Goin’ down to the People’s Line dock the other afternoon to see some sportin’ friends of mine off to Saratoga by the boat, I noticed the curious mixture of persons gettin’ on board, and observed some unexpected meetin’s, and that reminded me of a curious and strikin’ly dramatic meetin’ that took place on one of the North River boats years and years ago, when steam boatin’ was a new and extraordinary thing still.
One day there left New York by of its few steamboats a fine, stately old lady–one of the old school of ladies–who would be so different from the ladies of the new school that she would find herself very lonely indeed.
She was evidently a person of distinction, and received a great deal of attention from the captain and passengers of the steamboat–attention which she took as a matter of course, and like one who had got by this time completely used to it.
At the same time, on the same boat there left New York a man whom everybody seemed to know, yet seemed, likewise, to shun. He was rather a small man, an old man, and not a specially handsome man just then, but a man who had evidently been somebody in his time and had not forgotten it either, and a man with a brilliant eye, that took in everybody and everythin’ within its sphere of vision, a man of the world, who didn’t care for the world either, and returned its scorn with equal scorn. This man stepped on board the boat very quietly but decidedly, and didn’t seem to mind a bit his bein’ left to himself, sent to Coventry, as it were. He had got used to it.
The boat started off and nothin’ special happened for a good while. It took a good deal longer to make the trip to Albany then it does now, and both the stately old lady, among her friends, and the little old man by himself found plenty to see.
It came along to meal time. They gave a pretty good dinner on board the boats, and as there was not much else to do, the passengers generally partook of the meal quite leisurely.
The stately old lady and the little old man with the brilliant eyes both advanced to the table, the one advancin’ on one side, the other on the other, and were about to sit down directly opposite to each other, when the old lady, naturally desirous of seein’ who had the place right across the table from her seat, raised her eyes and met the brilliant eyes of the little old man.
Then the stately old lady turned pale as death, then flushed red with anger, than tried to speak, but failed, and with a sort of shriek, fainted away.
And no wonder, under the circumstances. For the stately lady was the wife of New York’s favorite statesman, Alexander Hamilton, while the little old man with the brilliant eyes was Aaron Burr, the man who had shot and killed her husband.
It was the first time the two had met since the duel, and the last.
As soon as she recovered from her faint, the old lady demanded to be taken away from the table; and as soon as she was led into the open air she announced her intention of leaving the boat at the next landin’, although she was on her way to Albany direct, unless Aaron Burr left the boat forthwith himself.
But that Burr hadn’t the slightest intention of doin’. He was booked for Albany, and not a man on the boat–not even the captain himself–felt inclined to disturb him. Burr wasn’t the sort of man to disturb.
So, with profuse apologies and real regret, the captain ordered the steamboat stopped, and put Mrs. Alexander Hamilton ashore, while Aaron Burr sat perfectly cool and still, sayin’ nothin’ to anybody and eatin’ a hearty meal.
It was a strange chance which thus brought face to face, after so many years, the widow and the man who had rendered her a widow. But there was a stranger chance than even this, which produced another coincidence, at this meal on board this boat, which, taken in connection with the scene already described, was really astonishin’.
For among the spectators of this unexpected meetin’ between Aaron Burr and Mrs. Hamilton, among the passengers on board the this particular steamboat who shared that particular meal, was a man named Reynolds, who was a brother of the James Reynolds who had been a principal actor in the only really disgraceful episode of Alexander Hamilton’s life.
This Reynolds episode is almost altogether forgotten now, but at the time agitated the whole country, and caused a particularly tremendous excitement in New York and Philadelphia, where all the parties were known.
Hamilton, like his descendants, was a great ladies’ man, and as no fortress is stronger than its weakest point, people got at him often from his woman side.
One day a very handsome woman, tall and slender and a blonde, called upon Hamilton and earnestly requested a private interview with him. Hamilton just then was very busy, but as the woman was very pretty, one fact balanced the other, and the woman got her interview. She claimed to be one of the Livingston family of New York, and said that in an evil hour she had married a man named Reynolds, who had deserted her and left her penniless. She only wanted to get back to her friends, but she had no money to get back, and wouldn’t Hamilton let her have some money to get back? That was about all there was to it.
Hamilton, of course, offered to send her some money that very day; he couldn’t say no to a pretty woman in distress who only wanted a few dollars. But sendin’ the money didn’t suit the woman’s purpose. She begged Hamilton to bring it himself–to call upon her in person at her lodgin’s.
Hamilton, ready for adventure, promised to call upon the handsome woman that very day, and he kept his word.
He called not only once, but often, and stayed longer and longer each time. In short, he became intimate with “Mrs.” Reynolds, and then, of course, after the usual fashion in those days, “Mr.” Reynolds appeared upon the scene as the injured and indignant husband, who wanted satisfaction or money, and who got money–over a thousand dollars, at different times–from Hamilton’s private purse.
But Hamilton’s private purse wasn’t big enough for “Mr.” Reynolds. He demanded a whack at the public Treasury. He insisted upon Hamilton’s givin’ him a Treasury clerkship, and like the true patriot and honest gentleman that he really was, Alexander Hamilton refused.
Mr. Reynolds vowed revenge, although he pretended to be satisfied with his thousand dollars.
Meanwhile, Hamilton kept on carin’ for this Reynolds woman and lettin’ her fool him as to her real designs and character, taffyin’ him with the idea that she was really a noble, warm-hearted woman, peculiarly situated, and sincerely attached to Hamilton personally.
It is funny how even the smartest and best men can be fooled by woman. Hamilton allowed swallowed the taffy solid and kept up his intimacy with a woman, even after he had found out what kind of a man her husband was and what he was after.
Havin’ got the first thousand from Hamilton, husband and wife and a “friend” of theirs named Clengman went in for another thousand, but didn’t get more than half of the second thousand, as Hamilton, with all his control over the Treasury, was really officially Incorruptible–wouldn’t have touched the public money for his life, and was personally a comparatively poor man.
Then, for the second time the Reynolds man turned on Hamilton and began to blackguard him in public, as well as blackmail him in private, and finally the matter got noised about and Hamilton was publicly accused by his enemies of improper practices as Secretary of the Treasury.
And then Hamilton did what a great many have blamed him for, but which was, perhaps, the most sensible thing he could have done. To save his own official character and protect his own reputation as an honest man, he showed up the whole relations between himself and this Reynolds woman, and, in the slang of the day, “gave her away.” He was fully justified by the public sentiment of the time, and has been held vindicated ever since.
The whole affair goes to show how even the smartest and best man is at the mercy–unless he is confoundedly careful–of any worthless woman with a good lookin’ face.
It shows, too, that on the woman’s side, at least, Hamilton was weaker than Aaron Burr, for Burr resisted the fascinations of one of the handsomest women of her time, Miss Moncrieffe, who did all she could to make a traitor of him and failed.
Hamilton was a great and a good man, with all his little human failin’s; there is no doubt about that–a statesman, a soldier, a patriot, and an honest man, and deserves all the honor the country can bestow upon him. But has not Aaron Burr been treated far too severely by the same country, just because in a duel, which was then the universal custom among gentlemen–a duel in which Hamilton might have killed him–he happened to kill Hamilton?
History can afford to be just, and Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton have both now passed into history.
[Editor’s notes: Though a chance meeting of Burr and Mrs. Hamilton did occur, it was not the melodrama described above–which was an account that was published while Burr was still living. As Burr’s biographer James Parton explains:
“The gentleman is still living, a well-known member of the New York bar, and a gentleman of unquestionable veracity, who was Burr’s companion on the only occasion on which he and Mrs.
Hamilton were ever together on board a steamboat. He informs me which of course is evident enough that this fine story is false in every particular. It was a small steamboat plying between New York and Manhattanville, on which the awkward encounter occurred. Mrs. Hamilton merely looked at Burr, as every body else looked at him ; for he never went anywhere without being an object of universal attention.
“Nothing unusual took place! All the passengers landed together at Manhattanville, and there was never any dinner eaten by passengers on board the boat. The universally known fact that Mrs. Hamilton was not a fool, would of itself refute the story, one would think. Yet we find it printed and reprinted. It is a fair specimen of the stories told to the injury of Burr’s reputation. Not one in ten is truer. It got into the papers in Burr’s lifetime, and he frequently referred to it, in illustrating his favorite topics the deceptiveness of probabilities, and the inevitable falseness of the thing commonly called History.”]
