In 1801, when she was eighteen years old, the lovely Theo married Joseph Alston, an immensely rich rice planter from South Carolina, owner of more than a thousand slaves, and at one time governor of his state.  Though she went to the South to live, she never could bear to sever entirely her relations with Richmond Hill.  It is a curious fact that everyone who ever lived there loved it best of all the places in the world.

One year after her marriage Theo came on to New York for a visit—­I suppose she stopped at her father’s town house, since it was in spring, and before the country places would naturally be open.  At all events it was during this visit that, fresh from her rice fields (which never agreed with her), she wrote in a letter: 

“...  I have just returned from a ride in the country and a visit to Richmond Hill.  Never did I behold this island so beautiful.  The variety of vivid greens, the finely cultivated fields and gardens, the neat, cool air of the cit’s boxes peeping through straight rows of tall poplars, and the elegance of some gentlemen’s seats, commanding a view of the majestic Hudson, and the high, dark shores of New Jersey, altogether form a scene so lovely, so touching, and to me so new, that I was in constant rapture.”

In 1804 came the historic quarrel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.  Since this chapter is the story of Richmond Hill and not the life of Aaron Burr, I shall not concern myself with the whys or the wherefores of that disastrous affair.

Histories must perforce deal with the political aims, successes and failures of men; must cover a big canvas and sing a large and impersonal song.  But just here we have only to think of these old-time phantoms of ours as they affect or are affected by the old-time regions in which for the nonce we are interested.  To Richmond Hill—­with its white columns and shadow-flinging portico, its gardens and its oak trees and its silver pond—­it was of small import that the master just missed being President of the United States, that he did become Vice-president, and President of the Senate, and that he was probably as able a jurist as ever distinguished the Bar of New York; also that he made almost as many enemies as he did friends.  But it was decidedly the concern of the sweet and imposing old house on Richmond Hill that it was from its arms, so to speak, that he went out in a cold, white rage to the duel with his chief enemy; that he returned, broken and heartsick, doubly defeated in that he had chanced to be the victor, to the protection of Richmond Hill.

I cannot help believing that the household gods of a man take a very special interest and a very personal part in what fortunes befall him.  More than any deities of old, they live with and in him; they at once go forth with him to battle, and welcome him home.  I can conceive of some hushed and gracious home-spirit walking restless by night because the heart and head of the house was afar or in danger.  And a house so charged with personality as that on Richmond Hall must have had many a ghost,—­of fireside and of garden close,—­who wept for fallen fortunes as they had rejoiced for gaiety and bright enterprise.