The ups and downs of real estate in New York city have a history full of romantic and peculiar interest, but I have never heard a real estate transaction which finally panned out better than that of the Medcef Eden estate.
This old Medcef Eden estate comprised some of the finest property in old New York, and the heirs are enjoyin’ it still, and having a good time with the money. But they probably never give a thought or have a kind word to say of Aaron Burr, who got it all back for ‘em, out of the clutches of other parties. Ten to one the present generation of the heirs don’t even know, and won’t till they read this, that Aaron Burr had anything to do with their property at all.
Old Medcef Eden was a big brewer, who died leaving a lot of real estate to his two young sons. He divided up his estate by will equally between ‘em, and so fixed it that if either of the sons died unmarried his share of the property was to go to the survivor.
The old brewer was a good business man, but his two sons were not. They were only “rich men’s sons,” that is, fools. They had a good education and had traveled abroad, and could speak several languages better than they could write their own. They could dance, and sing, and flirt, and all that, but they couldn’t have earned a dollar if they had tried, and they never tried.
They were rather good-lookin’ chaps, and good-hearted, but they didn’t understand arithmetic, or the world, and so they came to grief on the double quick.
They bet on horses, kept trotters of their own gave “Battery” parties, and got rid of their father’s wealth in about the tenth part of the time it took him to get it together.
And then they had a lot of designin’ hangers-on, and men who were only too glad to lend ‘em money at big interest, and on first mortgages. These harpies were soft as butter till they got the best part of the old brewer’s estate in their clutches, and then, all of a sudden, they changed their tune and got to be cold and hard as ice.
They wouldn’t listen to the pleas and and entreaties of the two young spendthrifts, but called in their loans and bought in the property at first mortgage.
Within a few years after their father’s death the Eden boys were as poor as any two boys that never had a father to speak of, and were head over ears in debt beside; every foot of the real estate that their father left ‘em was gone. In this plight, one day the two brothers, poor as church mice, went to see their father’s old friend, Alexander Hamilton, and laid their case before him.
“Don’t you think we have been unfairly done out of our property?” and “Don’t you think we can get it back again?” were the questions they put to him. The great Statesman answered the first question with a “yes,” but the last question with a “no.”
This was mighty cold comfort. But the next day they came across Aaron Burr. He agreed with Hamilton on the first question, but he differed from him on the second. He thought that there was a way to get the property back, and tried to explain to the brothers the way.
But they were so stupid, or so desperate, that they didn’t understand him. Beside they were lazy, and had no energy–they would rather rather leave things as they were than take any great trouble about rectifyin’ ‘em. So as Hamilton stood higher than Burr in those days, as afterwards, and ever since–why the brothers thought he must be right. So they gave up all hope, and took to drinkin’.
Years passed on, and Burr shot Hamilton, and went to Europe, and came back again a poor, disgraced man, tryin’ to practice law in New York. One day he picked up a copy of the old Commercial Advertiser and read, among other items of news, that one of the Eden Brothers was dead.
This brought up to his mind what had been long forgotten–his interview with the two brothers about their property matters. And then an idea struck him. Accordin’ to the forms of the old brewer’s will whatever rights in the property, if any, possessed by the dead brother, now passed into the possession of the living brother, who now alive, represented whatever right, if any, the original heirs had in the property. Accordin’ to what Burr remembered of what the brothers had told him in that interview, there had been enough shenanigans and unfairness in some of the transactions of the creditors of the estate with the estate to invalidate the subsequent proceedin’s and transfer of property. If this was so there might be a chance yet to get the Eden estate back, and he might get a big slice of it himself for gettin’ it back to the original heir.
Besides, Burr remembered that his old rival, Hamilton, had said that the estate couldn’t be recovered, and as when one of those great men had taken one side of the case, the other one always felt like taking the other. So Burr now was rendered stronger than ever in his idea to try and get this Eden property back, just because Hamilton had left on record his opinion that it never could be got back.
But the first thing to do was to find out the livin’ brother, and make some arrangement with him. There wasn’t any “personals” in those days, nor telegraph, and the detective force of New York only comprised two men. So Burr set out on his own hook to find his man, and after two weeks’ hard hunting tracked him to an old hovel out in Westchester county.
Here he was livin’ from hand to mouth, more hand than mouth, with a wife and child. He lived by doin’ odd jobs and chores when he could get ‘em, his wife took in washin’ now and then, and the child worked harder than any galley slave, doin’ the drudgery of the place. It was a sad come-down for the heir of a large property, and it had been comin’ down each year lower and lower for ten years.
The husband and father, the heir of the Edens, didn’t amount to a row of pins; he had lost all his grit, if he ever had any. Burr could see that that at a glance. But Burr was a mighty good judge of women, and he saw that the wife, spite of her surroundin’s, was still a fine woman, and that the little girl was a sweet-faced little thing, who reminded him of the only woman he had ever loved, his daughter Theodora.
It was a fearful pity for such a mother and daughter to live in such a hole as this, and from the time he met ‘em in this hole, Aaron Burr determined for their sake, just as much as his own, that he would get them out of their scrape, and restore ‘em to the life of comfort and respectability for which alone they were suited.
He had a long talk with the sole survivin’ Eden in his hut, and before the talk was over he got Eden to sign a paper puttin’ the whole management of the case solely into his hands. And then, lookin’ into the matter carefully, he became more convinced than before that he had been right in this matter, and that Hamilton had been wrong. The estate could be recovered, and he was goin’ to recover it.
Burr wasn’t a man to merely think and talk a thing. He did it. He had faith in his plans, and he showed his faith by his works. Although he was now comparatively a poor man himself, he had a nice house in New York, and to this house he moved in the Eden family at once. He wouldn’t let ‘em stay in that hovel of theirs another day. He took his chances on the suit, but made his principals comfortable, any way. He got some new dresses for the mother, sent the little girl to school, and set the father to work for the first time in his life, copying papers and memoranda.
Burr may have been a bad man, but he had more heart than he had been given credit for. And his head was always level. It was very level now. The way he managed the big suit he had now undertaken was simply perfect.
Most of the Eden property had passed into the hands of corporations and banks and insurance companies, and these institutions he let for a while severely alone. He didn’t propose to alarm ‘em or let ‘em get alarmed a bit just yet. He didn’t propose to give himself away at this stage of the game; he believed in puttin’ in the small edge of a wedge first.
Near the hovel where he first found the Edens there was a little farm, which had belonged to the estate, and had been gotten from it in the same way as the big banks and insurance companies had got their bits away, on the same principle precisely. Well, it was this little farm that Burr determined to locate first. He would upset the principle that the farm was got on, if he could, and establish his principle of gettin’ it back, if he could, keepin’ the matter as quiet as possible till it was all over, and then he would go for the banks and insurance companies. One thing at a time, and first the farm.
And the first thing Burr did about the farm was to make the acquaintance of the farmer who owned it, or thought he did. The farmer was a cross-grained chap, but like all the country people I have ever come across, very fond of money, holding it to it ten times tighter than any city chap. Burr soon found out this point, and using all his fine, courtly manners, (and Aaron Burr had been the politest gentleman of his day) he soon won the farmer over by promisin’ not to remove him from the farm even if he won his case, and promisin’ him that it shouldn’t cost him anythin’ to defend the suit.
Then havin’ got the old farmer all right, Burr went for the farm, had his case tried quietly as possible, kept it out of the papers, and won the decision in his favor.
Now ninety-nine people out of a hundred, even smart people, would have showed their hand at this stage of the play, and laid claim, on the strength of the principle established on the farm, to the rest of the property occupied by the banks and such. But Burr was the hundredth man. He knew that although the old farmer wouldn’t and couldn’t appeal against the decision of the court, the big banks and insurance companies probably would. So he got the old farmer to appeal first, instead of the banks.
Actin’ secretly on Burr’s advice, the old farmer appealed to the court of last resort, the court sustained the decision already given about the farm.
All this while the Eden chap had been very impatient. He didn’t see the use of delay; wanted Burr to lay claim to everythin’ right off, and so perhaps spoil everythin’. But the wife and the little girl, who all but worshiped Burr, took his part and made the Eden chap act sensibly and like a man for once.
But when the final decision was given, then Burr let himself loose for joy. He gave a big dinner the night of the day he got the decision, and the farmer was invited. The wine flowed freely, and if it hadn’t been for the two ladies present, the farmer, the Eden chap and Aaron Burr would have got drunk together.
Then the next mornin’ Burr commenced his big operations. Pretty soon the banks and insurance companies got their notices about the property. This came upon ‘em like a thunderclap in a clear sky, but they couldn’t do anythin’ more than they could against thunder. Law suits were of no use there, had already been a law suit; appeals were of no use, there had already been an appeal; the little farm had done the business, and all the banks, etc., could do was to call at the captain’s office and settle.
Burr got a big stake, and what was bigger yet to him, beat Hamilton. The Edens got rich, and Aaron Burr always had two women who were ready to die for him, and who mourned him when he died.
[Editor’s notes: Litigation over the Eden estate continued even after Burr’s death, especially after papers were found in his possession that proved that Burr had suppressed some evidence contradicting his case. Moreover, Medcef Eden Jr. (the second son, the one the Burr worked with) died in 1819, during the litigation. His wife Rachel had three daughters–and all three were Medcef Eden Jr.’s step-daughters–he had no biological heirs of his own. However, the gist of the column is true–Burr did help recover much of the Eden estate for these heirs.]
