(Aaron Burr)

Autograph document in an unidentified hand, 3 pages (13 x 8 in.; 330 x 203 mm), with integral address leaf, sent to Philip Jeremiah Schuyler, postmarked and docketed 1 June 1804; holes in paper from opening of wax seal and small wormhole, neither affecting text.

Condition as described in catalogue entry.
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A contentious Fourth of July in Poughkeepsie. On the evening of 30 May 1804 the citizens of Poughkeepsie met to make arrangements for celebrating the Fourth of July. A chairman and five committee members were elected to supervise the preparations for the celebrations. The next order of business was a resolution which was proposed and seconded: "That it is the sense of this meeting that in case the committee now elected shall think it proper to give the President of the United States as a toast that the vice president as such should also be toasted." Aaron Burr was at that time Vice President under Thomas Jefferson.  Earlier in the year, he had also run for governor of New York and been soundly defeated by Morgan Lewis. 

A Mr. Brush was the first to raise objections to this resolution.  The argument among attendees quickly became heated. "It was then verbally moved and seconded that the committee appointed should retire in an adjoining room and determine within 15 minutes whether they would consent that in case the President of the United States was toasted that the vice President should also be toasted as such—altho the question was frequently demanded to be put by the Chairman yet he as frequently refused—" 

Burr was to slay Alexander Hamilton in a duel just forty-two days after this meeting.