I have long known that Northampton’s famous colonial preacher, Jonathan Edwards, was the maternal grandfather of Aaron Burr who was the third vice-president of the United States and is best remembered today for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel. While that relationship was an interesting fact, I never gave the familial connection much thought until recently when I read a book entitled “Massachusetts Maverick Women” by Jim Cullen. Cullen has written a dozen essays about famously independent women such as Anne Hutchinson and Abigail Adams who lived in Massachusetts in the 17th and 18th centuries. One essay is about Esther Edwards, a daughter of Jonathan Edwards, and, compared to the other women featured in the book, she seemed like an anomaly. Cullen admits she was unknown in her time and she is little known today.

Esther was a respected and dignified young woman in public but she did keep a daily journal much of which has unfortunately been lost. In her writing she freely stated her private thoughts about the world she lived in and Cullen uses the journal to demonstrate that even many conservative type women were independent thinkers. The journal had been written in the early 1750s and Cullen also employed it to show how daily life was changing. Esther wrote about buying clothes at a store and purchasing foodstuffs in a market. The days of homespun clothing and self-sufficient gardening were receding.

Another value of Cullen’s book is the reminder of how fraught with danger life in western Massachusetts was in 1750. King George’s war with the French and their Indigenous allies ended in 1748 and the seven-year French and Indian War would begin in 1754. Cullen describes Northampton as an army base in those years with soldiers billeted in local homes. Jonathan Edwards wrote that Esther was quite frightened of Native Americans. It must have been traumatic for her when her father lost his post in Northampton in 1750 and then accepted another one in Stockbridge which was 50 miles further west into the frontier and the congregation was a mixture of English and converted Mahicans.

Esther was described by contemporaries as attractive and well educated and she did not lack suitors. She was 20 years old in 1752 and accepted the proposal of Aaron Burr Sr. Burr was 16 years older and was a respected preacher who was serving as the second president of the College of New Jersey. The couple settled in Newark where the school was located before it moved to Princeton. Esther gave birth to a daughter, Sarah (Sally), in 1754 and to Aaron Burr Jr. in 1756.

With two such young infants to care for, the Burr family was suddenly struck by a series of tragedies. Aaron Sr. died in September 1757. Grandfather Jonathan Edwards agreed to become the third president of Princeton and arrived there in February 1758. After a vaccination for small pox, Edwards had a negative reaction to the shot and died in March. Little more than a month later Esther contracted a fever and died in April while only 26 years old. Grandmother Sarah Edwards came to look after the children but she died in October 1758. The two children eventually became the wards of their uncle, Timothy Edwards.

Sally and Aaron Jr. were reported to have been sickly children but they both lived long enough to become octogenarians.

Today, two and a half centuries after his death, Jonathan Edwards remains one of the most revered religious figures in American history, particularly among some Pentecostals. Esther Edwards Burr has received some token recognition as an early independent thinking woman in colonial America. Aaron Burr, of course, became the most notorious personage in the initial days of the constitutional government. He had a brilliant mind and was ambitious for himself. He took advantage of the system to challenge Jefferson for the presidency in 1800 and killed Hamilton in a duel while vice-president. After leaving office he made a mysterious trip to what was then the Southwestern region of the United States. He was suspected of plotting to start a new nation in that area and was charged with treason by Jefferson. Burr was found innocent of that charge but his political career was over and he died in New York City in 1836. Burr will perhaps always be best known by the title given him by one of his many biographers — the fallen founder.

Richard Szlosek lives in Northampton.