CHAPTER   lY.

THE   EDUCATION   OP   AAEON   BURR.

Elizabethtown—Anecdotes op Burr's Childhood—His Career at College—Goes
TO Db. Bellamy's Theological School—Ebjbots the Pukitanio Theology—JPosb
OF Ladies' Society—Studies Law.

Elizabethtovtn was then, as it is now, a village containing
an unusual proportion of polite families. It had been the resi¬
dence of the governor and other ofiicials of the province.
The vicinity is a level, red-soiled, unattractive region ; but a
little river flows through it, emptying, at a point one mile
from the village, into Staten Island Sound, which is part of
the intricate system of waters that affords so many beautiful
highways to the city of New York. That city is fifteen miles
distant. Within excursion distance is Staten Island, where,
. during Aaron Burr's childhood, large bodies of British troops
were frequently encamped.

From the three anecdotes of Burr's childhood, which have
come down to us, we may infer that he was a troublesome ward
to his reverend uncle. That gentleman, a strict and conscien¬
tious Puritan, tried the system of repression upon a boy who
could not be repressed; and the result was, that the young
gentleman was frequently in a state of rebellion. The author¬
ity for these anecdotes was Colonel Burr himself, who used to
relate the two principal ones with great glee.

When he was four years old, he took offense at his tutor
and ran away. He contrived to elude the search for three or
four days, and—there the story ends.

About his eighth year, the following incident ov ed:
He was in a cherry-tree in his uncle's garden, one fii ^- "^er-
noon in July, when he observed, coming up the walk, a,xi el¬
derly lady, a guest of the house, wearing a silk dress, which