Burr, Hamilton Duel to be Reenacted by Their Descendants

Aaron Burr (pictured here) was vice president of the United States when he shot Alexander Hamilton 200 years ago on July 11, 1804. On July 11 of this year, Burr's family is reenacting the scandalous incident to try to rehabilitate his image. Unlike the original event, the reenactment will be televised.

About a hundred descendants from both sides of the centuries-old dispute are expected at the event at Weehawken, New Jersey, on the cliffs of the Hudson River across from New York City.

Antonio Burr, a distant cousin of the historical figure and a psychologist, will play his famous relative in the mock duel. Antonio Burr said, "Burr was one of the losers in history. I am devoted to setting the record straight."

The role of Hamilton, who was an aide to General George Washington in the American Revolution, will be played by his great-grandson Douglas Hamilton, a computer salesman from Columbus, Ohio.

"Hamilton had it right and history has proved it," said Hamilton, who said he was happy to volunteer to play his illustrious forbearer.

Details are available at http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/08/life.duel.reut/index.html

Comments

[Bobbi]

The great-grandson of Hamilton? Even if Hamilton's offspring was born the year he died that means you have 3 generations spanning 200 years. I would think someone would have looked into this.

[Paul Romaine]

Looks like a copy-editing error in the CNN report. The AP wire story (also reprinted in the NY Times on Monday 7/12/2004) noted him as *fifth* great grandson. Moral: doublecheck your sources!

[Mary Rhinelander McCarl]

I was at the re-enactment. Douglas Sinclair Hamilton is a great-great-great-great grandson. I am a great-great-great granddaughter. He and I and almost all the sixty-odd Hamilton descendants present descend from John Church Hamilton, the fifth child. Unlike his siblings, most of whom died without progeny, he had twelve. We estimate that there are about 300 living descendants. The whole long weekend was very moving. It began with a picnic for family members at The Grange, the Hamilton house on Saturday. Sunday was the duel, the rededication of a monument to Hamilton on the cliff at Weehawken and a learned symposium. Monday was a very moving service at Trinity Wall Strret where Alexander and his widow Elizabeth Schuyler are buried next to their eldest son, Philip Schuyler Hamilton, killed two years before his father on the same duelling grounds with the same weapons.

[Vance B. Mathis]

I am a distant relative of Aaron Burr through my ninth great grandmother, Agnes Harris Spencer Edwards. Actually, since my grandmother was married a second time in 1645, I was not related to that husband; but am related to their off-spring, which makes me a half cousin several times removed from Aaron Burr as I am also, to Jonathan Edwards.