Eliza Jumel had a taste for poetic justice. So did she really hire Alexander Hamilton’s son as her lawyer when she divorced Aaron Burr? Find out — and celebrate her 250th birthday with cake and bubbly — at 2 pm on April 5 at the Morris-Jumel Mansion, Manhattan’s oldest surviving house.
Biographer Margaret Oppenheimer, author of The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel, will unveil Jumel’s wily dealings with Hamilton Jr. and share a long-forgotten letter by Jumel’s niece Mary that contains delightful references to Burr.
The talk is free with Mansion admission, which is $10 for adults and free for children under 12. Reservations are recommended as space is limited.
The Morris-Jumel Mansion was built in 1765 for the Morris family. The original property, located on the ancestral homeland of the Lenape people, comprised fifty modern city blocks. The house would later serve as the headquarters for General George Washington as well as British and Hessian troops during the American
Revolution.
Stephen and Eliza Jumel purchased it in 1810, turning the grounds into a showplace, and Aaron Burr called it home briefly as Eliza’s second husband. Thanks to the stewardship of the last private owners of the property, Ferdinand and Lillie Earle, the House became a museum in 1904.
In the mid-20th century, the neighborhood became the vibrant home of many artists and celebrities of the Harlem Renaissance, including Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, and Duke Ellington, who once referred to the Morris-Jumel Mansion as “the jewel in the crown of Sugar Hill.”
Located in the Jumel Terrace Historic District, the Mansion is a Landmarks Preservation Commission Individual and Interior Landmark. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and belongs to the Historic House Trust of New York City.
Margaret A. Oppenheimer is the author of The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel: A Story of Marriage and Money in the Early Republic. A writer and editor, she holds a Ph.D. in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.
Besides her biography of Jumel (who was an art collector, among other things), Oppenheimer has written numerous articles on the fine and decorative arts of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and authored an exhibition catalogue, The French Portrait: Revolution to Restoration.
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