One year after her marriage Theo came on to New York for a visit--I
suppose she stopped at her father's town house, since it was in
spring, and before the country places would naturally be open. At all
events it was during this visit that, fresh from her rice fields
(which never agreed with her), she wrote in a letter:
"... I have just returned from a ride in the country and a
visit to Richmond Hill. Never did I behold this island so
beautiful. The variety of vivid greens, the finely
cultivated fields and gardens, the neat, cool air of the
cit's boxes peeping through straight rows of tall poplars,
and the elegance of some gentlemen's seats, commanding a
view of the majestic Hudson, and the high, dark shores of
New Jersey, altogether form a scene so lovely, so touching,
and to me so new, that I was in constant rapture."
In 1804 came the historic quarrel between Aaron Burr and Alexander
Hamilton. Since this chapter is the story of Richmond Hill and not the
life of Aaron Burr, I shall not concern myself with the whys or the
wherefores of that disastrous affair.
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