Social Schemes & Dark Deeds Attributed to Morris-Jumel Mansion
The story reads like a plot line from a TV soap opera like ALL MY CHILDREN or DYNASTY but it was true to life. By virtue of a deathbed wedding ceremony, the daughter of a prostitute became the richest woman in America. Her name wasn't Erica Kane or Alexis Carrington, but Eliza Bowen Jumel and she lived at 160th Street and Edgecombe Avenue where Harlem meets Washington Heights.
The lady of the house is long gone, but the Morris-Jumel Mansion in which the brilliant and beautiful Madame Jumel pursued her social climbing agenda is still there, the oldest remaining Colonial-era house remaining in New York City located near the C train stop.
British Colonel Roger Morris and his American bride Mary (Polly) Phillipse (Phillipsburg Manor), daughter of the Squire of Yonkers (owner of most of current Westchester County) and their 4 children lived with servants in a grand home in New-York (still hyphenated) at Stone & Whitehall Streets near Bowling Green, then a very fashionable neighborhood. New York was a bustling seaport town while most of Manhattan was still tangled wilderness with only occasional clearings for farms and villages such as Greenwich Village and Harlem. Upper Manhattan was truly the country, more comfortably approached by river boats than roadway and was a breezy summer get-away for early New Yorkers of wealth, much like the Hamptons today. New-York summers were oppressive and anyone with the means to get away did so. As a seaport, New-York was susceptible to disease...every day brought boatloads of people from everywhere and every couple years a plague would hit the city: yellow fever, smallpox and God forbid cholera, etc. Summer's heat and humidity exaggerated the unhealthy conditions.
Mount Morris, as Col. Morris called his 130-acre hilltop estate, was designed in the classic Georgian Palladian style featuring the first octagonal wing on a house in this country and large rooms obviously designed for an active family's country lifestyle. Big rooms, unusually large halls and broad doors create a generous and open atmosphere. The big front portico with it's balcony above, all supported by Tuscan columns, provided the house with a majestic entrance. Facing south, the house originally had a spectacular view of the Harlem and Hudson Rivers on both sides of Manhattan as well as New-York and the great harbor beyond, now obscured by bulky apartment buildings and skycrapers. It's said that George Washington, who used the house as his headquarters during planning for the Battle of Harlem, watched the giant bonfire of the burning of New-York way downtown from the house's upper front balcony on Sept. 21, 1776. A little-known historical tidbit: a young George Washington had dated Polly Phillipse in his search for a wealthy wife. Her father forbid her seeing him further saying: "Washington's a fortune-hunter! He's only after MY money!" Mary, the children and servants had fled Manhattan during the war to stay with family in Westchester.
Many surviving colonial houses of the period, such as George Washington's beloved Mount Vernon, give the appearance of being quite large from a distance, but once the visitor is actually inside, the illusion is evident and the spaces appear disappointingly small and often claustrophobic. Such is NOT the case with the Morris-Jumel Mansion, where the luxury of spaciousness is everywhere. The front door is normally kept open (as it would have been during colonial summers) in pleasant weather, which enhances the feeling of a comfortable country home, even in the middle of New York City today. There is a crumbling ancient stone street marker (now in the house's back herb garden) that says: "New-York City:= 11 Miles".
The octagonal drawing room on the first floor became a Council Chamber where Court-Martials were held, while the upper octagonal floor was Washington's private quarters. Washington occupied the house with a cook, a personal valet, a maid and several officers from Sept. 14 to Oct. 18, 1776, viewing the burning of New-York from the front portico. Washington had said in a letter to Martha in Virginia: "I would rather burn my beloved New-York than see it taken by the crown..." but as it turns out the city burned anyway. Later the house was occupied by the British troops as a vantage point and for the next seven years various troops were in residence including German Hessians.
At the end of the war, Mount Morris was confiscated, the land eventually leased for farming, and the house converted into a tavern called Calumet Hall which was the first stop on the Albany Post Road (St. Nicholas Avenue). By this time, the house was fairly run down and the tavern considered a rather "low" place. They specialized in "Turtle Soup" parties which were all the rage at the time.
There was a brief return to glory on July 10, 1790, when President Washington, for old time's sake, attended dinner with his cabinet members, including Vice-President Adams, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and their wives. Ironically, Hamilton's future killer Aaron Burr, would come to be master of the house.
JUMELS OCCUPY HOUSE
Nearly 50 years had elapsed since the house was erected when the estate was sold in 1810 to Napoleon's former wine merchant Stephen Jumel. With Napoleon's capture and his reign over, Jumel had left France bringing his vast fortune with him. But it was his wife, the fascinating Madame Jumel, who is the best remembered resident of the mansion.
Born to a prostitute and madam in Providence, Rhode Island, and raised in humble surroundings (her family was once arrested for living on the street) the former Betsy Bowen dreamed of a better life. She caught on quickly to the mannerisms of well-brought up young ladies and soon became mistress to a number of prominent gentlemen. Further research reveals that as a young woman of questionable social status, she fell in love with the dashing Aaron Burr, but was rejected as unfit to be a wife for someone of Burr's family and status.
DEATHBED CEREMONY
Eventually she met Mr. Jumel, who became her companion for some years. He purchased the estate in 1810, completely redecorating the dilapidated house in the Federal design. Since marriage was considered the only respectable occupation for a woman, Eliza resolved to marry Jumel to gain security and social acceptance. Feigning illness one day, Eliza collapsed and appeared near death, begging her lover, as a last request, to marry her. The clergyman summoned to deliver last rites found himself performing a wedding ceremony as well. Within minutes of exchanging vows, she experienced a "miraculous" recovery and began planning a party for her official "launch" into New-York society as the new Madame Jumel.
DICKENS INSPIRATION
To this end, the Jumels planned a sumptuous feast inviting all of New-York's foremost families. To the complete humiliation and embarrassment of Madame Jumel, not one person showed up for the dinner party. Too proud to admit that she had been so publicly snubbed, Madame Jumel left the dinner exactly where it had been laid out in the dining room, and immediately began planning an extended trip to Europe. The story of this event became so well known among locals that even Charles Dickens heard it some years later on a visit to America and presumably based the character of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations on Madame Jumel.
TOAST OF FRENCH SOCIETY
During many trips to France, the Jumels hobnobbed with royalty and even became quite friendly with Napoleon, whom Madame Jumel offered to help transport out of the country after Waterloo. It is whispered that the Little Emperor was her paramour. An indecisive Napoleon ultimately did not avail himself of her offer to help him escape, but not until after Madame Jumel had attempted to pack off his furniture to her New-York mansion for safe-keeping. Napoleon's actual bed, bought at auction in Paris, remains in Madam Jumel's bedroom.
The museum director dismisses the negative perspective of Madam Jumel's life as mostly hearsay, handed down by local families such as the Dyckmans as told to early Jumel biographer Henry Shelton, the mansion's first curator.
Madame Jumel loved the attention of society in Europe, where her past life was not considered a liability. Indeed, some of the most influential and respected women in Europe, and even a few queens, had been courtesans or mistresses. Eliza was admired for her beauty, her style, and above all, her extreme wealth...they returned to New-York in 1826.
Some say Madame Jumel had many affairs as she grew tired of her husband, and was rumored (by the servants) to have had a hand in his death in 1832. Servants and neighbors were suspicious of the way Stephen fell from a wagon one day, landing on a pitchfork, causing profuse bleeding. The doctor was summoned and bandaged Stephen's wounds tightly so they would heal. He said Stephen should be kept tightly bandaged at all times and not be moved for ANY reason from his second floor bedroom. Stories say that Madame Jumel "hastened his death" by loosening his bandages and his body was discovered in a bedroom on the mansion's THIRD floor.
One year later Madame Jumel, now 78, achieved her dream of marrying Aaron Burr and obtaining social status of the former Vice-President of Thomas Jefferson. Burr was now disgraced and nearly broke after having murdered Alexander Hamilton in the duel in 1804. The marriage lasted barely six months and when Burr began spending Madame Jumel's money, she filed for divorce, but as she travelled the world, she insisted on being called the "Vice-Queen of America". She died in 1865 and is buried in nearby Trinity Cemetery at W. 155th Street. Supposedly, her ghost haunts the mansion which has been a museum since 1903. The house is on the National Register of Historic Haunted Places."
-- Jim Dykes is a writer and New York City tour guide of walking tours and bus tours and step on tours
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