From Alexander Hamilton to Aaron Burr, [June–October 1787]
To Aaron Burr
[New York, June-October, 1787.]1 “As I wished the cause of Bayard vs Breese2 and others to be regularly at issue & as the Chancellor could not readily be come at to procure from him an order to serve subpoenas on the Clerk in Court, I sent you a request some time since3 to file rejoinders.… I have not, however, received any notice of its having been done. I will thank you particularly to have it done in the course of the day.…”
ALS, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts.
1. In Worthington C. Ford, “Some Papers of Aaron Burr,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, new series, XXIX (1919), 99–100, this letter is dated “1797.”
2. This letter concerns a case in Chancery, Catherine Bayard v John Cruger, Augustus Van Horne, William Malcom, Samuel Breese, and Aaron Burr, in which H was Catherine Bayard’s attorney. See Catherine Bayard to H, April 24, 1787 (, IV, 154); H to Breese, Malcom, and Burr, April, 1787 (, IV, 155). Breese, Malcom, and Burr were the executors of the estate of Samuel Bayard, Catherine Bayard’s deceased husband. Cruger and Van Horne were the executors of the estate of Elizabeth Carpenter, Catherine Bayard’s mother. Catherine Bayard charged the executors with defrauding her by refusing to convey to her a house which her husband had purchased from the estate of his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Carpenter, and she also maintained that she was entitled to a larger sum from her mother’s estate than the executors had given her (Bill, Catherine Bayard v John Cruger, Augustus Van Horne, William Malcom, Samuel Breese, and Aaron Burr, May 11, 1786 [New York Chancery Decrees before 1800, B-108 F, Historical Documents Collection, on deposit at Queens College, City University of New York]). On December 18, 1787, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston decreed: “That the Executors of Elizabeth Carpenter do pay the Complainant the Ballance confessed to be in their Hands after deducting the Costs of Suit and the said sum of Three hundred and Fifty pounds due on the purchase of the said House And that the said John Cruger and Augustus Van Home … Do convey to the said Executors of the said Samuel Bayard … The House and Lot which the said Samuel Bayard … did agree to purchase of the said Executors of the said Elizabeth Carpenter for the said Sum of Three hundred and fifty Pounds Currency …” (MS Minutes of the New York Court of Chancery, Hall of Records, New York City).
3. Letter not found.