Theodosia Burr Alston: Portrait of a Prodigy

Theodosia Burr Alston: Portrait of a Prodigy by Cote, Richard N.. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781929175314.

Theodosia Burr Alston was a brilliant, independent, highly-educated and freethinking woman in an age which valued none of those traits in females. She was born June 21, 1783 in Albany, New York, the daughter of prominent attorney Aaron Burr (1756-1836) and his wife, the former Mrs. Theodosia Prevost (d. 1794), a widow. Young Theodosia spent most of her unmarried life in New York City with her charismatic, influential father, who had distinguished himself as an officer in the Revolutionary War. There he served under Col. Benedict Arnold and became a member of General George Washingtons inner circle. After her mother died when Theodosia was eleven, she became her fathers closest confidante and the mistress of Richmond Hill, his New York country estate. A child prodigy whose education was designed by her adoring and demanding father, Theodosia spoke Latin, French, German, and read Greek by the age of twelve. For Aaron Burr, providing his little girl with an extraordinary education was a lifelong obsession. But Burrs desire to rear a superior woman-child went far beyond mere education. By the time she could walk, Burr had envisioned an incredible goal for her and crafted a master plan to achieve it. Every waking breath of her day was directed by her father to shape Theodosia into something new, radical, and monumental. He was not interested in turning out just a smart, pretty girl; a fathers pride; or a husbands delight. Burr was no petty theorist. He was a passionate, egotistical visionary on scale that made the gods cringe. With his vision and his daughters talent, Burr intended to push the envelope of mortal achievement to its absolute limit. Burrs goal was to sculpt Theodosia into a model for the woman of the future: a female Aaron Burr. She was not trained to serve hearth, home, or plantation. From her first breath of life, she was groomed and educated to take her intended station in life: nothing less than president, queen... or empress. From her birth into New Yorks high society, her childhood among the leaders of the new nation, her marriage to Joseph Alston, a Southern slaveholding aristocrat, to her mysterious death at sea at the age of twenty-nine, this is the true story of Theodosia Burr Alston. From the letters she exchanged with her father, Aaron Burr, and her husband, Joseph Alston, and from the accounts of those who knew her personally, emerges a powerful portrait of a true American prodigy.