Family  /  Narrative

The Dramatic Life and Mysterious Death of Theodosia Burr

The fate of Aaron Burr's daughter remains a topic of contention.

On December 10, 1812, Joseph Alston was elected governor of South Carolina. His new position made it impossible for him to accompany Theodosia to New York, and with the War of 1812 raging in the Atlantic, he was worried about his frail wife making the treacherous trip to New York. To ensure his daughter’s safety, Aaron sent down his friend Dr. Timothy Green to secure a boat and make sure that Theodosia made it home to him.

Theodosia, along with Dr. Green, a French maid and skeleton crew, boarded a small schooner called the Patriot at the port of Georgetown on December 31. One week passed, then two, then three—with no word from the Patriot, its small crew or passengers. “In three weeks I have not yet had one line from her,” Joseph wrote Aaron. “My mind is tortured—after 30 days—my wife is either captured or lost!” By February 24, he had given up all hope. “My boy and-my wife- gone both! This, then is the end of all the hopes we had formed,” he wrote to his father-in-law. “You may well observe that you feel severed from the human race. She was the last thing that bound us to the species.”

Within weeks of the Patriot’s disappearance, rumors about Theodosia’s fate began to spread in the North and the South. Joseph died in 1816, a shell of the man he once was. Burr lived another 23 years, long enough to witness the cottage-industry of conspiracy theories about his daughter’s disappearance come to life. He refused to believe she was still alive, stating firmly: “She is dead. She perished in the miserable little pilot boat in which she left. Were she alive, all the prisons in the world could not keep her from her father.”

Many believed the Patriot had been captured by one of the pirate ships known to troll the Outer Banks. Over the years, numerous “death-bed confessions” from various aged or imprisoned pirates were reported in papers all over the country. The first to gain traction was the case of Jean DeFarges and Robert Johnson, who were executed in 1819 for other crimes.  An 1820 article in the New York Advertiser claimed that the two had confessed to having been crew on the Patriot. They claimed to have led a mutiny, and scuttled the ship, killing all on board.