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• Built by British Army Officer Roger Morris, The Mansion is the country home of Morris and his wife Mary Phillipse • Roger Morris’ design of the Octagon Room is said to have inspired Jefferson’s Monticello • The Morrises are loyal to the British Crown, and they abandon the house and flee the country at the onset of the Revolutionary War • The Mansion is used as headquarters for General George Washington during the Revolutionary War's Battle of Harlem Heights. It is Washington's only win in New York City • Washington holds a cabinet meeting held in the Mansion's Octagon Room, and guests include Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, Knox, Martha Washington, and their wives and children • Morris-Jumel Mansion is briefly a tavern • The Mansion is vacant for 15-20 years • The Mansion and Estate, comprising over 115 acres, is purchased by Stephen and Eliza Jumel • The Mansion becomes the habitation of Madame Eliza Jumel, who has risen from being the daughter of a prostitute to being the richest woman in New York City • Stephen Jumel dies after 18 years of marriage to Eliza, by “falling on his pitchfork” – a tale that causes suspicion of Eliza having had a hand in his demise • Eliza and Stephen Jumel travel frequently to France, and are friends with the Bonaparte family • Solomon Northrop, the subject of “12 Years a Slave” – is the husband of Anne Northrop. Eliza takes Anne Northrop and her children in, and Anne Northrop works for Eliza while Solomon Northrop is enslaved • Madame Eliza Jumel’s second husband is Aaron Burr,who had infamously shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Hamilton's house, The Grange, is just down the hill from the Morris Jumel Mansion • Alexander Hamilton’s son is Eliza Jumel’s divorce lawyer when she divorces Burr for his excessive spending and philandering • Aaron Burr dies the day the divorce from Eliza is finalized • A story circulates about a dinner invitation at the Mansion. Supposedly Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother is invited to dinner by an aging Eliza, but he never shows, and Eliza lets the food rot on the plates for nigh on a year. Her bizarre behavior is said to inspire Charles Dickens’ Miss Havesham (Dickens traveled in the same circles as Eliza, and could very likely have known her) • Eliza dies in her Napoleonic bed, said to have belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte himself, which remains in the Mansion to this day • Hans Holtzer, famed ghost hunter, holds notorious séances at the Mansion • Ghost-hunter investigations repeatedly register paranormal activity • School children report encountering the ghost of Eliza Jumel in 1964 • Recent TV taping of “Person of Interest” crew reports hearing voices coming from the 3rd floor, when there was no one there • Unexplained etching is on a stained-glass window in the house • Striking historical paintings of Eliza and Aaron Burr are currently in the house • Eliza and Aaron Burr are champions for Women’s Rights, and anti-slavery • Eliza purchases another house in Saratoga Springs, from whence she was shamed and run out of town • Eliza is flamboyant and uncompromising, never gaining full entrée into New York Society, despite her wealth • Eliza Jumel dies at the age of 92 at the Mansion • A 20-year battle over the Morris-Jumel Mansion and Eliza Jumel's Estate ensues After the Death of Eliza Jumel: • Between 1865-and 1881 the Mansion is lived in by Eliza Jumel's adopted children, Mary Chase and Nelson Chase. They are actually the children of her sister's daughter • After 1881 the LaPrince family rents the Mansion from a family named Earle, who has bought the property • Mr. LaPrince, a competitor to Thomas Edison and inventor the movie camera (Edison was also inventing it around the same time) gets ready to demonstrate his new invention at the Mansion, but on a train trip, he mysteriously vanishes. He is never heard from again, and the disappearance is never solved • The LaPrince family, unable to continue living in at the Mansion, move out, and the house owner, Ferdinand P. Earle, and his wife, move in • Earle, a Civil War General, has a son, who, in an odd coincidence, becomes an early silent film director. This son is also an artist who studies with the famous painter James McNeill Whistler • General Earle dies and his wife sells the Mansion to the city for a nominal fee • The Morris-Jumel Mansion becomes a museum 1904. The D.A.R. (Daughters of the American Revolution), who take charge of the museum, attempt to erase all traces of Madame Eliza Jumel and her legacy There are four documented deaths in the house: • A Hessian soldier that fell on the bayonette during the British occupation • A servant girl who hung herself • Stephen Jumel • Madame Eliza Jumel |
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