embrace of the duel may also have something to do with its changing demographics. The township, with a population of 13,500, is now more than 40 percent Hispanic, according to 2000 census data.
These new immigrants are interested in learning more about the nation's history, Mr. Turner said, adding that this lesson "cannot be underestimated.''
There will be, however, at least one inaccuracy in the history lesson to be played out on Sunday. After the report from Burr's pistol, Hamilton will take a knee instead of staggering around and resting wounded on a rock as his ancestor did.
It was a compromise Mr. Hamilton reached with some of his older relatives who, he said, despite the passage of all these years, could not bear to imagine their ancestor laid that low again.
He said he understands their pain, adding, "Maybe 50 years from now, we'll find an energetic relative who'll say, 'I'll take the shot and fall down.' "
The pistols were a dueling pair owned by Hamilton's brother - and as discovered during the Bicentennial when they were duplicating the originals - they held a little secret. The pistols had set triggers - by pushing forward on the trigger the lock was "set" so then only a slight pressure would fire the round. If known to the dueler - this would ensure a easier, more accurate offhand shot.
Of course, if one's heart is racing, such a set trigger may cause a premature discharge resulting in a miss. Well Hamilton missed and the pistols were from his family, so you can draw your own conclusion(s).
All from memory - so innacuarcies are all mine too
Seeing as how this is New Jersey, they probably see it as a lesson in the value of gun control.
"Leaky leahy" should thank his lucky stars, that dueling has fallen from favor.
"Dead-eye" Cheney would have left a more "lasting impression" upon Senator depends, during their recent exchange!
LLS
Beat me to it!
What instigated the duel? I heard Hamilton accused Burr of incest.
Actually, the DUEL stemed from a rivalry between Hamilton's Bank of New York and Burr's [NY State aurthorized] Bank of the Manhattan Company, originally chartered to deliver Fresh Water to the Malarial Swamp [aka..."WETLANDS"] that constituted Manhattan.
If Burr was guilty of "Incest", it was a Physical bodily thing...if you want 18th Century "Incestuous" reading...get a LAW book entitled "Future Interests"...
For example, Monaco REVERTS to FRANCE if the Prince fails to produce a MALE Heir "upon the body of...".
BTW, Weehawken was then called Weehawken Heights, and the Hamilton Dueling Pistols [one converted subsequently to Percussion] are owned by the surviving Corporation, J. P. Morgan Chase (Bank One??), and is kept track of by a Computer System which used "Windows" long before one 'Bill Gates' ever DREAMED of dropping out of Harvard.
Which precedent will be cited as "PRIOR ART" in an upcoming trial as to whether "WINDOWS" is a valid Microsoft 'TRADEMARK'!!
Yep..that's the way some tell it. It was reported that Hamilton implied that at a dinner party. Burr had a very close relationship with Theodosia who was lost at sea off Hatteras when coming to visit Burr from her adopted state of South Carolina (she married an Alston).
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