Hey, weirdos, Alayna here.
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Hey, weirdos. I'm Alayna.
I'm Ash. And this is Morbid.
it is with lindsey lowen lindsey lowen or low hand you decide i am back no this is just um sorry about my voice um it's saucy and spicy again um yeah it's it's a lot but i'm just still we're we're in that fun time of year where me and the kids are just throwing back and forth illnesses is it's a lot of fun it's really gross up in here yeah it's one of the i saw a tiktok the other day where parents were like this household has gone how many days without illness zero and i saw it said two days and they were erasing the two to say zero and i was like that is the realest thing i've ever seen yeah
because people without kids are like people who haven't been around kids will be like why are we sick and they don't believe you yeah they don't believe you and they want to just be like you're gross and it's like no like this is reality is you just live in a petri dish for some parts of the year yeah and this is that part of the year for most parts of the year really yeah this especially is the like primo yeah flu season is when it gets it really gives it its all that's why nobody really likes well like i don't know i'm generalizing but nobody really likes this part of winter like january february
march it's tough it's rough yeah i used to like it i don't like it so much now that you used to yeah now that i'm like you know passing around germs with the fam but yeah we're gonna see how far we can get into this before I have to cough again yay um which is right now she said right now yep had to pause really quick uh you got that tail end of a cough probably but you know we're gonna start right in because I don't know how far I can get and how long this will take to get there so we're gonna talk today about something a little different there's mystery here there's a disappearance here there's
some spooky cookie tales here but it is the disappearance of theodosia burr alston now in case you don't know theodosia burr is in fact the daughter of aaron burr imagine that of hamilton fame uh this is going to be really hard for me not to sing hamilton songs but i think i will be aided by the fact that if i sing i will cough so thank you lord i was just gonna say so this is really just to everybody's benefit.
Someone up there is looking over us, guys.
They are. Maybe I'll just speak some of the lines every once in a while.
Spoken word. But this is a very interesting one because it is still unsolved.
We don't know what happened to Theodosia Burr.
Oh. Which is very interesting because it's like, what the fuck?
What was the one that you did where it was like that and you went through all like the ship manifestos and all that?
Oh, yeah. Shenanigans.
The ship manifests.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's Dorothy Arnold.
Oh, yeah, that was fun.
That was a lot of fun and sad.
But will this have like similar vibes?
A little bit. That one was a little easier because there was actual, like easier records to find.
But this is like we're talking about, you know, the birth of the nation time here.
So this is like a little harder.
We're going to get into more theories.
But with a little bit, there is some stuff to back up some of the theories.
Okay. So let's start at the beginning or not even at the beginning.
Let's start at the act itself.
okay this happened on december 31st 1812 damn theodosia burr alston who like i said is the daughter of former vice president and relatively notorious founding father aaron burr boarded a schooner ship aptly named patriot ah um he was she was on her way to new york from um south carolina she was going to meet her father aaron they had planned a meeting and that's why she was going into new york because as we'll talk about aaron had just come back from being um a little bit of a runaway in europe a little bit for some some little reason so he was back so she wanted to visit him but once the ship
had left port in south carolina that was the last time anyone would see theodosia burr or the patriot again ship was gone yeah so theodosia in case like i said in case you you don't know who this is um she was born into american aristocracy when this all began she lived a life young women could only dream of she was an aristocrat she was an aristocrat she was the daughter of one of our founding fathers america's founding fathers and she was literally there for the birth of our nation which is pretty wild when you think about it pretty nuts and what's even worse is that like so she's there for the birth
of a nation her father is like like participating in all this and then she's there for the unprecedented scandal that followed her father's trial for treason so but either way we're gonna see that there's like i as i was reading this i was like no one's ever just good huh like it's just never and i'm not talking about theodosia i'm talking about aaron burr like obviously we know if you know who aaron burr is you probably know the one thing about him which is he shot and killed alexander hamilton yeah that's probably what you know about him and he was tried for treason but when you learn about how
he was as a father and how he was as a husband you're like for a minute you're like wow like you're just such a good guy which like maybe he was but like then you get these little snips that you're like god damn it no one's ever nice like you're like fuck you it's really well it's just like damn it america but either way she was here for all of that but as an adult she she married Joseph Alston.
So she didn't stray far away from politics because she had a childhood of political importance, or at least very, you know, right next to political importance.
Now she was the wife of a rising political star, which at this time would have given her at the very least a pretty subtle role in post -colonial politics right up until her disappearance.
Because that was only a few months into the War of 1812 when she disappeared.
So for two full centuries, we have no idea what has happened to Theodosia Burr.
Like, we are all still scratching our head for answers.
To this day, we don't know what happened.
All we can think of, was she kidnapped by pirates?
That's a very real possibility.
And they just, like, destroyed the ship.
Yeah, or they took the ship, and we just didn't see it again.
They took off the patriot name, and we don't know that it's there.
You know, was the ship lost at sea without a trace?
Was there some kind of weather event?
We're going to talk about that.
What happened? Where is she?
So, let's go back to the beginning.
Theodosia Burr was born to Aaron Burr and Theodosia Prevoburr in Albany, New York on June 21st, 1783.
She was actually born just six months before the end of the American Revolution.
Holy shit. Quite a burst. Her father, like we said, was already pretty well known.
He had a lot of power, a lot of influence.
And he had actually entered the war as a volunteer soldier, but he had quickly risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel by the time that he was then forced to resign from the Continental Army in 1776.
six but outside of all the military stuff aaron was known to be super hard working really influential uh he he he went after what he wanted especially he had a successful law practice yeah he maintained a really big social network that really had some of the most powerful people in new england in it so he was living he was living one might say it's living there you go one being who?
Paris Hilton? Is that her thing?
Of course. New mom, Paris Hilton.
Yeah, she like trademarked that, right?
We got to like, anytime you say it, you have to be like, TM, Paris Hilton.
Yes, of course. I think she did anyway.
Maybe. She might as well have. So Theodosia's parents had a somewhat unconventional path to marriage, especially for colonial era people.
So has has anyone seen hamilton raise your hands uh yes raised now aaron and his wife theodosia senior met while theodosia senior was still married to a man named shock privo who was a british officer with the royal american regiment that's never good remember that part of hamilton where burr sings theodosia writes me a letter every day i'm keeping her bed warm while her husband is away way oh and then it says yeah he's on the british side in georgia he's trying to keep the colonies in line but he can keep all of georgia theodosia she's mine oh sauce i kind of love their love yeah it's like it's
a it's a um what's the word when is it like star -crossed lovers is that yeah that's what i was like very romeo and juliet you're not supposed to be together other i do love their love i have to say that so after provost's unexpected death from yellow fever in 1871 which by the way throughout this entire thing they very openly had an affair yeah like it was it was like happened like i mean did you you said those lyrics i heard yeah like keeping the bed warm all right yeah like it's very fine but like i want the girl but they ended up marrying after he died he kicked it they were like all right
it's our time now aaron played the long game you know rip he did you know rip despite the couple carrying again like i said an open affair before he died you know what they really didn't really get a ton of shit for it yeah which is pretty cool um you know they're they made a lot of sacrifices like patriotic sacrifices during the war that i guess people kind of were like all right we can still respect you okay we can still hang out with you they admired them their social circle really didn't fall apart at this time good of course there was a little bit of gossip it's not like people were like
oh we don't give a shit at all yeah well there also was like not that much to talk about anyway so like of course you're gonna talk about that so i think it was one of those things where it was like everybody was just like oh shit like you had an affair with a fucking british officer's wife that's wild dude yeah but like do you want to come to this dinner party like it wasn't it was like hey aaron's coming he has street cred he has street cred now now usually people back then were marrying for very practical reasons that was why you got married it was for station it was for getting you in a better
situation but they legit married purely out of love oh which and like love mutual respect and just like their their likes and dislikes were very aligned they had like very much an intellectual companionship like this was one of those things where you look at it and And you go, yeah, that was, like, fate.
You know what I mean?
If you believe in fate.
Of course I do. Or, like, these were soulmates.
I feel like they were meant to see each other.
They both shared a real love of arts and culture that wasn't really, like, common at the time.
And for, like, a woman and a man to find each other.
Right, like, common ground.
And that was very, yeah, and it was cool.
And, I mean, Burr adored his wife.
And everyone knew that around him.
um like after little theodosia's birth in 1783 he lost his mind like he in like a good way like he just and everybody was like the love he had for his wife just trickled right down into his into his daughter um and historians have actually said it was the soul that she was the soul of her father's soul oh that's how they were like how beautiful isn't that really beautiful i'm like a man said that?
Now, unfortunately, the birth of young Theodosia was very traumatic for both mother and baby as was a lot of births back then.
Yeah. But this one was really bad.
They both did recover, but Theodosia Sr. dealt with a lot of after effects.
And when they did, Burr moved, like when they were, you know, both up and running, Burr moved his family from Albany to a rented house at number three Wall Street, where his law practice could really grow just exponentially exponentially faster.
And during that period, Aaron Burr became one of the most sought after lawyers in New York.
He earned a ton of money.
And the good news with this was, in his case, was that now he got to spend time with his family.
He didn't have to be away from them traveling all the time at the time.
And he could really invest in their future, make sure that they were set up beautiful.
At the time he was killing it.
He's operating his own legal practice.
He's serving as a New York State Assemblyman between 1784 and 85.
And Theodosius Sr., like I said, was unfortunately dealing with a lot of after effects from the traumatic birth.
So at the time he was limiting himself traveling and would just kind of remain at home and tend to his family, which was a little different.
And when they were apart, Burr would just write love letters to his wife to his wife and to his daughter.
I love it. Like these letters were just like them talking about how much they loved and missed each other.
All of them. Like all three of them.
Like the sweetest thing ever.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
So in 1785, Theodosia Sr. gave birth to a second daughter who they named Sally.
Cute. Now before Sally and after Theodosia, the Burrs had dealt with two stillbirths.
Oh, God. Tragically, yeah.
So Sally was celebrated immensely, just like little Theodosia was.
yeah and although burr was traveling a lot during this time he really did try to spend as much time as he could with his family and just kind of keeping up what was happening with in new york but unfortunately in 1788 sally ended up dying of an unknown illness oh shit yeah and it was only what three years after i think she was only three or four she was young yeah so after sally's death young theodosia became even more the apple of her parents eye of course more lavish with attention and praise than ever and burr just exploded all over her whenever he could in a good way and her parents like he
didn't just like scream at her yeah um her parents were just so thankful to still have her and the burrs put a lot of attention on her education as well which was different for girls of that 100 burr was actually the main teacher for theodosia but theodosia senior took over when he had to travel and she took classes in reading dance music that's very much what young girls would be learning back then but much unlike young girls of her age at the time aaron insisted that she also have classes in math writing and language good he wanted his daughter to have everything she needed or wanted in this life
and he knew that she needed to be prepared and she also needed to carry on the legacy of him being a very well -educated man so it's like a double -sided thing here but his letters while he was away would often just be him being like how is her education progressing do you need any help he would offer to like hire tutors at like twice the amount just to make sure she could like keep up with everything yeah and she was actually able to read and write pretty fluently by five years old holy shit like not like oh I'm starting to learn how to read at five it's like no I can literally read any thing you
you give me? Pop off, Theo.
Yeah. And again, like I said, this was kind of a double thing.
Like, he loved his daughter.
He wanted his daughter to be whatever she wanted to be.
But again, according to Richard Cody, who is a historian, he said, quote, Theodosia's education was a direct extension of her father's.
So the drive for her to succeed was definitely also, it was one, I want you to be a well -educated freethinker on your own.
But it was also, you need to uphold hold to my reputation yeah which which i get but you know he also had a lot of instruction for her like this is how you are a good person which is good this is how you teach your kid to be a good person you don't lie you don't cheat you don't steal it didn't always extend to his own life yeah no because which could be a problem yeah um because while he was away as much as he loved his wife he had several extramarital affairs uh not great aaron and that's what i mean when i say like you were doing so good right why do you have to cheat on your wife that's never
never a good choice why do you have to cheat on your sick wife worst like come on man like why can't you all why can't you just be good like just be good like just fully good but i guess no one can but like Like, bummer.
So, great father, loved Theodosia Sr., but, like, he was a founding father.
So, there was other, like, you know, like in that realm.
Oh, yeah. So, there's that.
So, in 1789, Aaron Burr became the third attorney general of New York, which luckily meant he was going to have to travel less.
So, that's great. And his background in law and his huge network of super powerful political friends friends made him an instant success in the political realm but there was a lot of pressure and it was taking a huge toll on his health like he was exhausted he was stressed and then at home Theodosia senior's health is still declining she's not doing great from everything there is stress coming from like all angles yeah exactly and she had struggled obviously since the birth of Theodosia yeah there you go and she had struggled since the birth which was at this point about 10 years earlier she was still
struggling from that and by 1793 um it was kind of apparent that she was really going to continue to decline she was apparently quote in a um an almost constant choke and she would she would just be coughing like constantly and she would have like daily she was dealing with nausea and vomiting a lot of stomach pain burr's friend And Dr. Benjamin Rush actually recommended that she take small doses of Hemlock to treat this, which I'm here to tell you that that's probably what killed her.
Yeah. One would think.
At least hastened mightily the death.
It's like how George Washington, they were like, let's just bleed you for this cold.
It's fine. And continue to bleed you.
Yeah. And then they just killed him from trying to fix him.
It's like, guys, I know you weren't like up on it in the 1700s, but like, my God.
But you just like really weren't at all?
Yeah, you really weren't on it.
Now in the months leading up to her death, they actually prescribed her.
So like I said, hemlock.
At one point they prescribed her chocolate and wine.
Fucking prescribe me chocolate and wine anytime you need to.
Which I'm like, was that just to make her comfortable?
100%. But no matter what they did, even mercury at one point they prescribed, which probably wasn't great.
Probably not. strangely none of it did anything to relieve her pain um unfortunately theodosia senior died in the family's new york home on may 18 1794 what is believed now to have been either stomach or uterine cancer you know when you were describing her symptoms i was wondering if it was some kind of cancer yeah it was really sad now at the time aaron burr was away in philadelphia oh man so as As she was in this final stages in pain and suffering, Theodosia, no, she had her daughter, who was only 11 at the time, though, and was in, like, caring for her mother.
And she was the one who was there.
Thank God. And I don't even think she had turned 11 at this point.
She was still 10. Oh, man.
So she was there at the end, and she was there when it happened.
So that's a lot for a 10 -year -old.
Now in the wake of Theodosia Sr.'s passing, this is when, or excuse me, Theodosia Sr.'s passing, young Theodosia had to step into the role as woman of the house now.
So now not only was she taking on new responsibilities, but she was also now the full center of Aaron Burr's world.
Like this was it. And he had a lot of influence over her, but it was like pretty good influence, I would say.
I don't think she turned out really great.
So he was very much pushing her to be the best she could be, continuing her education, giving her a lot of moral instruction, despite not adhering to it himself.
But she was killing it.
She was doing amazingly.
She was achieving far more than her peers were.
So good for her. And although she was like the center of his world, this was a good thing and a bad thing because she was also lonely.
Yeah. She was kind of there to take on all the role of her mother.
So she was there just kind of walking through this like sprawling mansion by herself when he was gone.
That's awful. And also just she had to, when she got old enough, she had to like host the dinner parties and the social events and manage the staff.
And, you know, by the way, there were also enslaved people on this property.
So that's what I mean when like you can look at like all these things like, oh, he was such a good dad.
yeah you know and there's always something where you're like oh and shit i forgot we're in the 1700s yeah yeah but she took on all of that and by the time she reached the age of 18 in 1801 she had received more and better of an education than men twice her age had received back to the yeah all while doing the things i just told you she's doing managing a household managing the the social stuff, like doing all of that stuff, on top of grieving her mother.
Yeah, at like 10 years old.
Like she's a badass.
She's a bad bitch. She really is a testament to the whole upbringing she had.
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And this is when, in 1801, this is when she was finally 18, so she was finally able to move into to another part of life which is married life especially back then you were expected to enter into that life so she her marriage was you know she liked her husband they got along like this but it definitely had a lot more to do with like legacy political strategy but i think it was one one of those things where love and and respect and adoration formed out of that okay so it wasn't like it all went bad you know like he was just a shithead and they hated each other and that was it they made do she married
joseph alston in 1801 um and again like i said they definitely turned into they more than tolerated each other love that for them so that was a good thing and in the end when you hear how Joseph speaks about her he loved her okay very much it's like I said began definitely with the colds that we're legacies this is political strategy we this is what we do and it ended up with being like wow I think he really looked at her as like this extraordinary woman because in the end he basically says like I felt worthy of being in her presence like I I didn't feel worthy for so long and then I finally felt
worthy like so he really looked at her as like, she's a badass.
Yeah. I'm like, I should be respected her.
Yeah. Like I'm lucky to have entered into this.
So Theodosia met Joseph Alston during the presidential campaign of 18, 1800, actually, uh, Burr was using Alston as kind of a middleman to convey information from the North to the Republicans in the South.
Um, and you know, like many men that came into Theodosia's presence he was immediately very much enamored with how smart she was she had a very she was quiet but she was like quietly confident like she had this air about her that like i know how great i am but like not annoying um and she and also i love this because he blatantly says that she he was never put off by her lack of skill in the women womanly arts oh so like she wasn't gonna like makeup and stuff how good of you and i think it was like in like folding laundry oh and like cooking dinner you know like the womanly arts she was doing
better shit those are the womanly arts and she was she was too busy getting an education to really yeah you know she learned that stuff but it wasn't what she was into and he he wasn't put off by that i'm not good at folding either thea you know now once the election was finally you know over jefferson was president burr was his vice president alston proposed to theodosia but she said no she said i love this this was in a this is in a letter she said aristotle judged a man too immature for marriage before age 36 hell yeah like theodosia yeah theodosia i love it and they had these letters back
and forth that are very like sassy like she's just like you're or too immature.
Sorry about it. Call me when you're 36.
36 is like such a random age.
She was like that's what Aristotle said so I'm going to listen to him because I am educated.
A lot of people think that you shouldn't get married until after you're 30 because that's when you have your return to Saturn which is like when everything is supposed to kind of like it's also like a really shitty period in your life.
It really can be because everything gets like mismatched and then falls into place.
I'm doing it. I'm going to go ahead and get married before that.
I got married before 30.
I didn't have kids until 30.
maybe yeah i think my goal is kids at 30 but either way joseph traveled from south carolina where he was living to upstate new york in february of 1801 and that's when he convinced theodosia to marry him was he 36 he was not 36 but he did a lot of convincing he did the legwork yeah he traveled so you know that traveling was not easy back then so shortly after they got married theo and joseph went on what was called a bridal tour the fuck is that they traveled around with this entourage of servants into the more rural parts of the new york state and they reached their destination which was niagara falls
this trip was apparently kind of a celebration of the marriage so it was almost like a honeymoon kind of thing okay um but it also gave theodosia kind of a break from running the house in new york and like doing all the things this was like a vacation yeah and back then vacations were not a thing you didn't go on vacation goodbye like you didn't it was not common for people to be like i'm just gonna go to niagara falls to look at it because it's pretty they were just like no i don't have time for that if you were traveling you were traveling for a very distinct purpose for war because for war
to go declare battle on someone but yeah she she needed this like nice little rest period and she wrote a letter to her sister -in -law and she said if you wish to have an idea of real sublimity visit the falls of niagara They are magnificent.
I love it. The Falls of Niagara.
I love that. And again, this is like, it's pretty significant because it's like, one, Theodosia is now transitioning into adulthood.
She's not a child anymore.
And it's also the first time that anyone really went to Niagara Falls for recreational purposes.
That is kind of crazy.
So she was just like breaking stereotypes everywhere, apparently.
And this actually began that trend of let's go look at cool shit for no reason.
so she invented sightseeing kind of like in a way like this is a bitch i invented vacation assuring and like you can just go look at shit wow for vacation you don't need to be going there for a purpose quoted directly from theodosia's diary you can just go look at you can just go look at shit the falls of niagara niagara are fucking magnificent that's what she wrote she stamped her little name on there or big old name but you know what she's still in that life she grew up in she's she's an aristocat as you said she's still she's in south carolina now um it's all money politics a little bit of domesticity
in there yeah um joseph took over a lot of the doting that her father had done on her okay because he really did start to really just dote on her they hosted dinner parties they had social events at their home they would go back to new york in the summer to visit her father it was all very what you would think of you know like Like, you're just like, ooh, like, so fancy, so glamorous.
Fanciful. In the spring of 1802, just a year into their marriage, Theodosia gave birth to a boy.
They named Aaron Burr Alston.
Aw. She was so happy.
She called him the crowning blessing of her life.
Oh, my God. Fuck me up.
Isn't that adorable?
I'm going to call my kids that.
Now, unfortunately, this birth was also pretty traumatic for both of them.
Because, like I said, birth was pretty traumatic back then.
she ended up dealing with what is now recognized as a prolapsed uterus oh shit yeah and at the time it just went untreated and unnoticed because they didn't know what it was oh my god so the pain must have been outrageous and it was unrelenting daily to her well does that just like that doesn't fix itself so she just like went on the rest of her life yeah she was just going with it and she went went to tons of physicians.
She went to specialists, she was just unable to find any relief for this because they didn't know what that was.
And after this and the pain that followed from the whole thing, Burr wanted Theodosia and the baby to come to New York.
And he said, you can get away from, you know, the crazy heat in Charleston.
I would, you know, I want to be here for you.
I want to take care of you to like, just come here.
So they started going every summer, and in the fall months actually to new york to visit aaron it was just like with the baby like this was a whole thing aaron visiting aaron yeah but unfortunately like she loved it but she also was lonely there because she missed joseph because like i said they were starting to like each other i was gonna say they like each other and in a letter in 1802 she wrote i would i had rather been ill on sullivan island with you than separated from you even my amusement served to increase my unhappiness for if anything affords me pleasure the thought that were you here
you also would feel pleasure and thus redouble mine at once puts an end to my enjoyment.
Oh baby that's love.
They love each other.
Yeah they absolutely do.
What started out as like we got to get married this is just what we do was like I really like you.
When you start finding amusement in things but you're like not with your partner and you're like that makes you sad you're in love.
And when you're like just thinking about the fact that you would find pleasure in this but you can't and like I would would be doubly feeling good if you were here like that makes me sadder it's like that's when you know now the first several years of their marriage were very happy like i said very happy very blissful there wasn't really a lot of trauma happening like she was dealing with the pain but she was going through it but then in 1804 again she was not having any treatment for what is a prolapsed uterus she was starting to experience gruesome recurring uterine infections Oh, my gosh.
pain. He can't do anything about it.
That's a lot. It's a lot.
And then making things worse, there was a ton of infighting and like political rhetoric happening surrounding the end of her father's term as vice president.
And it was becoming like inflammatory.
And it, you know, it was dealing with Joseph Alston too, cause he was part of the whole thing.
Right. So that was putting pressure on thing.
It was like the internet before the internet, like putting a a bunch of pressure on that and and there was a much publicized battle of words that you guys might recognize it was between aaron burr um and this guy who was like the secretary of this uh or the former secretary of the treasury his name was alexander hamilton yeah yeah they had like it was pretty publicized there they're back and forth there's like a pamphlet or something there was a lot of accusations being thrown around some claims of impropriety i won't get into it but like you You can look it up if you want or listen to the soundtrack
if you want. You might find a little something.
And shockingly, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel.
Oh, he did? Yep. July of 1804.
Thought that happened.
And what happened during that is that Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton.
Yeah. At this point, Theodosia was only 23 years old, by the way.
She's gone through all of this at 23.
Now her dad is on the actual run.
Like, he's, bye, gotta get out of here.
And on the run. like i don't know in the soundtrack he says burr on the run he says someone told you told me you better hide and yeah they were right so he he was out luckily he didn't put he didn't put his family in danger direct danger by coming to them because again he's on the run from new york right you would think he would just toot down to south carolina it's confusing though because like aren't those the the rules of a duel like someone dies yeah but i think he first of all well like the whole thing is that um alexander hamilton put his his pistol in the sky yeah and then i think more
people were on hamilton's side than burr's side uh yeah so i think so it since hamilton put his pistol in the sky that's burr was also supposed to do that it it's it's one of those things i think and i'm not a an expert on duels but i believe it's one of those like you know um like like honor things where it's like if you turn around and the guys got the pistol in the sky you shooting him would be pretty like low -handed like it's like you see him not shooting you you're you should probably be like when you think of how like quick that happens though like if he turned around prepared to not see
i'm sure he didn't think he was going to see hamilton's gun in the sky of course yeah and if that's a quick movement if you listen to the soundtrack he says that alexander hamilton was wearing his glasses why the fuck would he wear of those if he wasn't planning to shoot him fair you know it's funny because i'm actually supposed to see hamilton like next week there you go so this will all be very relevant yeah it literally because he sings songs about both theodosia senior and theodosia yeah i've only seen it on tv but i'm like seeing it yeah and obviously before i get emails that are like you
know that that's not like a historically like perfect thing i know it's a broadway show i know this i'm just making jokes jokes um but this is all real and yeah i think it's one of those things where like you are supposed to have like your seconds at a duel which they're supposed to talk to each other and try to be like hey maybe these two guys shouldn't just try to shoot each other like maybe we should just like talk through this yeah but some people are idiots and they don't like to negotiate they like to just go to boom boom trigger finger and like fuck everything up so yeah they They did that.
Gotcha. And that's not a good way to be.
Never a good way to be.
You should always try to negotiate first. You should always try to do that.
That's what they say.
Like, your seconds are supposed to come in and be like, we both know that this is stupid.
But it doesn't happen every time.
It didn't happen with his son either, Philip, Alexander Hamilton's son.
Yeah, his son died.
Yeah, exactly. So, like, there's a lot of, you know, a lot of dumb.
That scene got wrenching.
Oh, destroy you. Destroy you.
All right, but this is about Theodosia, not Hamilton.
He did not, exactly.
Exactly. So he did not run down to South Carolina and endanger his whole family, because that would have endangered them and Joseph.
Instead, he went out west. Sorry, I almost coughed.
So my voice broke there.
I didn't even catch it.
I'm okay. I swallowed the cough.
So I went west. You're crazy.
He went out west and he hoped, you know, he could just buy, I think he went like closer to Louisiana, like not all the way out west, but like closer to Louisiana where he was like, let's try to get out of here.
Making his way to Mexico.
ago. Yeah. Just trying to get out of here.
Now, by summer of 1805, Theodosia Jr. was just kind of wandering around this giant estate.
You know, her husband was away all the time.
She's right back to when her mother died.
And it's like, and her dad's not around now.
She's sick. It's a real parallel to like her mother's life.
It is. Yeah. Yeah. And she was also dealing with her like really declining health and she's raising a two -year -old boy.
Yeah. At the time. Like that's a lot so by august of that year her pain was unbearable um she was at that point she was certain she was going to die before the end of the summer like that's how bad it got so she actually wrote a letter to joseph and gave him instructions for what should happen should she pass away before the end of the summer she said quote after my death and before my burial and she wrote basically this is my will and testament she made instructions for where her Her belongings should go, who she'd care for, her son.
She said, to you, my beloved, I leave our child, who was once a part of myself.
You love him now, henceforth love him for me also.
And oh, my husband, attend to this last prayer of a doting mother.
Like, fuck me right up, Theodosia.
That's going to ruin me.
But good news, she did not die.
She was not sure. She was dealing with the emotional and physical pain still, but she did not die she didn't have to live out that will and testament just yet um but burr was arrested for treason and was taken to richmond virginia to be tried i don't think i knew that yeah um even worse many men were believing that because of burr's position that he wouldn't or couldn't pay his debts so they were now coming to joseph alston trying to get assurances that he was going to pay.
Joseph Alston wasn't able to provide those assurances.
So a lot more shit was coming their way.
Politics. Throughout this whole trial, Theodosia and Joseph relocated to a home in Virginia to be close to him actually during the trial.
It was a smaller home that was good because it was kind of less for Theodosia to have to do and have to be responsible for.
But she was dealing with the stress and anxiety of the entire trial and everything that was going on.
um and in the end the court did determine that the prosecution hadn't made a strong enough case to find burr guilty of treason so he was actually acquitted on those charges okay but so now he's free he's free to move about the country he's free to do whatever he needs to do but he's not going to be welcomed back with open arms after everything he can't just like go out there and be like hi friends what's up dinner party like no so he decided he was gonna go to europe because Because why not, right?
Yeah, you might as well go there.
And it takes a lot for anybody to go over there at this time.
So he's like, I think I'll be okay over there.
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But sure, Burr's released from trial, you know, released from the charges, but the fallout was and he's over in europe now but the fallout was everywhere like they weren't getting away from this right so while he was in europe he relied a lot on theodosia and joseph to give regular updates essentially on like american politics and also relied on them to spread disinformation among his political rivals ah he was very needy at this time it sounds like it now burr's neediness came at a tough time for theodosia because she was juggling her her responsibilities managing the household raising a child
dealing with the health health issues and now by 1809 all of the constant physical pain was starting to cause neurological and psychological symptoms um what was referred to as the most violent affections and it was hysteric fits quote unquote periods of seeing colors and flashes of light before her eyes wow she would hallucinate like see people around her bed um she would hear strange noise like auditory hallucinations and they would come and go it wasn't constant but like she was dealing with this and aside from this she was also dealing with the depression her equilibrium was off she had a violently
stinging mouth sore situation like sores in her mouth she had exhaustion and the whole equilibrium thing was causing her to like have falls yeah and one fall caught she got a spinal spinal injury that kept her immobile for like weeks.
My God, she's like really going through it.
So by 1812, Aaron Burr had been, you know, wandering around Europe, just kind of like going from one place to the next place, like running out of money, like going to the next place.
And the stress on Theodosia was enormous.
But in 1812, he had finally had enough of that.
And he wrote to tell her, I'm traveling by boat to New York, and I would love to see you and my grandson, sun like i need to see you but unfortunately that never happened no on june 30th 1912 as or 1812 excuse me as burr was making his way from boston to new york by boat um 10 year old aaron burr alston actually died from a summer fever or country fever oh man this was as burr was on the the boat home and again like the way that her life mirrors her mother's life that's crazy i know and summer fever or country fever would now be malarial oh so malaria um in 18th and 19th century south carolina malaria was a huge
contributor to high mortality rates the climate the swampy conditions of that area they're just a breeding ground for swarms of mosquitoes mosquitoes.
Little Aaron had contacted this around May or early June and during the month of June he was basically in like a stuporous state.
To make matters worse it was the early 1900s of it all so they used mercury and just made him rest to see if it would help.
That had never been a cure and wasn't a cure for that but they tried it out it did not work.
Theodosia was obviously honestly, very devastated.
She was dealing with 10 years of unrelenting pain and suffering.
And this is just the actual worst thing that could have happened.
Like the one thing that she just thought was most precious to her is now gone.
Yeah. And she's probably like distracting herself from everything going on in her life by doting on her son.
Yeah, of course. In a letter she wrote on July 12th to Aaron Burr, she said, I've lost my boy.
My child is gone forever.
May heaven make you some amends for the noble grandson you have lost. And after little Aaron's loss, Theodosia's only real thing she could look for, any solace she had, was that she was going to be able to see her dad.
Because now she was like, you're going to be back in New York.
I can go see you. She hadn't seen him in like four years.
He was like exiled in Europe for that long.
So in December of 1812, she made firm plans with him.
him i'm gonna come see you and alston's election in south carolina uh for um it was against the south carolina governor on december 10th was in like full swing at this time so he would have normally gone with her okay of course because she's in poor health too right but he couldn't because he was in the middle of this whole thing so it just happened to be like a time when he couldn't come so she was gonna have to do it alone now by late december 1812 1812 the war of 1812 had had been going for like six months at this time.
So any interstate travel at this time was pretty risky.
This was not an easy decision to make.
She had two options to go to New York.
One, she could go by land in the Alston's carriage, which would have been a two -week journey at the very least. Damn.
Or she could go by sea, which would be way shorter, but it carried the added much higher risk of being captured by British soldiers or even possibly pirates.
Right. But still, the idea of spending more than two weeks being thrown around a carriage, being driven by a driver who Theodosia referred to as a great drunkard. Oh, no. Wasn't super appealing.
So she chose the sea.
I could see why. Yeah, she was like, I'm going to take to the sea.
So by the winter of 1812, British warships had set up blockades in a lot of the major ports, including Charleston, and had been capturing American ships as prizes.
On top of that shit, pirates and privateers were also very active off the coast of the Carolinas, which made things worse.
Joseph Alston really didn't like the idea of her going into the sea.
Especially because she is a prominent figure's daughter and a prominent figure's wife.
I have a feeling that's what happened here.
Yeah, and it's like he was strongly protesting this and they got into months of arguments about this.
He was really like, please do not do it, just get in the carriage.
courage but finally she he was like fine you're not gonna listen so you gotta I'll just give you my blessing sorry I had to stop to cough you probably heard the end of that I was like blessing but there we go she was going but really he only agreed to this in the end the only thing that made him agree to it was he was really hopeful that visiting her father was going to lift her spirits yeah and he thought that might translate into her physical health as well because they didn't know know anything about this back then so they're like maybe if she feels better she'll feel better right but because of her
health he was like i'm not gonna just let you go like without any provisions here so burr actually helped him arrange to have his friend dr timothy green travel from boston to south carolina and then accompany theo to new york oh i see on a private schooner the one named the patriot so his a private doctor was going to be on the ship to to make sure everything went okay.
On December 30th, a day before they were leaving, Joseph Alston walked the Adoja and Dr. Green to the family's landing in Oaks Creek, where they both were ferried to the Patriot in Georgetown Harbor.
The other thing that's contributing to this, I feel like, is the name of the ship.
I was thinking that too.
I was like, ooh, you really put a big target on that ship.
It's carrying a political daughter.
and it's also carrying like kind of a pariah political's daughter like you know i mean there's a lot of layers here and it's called the patriot yeah and the in like you said the wife of a political you know bigwig so it's a lot now the patriot itself was a 63 foot shallow draft schooner okay um it was used as a pilot boat during the american revolution before this oh shit and it only needed like a small crew i think it only needed like three or four people to sail it uh this was a private ship but it was considered a privateering ship so it had been authorized by the government to carry guns as
a means of protection against pirates and british warships but this one in particular only had three cannons and a civilian crew so it was really not going to be helpful like even with the guns it wasn't really going to be helpful this was a civilian crew awesome if they did run into pirates they were probably going to be in some trouble a british warship yikes like not going to be great but in records indicate that the patriots cannons had actually been weren't even going to be helpful anyways because they had been dismounted and stowed below deck because they figured they couldn't use them anyway
i think i know what happened at theodosia so even if they wanted to fend off invaders they definitely weren't going to be able to yeah well there'll be another thing that'll kind of be like oh maybe maybe that's what happened okay but joseph alston hadn't really chosen the patriot because he wanted it to be this like warship that was going to get her there it was apparently very swift sailing very smooth it was like had a very good record of being safe and he figured this is going to get her there quick in less than a week it was supposed to get her to new york oh wow because that was the whole
thing was the carriage was going to be like over two weeks right so the the Patriot set sail out of Georgetown Harbor at 12 noon on December 31st, 1812.
That was, again, the last time anyone saw Theodosia Burr Alston, Dr. Timothy Green, the Patriot, or its crew.
When Theodosia failed to show up to New York a week later, Burr and Alston were like a little alarmed, but they weren't freaking out yet.
You know, there were several reasons delay could happen, so it wasn't super uncommon that this was going to happen.
But then the second week came, and no word was heard from the ship or Theodosia, and they began freaking out.
They were now seeking answers.
Apparently, one of them, who was it?
It was, I think it was Joseph, or no, it was Aaron, excuse me.
Aaron wrote to Theodosia in New York and wrote, another mail and still no letter.
All that I have left of heart is yours.
all my prayer for your safety and well -being now after three weeks alston was beginning to suspect the worst and he began casting blame actually towards burr at this point he said in a letter he said tomorrow will be three weeks since i'll be in obedience to your wishes theodosia left me because again he was not happy she was going to the place you did this and he wrote gracious god is my wife too taken from me i do not know why i write but i feel like i feel that i am miserable because he just lost his son yeah now after several months now without word from theodosia or any of the people on the patriot
the men were they were forced to accept that she was gone something happened here um and aaron burr wrote to a friend were she alive all the prisons in in the world could not keep her from her father when i realized the truth of her death the world became a blank to me and life then lost all its value i mean i get that like he was he lost everything he loved his daughter now joseph alston was clearly obviously equally as fucked up by the realization that he was never going to see her again and he also lost everything yeah if he's mended and in one of his final letters to aaron burr his anguish
oh like this is this will destroy you get ready he wrote my boy my wife both gone this then is the end of all the hopes we had formed you may well observe that you feel severed from the human race she was the last tie that bounds us to the species but the man who has been deemed worthy of the heart of theodosia burr and has felt what it is to be blessed with such a woman's love will never forget this elevation wow um like they just don't write like they used to they don't they don't make it like he's tearing up in the court it's that part got me yeah like i'm not oh my goodness so what happened
to theodosia pirates this was a big deal and or the british yeah you know it could no this was a big deal and of course there is there was no real explanation being offered they couldn't really come up with one so there were a lot of theories that were having to to be kind of like plunkered together this is on there's honestly very little information about what might have been loaded onto the ship before it left like they don't have a lot of records saying like this is exactly what was on the ship but according to one of joseph alston's descendants actually there were a lot of barrels of rice
from alston's plantation aboard which were to be sold once the ship reached new york and it would offset the cost of this trip okay and others have have suggested that Theo carried with her the Burr family silverware, which she planned to return to her father.
This is just important to know that there were things on this ship that people might have wanted.
It was also said that the ship's captain, who was William Overstocks, he had painted over the name of the ship on the hull to avoid attracting any attention.
And that he also carried on him with the ship quote, the proceeds of her raids.
So, money or like things of value money and while these definitely make it like interesting yeah there is a weather thing to take into account here when you say like it definitely was pirates like it absolutely could have been pirates could have been british could have been any of these things but there's another little thing to think of this is just to give you a little bit of the you know these things were on the ship so that's interesting now the most likely explanation for what happened is kind of simple but really tragic okay um i it might have been caught in a storm after leaving port but they've
never found it that's the thing and as of 2022 just to put it out there there are over 10 000 shipwrecks in north america um and some this was some of it is from battle but a lot of it was just caused by inexperienced captains you know And unpredictable weather.
Yeah. Because at the time, especially, it wasn't easy to forecast. Right.
Now, in 1812, sailing relied entirely on analog methods of operation.
So the odds of the miscalculation of some weather event coming are pretty good.
Mm -hmm. And this would definitely be something that could sink a ship, especially a schooner.
Now, interestingly, on January 1st, 1813, the day after the ship set out, One weather event did come through, and it, quote, blew up that night off Cape Hatteras.
Now, this is only about 400 or so miles north of Georgetown, so interesting it is there.
And it's believed that this could be the storm that maybe forced the Patriot off course.
Maybe it hit rocks and it sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic before anyone could get off it.
Now, this is pretty accepted by a lot of people.
They're like, that makes a lot of sense.
This was the one that also, in the beginning especially, was the one that was accepted by Aaron Burr and Joseph Alston when they didn't hear from her in months.
In a letter written to her two weeks after she had left the port at Georgetown, Joseph wrote, I hear, too, rumors of a gale off Cape Hatteras the beginning of the month.
The state of my mind is dreadful.
Oh, yeah. Now, also, apparently General Thomas Pickney, who was a family friend of the Alton's or the Alston's, met with an admiral from the British blockade just off the coast of South Carolina.
And this guy from the British blockade said he could confirm that the Patriot was allowed safe passage through the blockade just hours before, quote, a violent gale followed the same night.
Oh, okay. But we're going to go back to that because there's a little mystery in that, too.
So that sounds all very like, okay, so people figured it out.
That's it. That's it.
It was a storm. But then in 1998, archaeologist James L.
Mike, I think it's Michi, or Michi, I'm pretty sure, commissioned a study to uncover more evidence of what happened to the Patriot.
And after a ton of digging, his team was able to find that there was no record of the Patriot having passed through that blockade.
so and why would they have let it well that did happen there would be like granted safe passage orders but it would have been logged that would have been something that would have been very much logged right there is no record of them going through that blockade yeah and that's interesting because they didn't they were able to verify that there was a violent storm that passed over south carolina on the coast on january 1st 1813 and according to mitchie quote the gale was so severe that the warships furled and reefed most of their sail.
Nevertheless, the ferocity of the storm stripped off top gallant yards and masts, snapped rigging, and tore out chain plate bolts from the hull.
So it's strange because they were not given safe passage, at least not recorded safe passage, so that's often shady.
Because it's like, did you do something?
Yeah, and that's why you're pretending that you let them through?
So it's absolutely could be the storm but it absolutely could be that they were not allowed safe passage and that something happened right interesting now let's get on to little urban legends like a little more urban de -legendy urban alternate theories here so more theories abound the most prominent and dramatic theory that came out of the late 19th century early 20th century and came out of your mouth too was that and mine as well was that she was seized by pirates yeah that's what i feel um But it gets even, we're saying it like that makes sense.
But this one's saying that she lived long enough afterwards to help direct the course of American history.
So she stayed active in directing our history, which, wow.
I was like, ah, you lost me.
And what gets interesting is that several sailors throughout the 19th century said they had seen Theodosia among the pirates.
And one pirate said that he, quote, claimed to have actually laid the plank that theodosia then walked all dressed in white into the stormy sea oh that's chilling wild another theory out of 1873 says that the patriot was a victim of a trap laid by a pirate who went by gibbs and who apparently confessed after being sent uh captured and sentenced to hang the tale was wild because it said that joseph and theodosia were arguing over the morality of her father's actions, like his whole thing with Hamilton, and that there was such a blowout that that's why she decided to go to New York.
But we know that's not true.
She was fleeing. And so this is why this one is not really a good one.
This one also says that she took her two children with her.
She only had one. She didn't have any children at the time.
Their child died of malaria.
But the story says that Gibbs, so you can take that and say people probably switched it.
But the story says that Gibbs heard of this trip and thought that the ship was likely to have tons of valuable shit on it.
So he set a trap, captured the ship, everyone on it.
And it's a tale that in this tale, many of the crew and officers were murdered and he decided to put all the survivors to death as well by walking the plank.
Obviously, this is bullshit, I would say.
I'm like, okay. I'm not saying she wasn't captured by pirates.
I'm just saying this one in particular was definitely not one I would think.
But they very much like in all these stories, they very much like romanticize it.
Yeah, like she walked off the plane.
The pirates and the wearing all white and all that.
But a similar story appears roughly 10 years after the Gibbs story.
Most of the same kind of plot points.
But this one says that a rough and hard looking former sailor by the name of Benjamin Burdick was on his deathbed.
And he was in Michigan when he was on his deathbed and wished to unburden himself by confessing.
Unbur, but he wanted to confess his role in the death of Theodore Burdick.
The story was supposedly told to a Mrs. Parks, the wife of a local Methodist minister.
And it was in, I guess there was three witnesses there to hear it they are unnamed it's pretty vague and according to burdick as a boy in 1813 he was on board a pirate ship who came upon the patriot he said it was on january 3rd 1813 so three days after they had set sail he said they kind of chased them the patriot was captured by pirates burdick claimed that they had taken everything of value off the ship and then they then compelled the captain and every passenger on board to walk the plank into the sea and all all perished.
Now he also kind of romanticizes this.
You can read this in the Montgomery County Sentinel from 1883.
He said there was this one lady on board who was a beautiful appearing intelligent and cultivated person who gave her name as Mrs. Theodosia Burr Alston.
When her turn came to walk the fatal plank she asked for a few moments time which was gruffly granted to her.
I was like I don't think pirates are letting her have time.
I don't think so She appeared pale yet beautiful as she retired to her birth and changed her apparel, appearing again on deck in a few moments clad in pure white garments and with a Bible in her hand.
She announced that she was ready.
She appeared as calm and composed as if she were at home and not a tremor crept over her frame, nor did any pallor overspread her features as she walked towards her fate.
As she was taking the fatal steps, she folded her hands over her bosom, raised her eyes to heaven.
She fell and sank without a murmur or sigh.
eye a pirate said this beautiful yeah now he went on to say that um it was his quote unhappy lot to be delegated by the captain to pull the plank from beneath her yeah and he said he would have given his whole life to undo what had been done supposedly before he died he repeated this confession to other men at the house saying i shall never forget the perfect confiding faith which she which her eyes expressed as she gazed up into heaven when about to take the fatal step her pale face has haunted me ever since and i see it now as plainly as i did on that terrible day interesting now let's get on to
one of my favorite theories is that she became a pirate queen i do love that i don't see that but i love i don't see that but i love it yeah now the rumors of the them being taken by pirates, they began circulating almost immediately after it was announced that she had disappeared.
But it wasn't until decades later that the story really started gaining some footing.
And according to the one particular legend, a group of researchers discovered evidence that the weather reports at the time of Theodosia's departure weren't actually what they said they were.
Oh. It seems like this theory says that that there was something that was assumed to be a violent storm but it actually wasn't nearby to where they were okay and that this is the one that says like okay so that didn't happen they were not lost in a storm so they were definitely commandeered by pirates and one of these pirates was a pirate turned respected citizen by the name of dominique frederick you i like that name now Now, it said that you had been a member of a mysterious fraternal order.
And that someone else was in this order.
Aaron. Aaron Burr. I had a feeling.
And apparently some of the primary tenants of this fraternal order was, quote, the protection of daughters of members against all harm.
Which, obviously, Aaron Burr, Theodosia Burr.
Now, if she had told you upon the time of being captured, I am Aaron Burr's daughter, I am Theodosia Burr, he couldn't have done anything to bring her harm.
So this is the one that says, well, she lived her days out happily among the pirates.
And it says that she was smart.
She had a very wide skill set, especially for a woman of her time.
She was also youthful and beautiful and she had everything that you need to be a pirate queen.
Other than that prolapsed uterus?
There was that, there was that.
They said, you know, like she also might've been really good to have around for like writing letters and keeping accounts and keeping books they're not really good at that you know so she wouldn't have to do some of the heavy lifting doing just doing pirate bookkeeping pirate bookkeeping now this is likely bullshit but it's pretty fun yeah i would say that's a fun one the skies were not clear like that is not true uh not by many of their weather reports at least and the legend kind of just relies on a woman who matches theodosia's description being frequently seen in the company of pirates oh
yeah and actually not even just pirates pirates like um there was a well -known pirate named jean lafitte um he this is where like people saw a woman who looked like theodosia in his company and he happened to be a close associate of Dominique Frederick you so it's like a very much like eight degrees of Kevin Bacon yeah like six degrees of Kevin Bacon 65 degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of situation um so because you would have to in order to connect these two people um you would have to it's even hard to connect them because you would have to be like okay so you is connected because because he is conveniently
a part of this really vague fraternal order that apparently he and Aaron Burr were in, even though there's no real evidence to such. And that this fraternal order would have had this weird, like, you have to protect daughters of members kind of thing.
But in reality, like fraternal orders and societies at the time in America were just like social clubs.
Yeah. Like they weren't like the Skull and Bones, like they weren't like, you know, the skulls.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was no, like, really intense things.
And pirates were not beholden to any code except the pirate code.
Which is just like, yo -ho.
Which is just yo -ho -ho and a bottle of rum.
The end. So they were brutally violent criminals.
Right. They were very much, their whole life was outside of the law.
Like, have you guys seen the Pirates of the Caribbean?
yeah it just they literally live their lives to avoid having to be bound by any kind of societal laws so why would why like that doesn't make any that's just not a very probable not impossible but very not probable agreed Agreed.
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Now another one I'm going to talk about, and I think this is the last one I will talk about, is the nags head painting theory.
That sounds interesting.
So the pirate narrative actually got a little bit of credibility.
Okay. Not the exact narrative that I've been telling.
Like Like, those sound crazy.
But, like, the idea that she and the crew were captured by pirates was not a weird or wild thing.
No. So it did gain a little bit of credibility in the late 19th, early 20th centuries when a woman who was living in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, came forward and she had a painting.
And she claimed that this painting was of Theodosia Burr Alston.
This painting was believed to have been on board the Patriot when it left port in Georgetown.
Okay. According to this theory, a doctor named William Poole paid a visit to an elderly woman living in some cabin in Nags Head in the summer of 1867.
And it was there that he discovered a painting, quote, quote, quote, quote, an oil painting on polished mahogany 20 inches in length and enclosed in a frame richly gilded, the beautiful patrician face, the unmistakable stamp of aristocratic birth and refinement was easily recognizable as theodosia burr alston okay so when the doctor asked about where the fuck did you get that painting he literally he was like where the fuck did you get that painting direct quote she because he was like we're in a cabin like a remote cabin somewhere like very out of like this painting is sticking Picking out, like,
a thorstom. Thorstom.
Wow, girly girl. A sore thumb.
I am on cold medicine, so excuse me.
I love it. But the woman was, like, a little reluctant to give him the origin of it.
But finally she was like, okay.
This painting, it was apparently discovered during the winter of 1812.
And it was when America was fighting the English.
And a small pilot boat had drifted ashore a few miles from Nags Head.
The woman said that the boat was in perfect condition.
There was like, literally a meal undisturbed sitting on the table.
It was like, it was just frozen in time.
And they said, and she said, it looked like it had just been abandoned by everyone on board. So she was like, when I saw, when we saw it, we thought obviously pirates.
Yeah. But when the woman explored the ship, that's when they found the painting of Burr hanging on one of the walls.
And they also found like silk dresses.
They found around flower like wax flowers which were very like pretty and fancy back then um they had like you know glass cloches that were covering certain things there was um a nautilus shell that had been beautifully carved out like all these things that would indicate that someone of aristocratic birth and life had been on this boat and so she was like that's where we found it so we took the stuff i have it here and that's the origin of it she was like that's why i was a little reluctant to tell you because i kind of stole it off an abandoned book so the doctor was there obviously to help
her yeah and so in order to pay him she was like okay well i just told you this whole story and she said you know do you want to take the painting as your payment and he was like fuck yeah i do because that's wild so somehow it made its way into the home of mrs john overman of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, somewhere along the way.
And this story says that the painting was actually originally intended as a gift to Aaron Burr.
That's why it was on the ship.
And it was actually apparently, according to this, was known to be among the cargo that was loaded onto the Patriot.
So it says that the pirates boarded the ship, they made everyone walk the plank, they killed everyone.
And then they got surprised in the middle of getting their bounty off this ship by a government cruisership and they abandoned before they could take everything that i believe now this goes along with the dying confessions of two criminals executed years executed years before in norfolk virginia okay so they said they were part of a pirate crew and this is exactly what they did like they both gave those stories so now there's like like two so two accounts of this and what's even three even more interesting is the painting is real yeah like dr william pool is real had it in his possession after it
was given as a gift he spent a lot of his later life trying to authenticate this story for sure he never was able to it isn't confirmed but it isn't debunked okay this one kind of checks for me i was gonna say i think so if it's not the storm this one could be it and how interesting would that be if there it was just like a painting of her on board. I know.
I think that no matter what, in my opinion, pirates were involved.
Yeah. I think everybody just goes with pirates because I think, you know, humans really don't like mysteries.
We like it, but we want it solved.
We want it tied up in a bow.
And we will often do a lot of like loopity loops just to get to that end game.
And in the end, Theodosia Burr Alston and was truly a remarkable human.
Absolutely. She was brilliant.
She was afforded a lot of advantages in life, but she took a lot of advantage of them as well.
Like, she didn't just take them and rest on her laurels.
And again, like, it seems like people loved her.
Like, you look at these letters that were exchanged between people that were, like, courting her and between her father and her.
And it's like, people were really, really astonished at the charm she had the grace the wit the intelligence like they were taken aback by her and for her to be able to captivate that many people around her especially in that time as a woman yeah you know where it was even like you were expected to be pretty yeah clean the house that's pretty amazing and unfortunately her life ended very abruptly and we don't really have the conclusion and no matter what tragically so i think it's important that even though we talk talk about these like you know fantastical theories there's pirates there's pirate
queens there's all this craziness theodosia should really be like the story here i'm just like what a badass woman like it's kind of very like she's very feminist she's very like this was a very oppressive era like we said so i think it's she's an interesting lady i think it's really sad that she had to go through what she went through in her personal life totally And then to have her story end like this is like, I hope they find what actually happened.
I know. I do too. Because it feels very unfinished.
You know, it is. And that is the story of Theodosia Burr -Alston.
Damn. It's like a really sad story from start to finish.
No matter what, it's tragic.
Yeah, with like little inklings of happiness, but not a ton.
No, it's really not.
it's a it's a tragic story tragic lives yeah you know with little glimmers of hope in between but and i know this one was a little bit of a different episode but i think it was a it was an interesting story and it's a mystery yeah we don't know what happened so i just thought it would be a fun one to put in there yeah history buffs out there i really liked it hey good job um i would like to keep singing your praises and telling you how much i like this but you need some fucking tea i do do because i'm about to cough again all right well with that being said y 'all we hope you keep listening and we
hope you keep it weird but that's so weird that coughs ready go bye If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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