From: "James A Miller Jr"
To: robertoreg2003@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: Thomas Malone, The Man Who Captured The Most Wanted Man In America!
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 22:58:51 -0500

Liked your Burr website, and good luck on your project. Suggest you
read the
biographies of the Gaines brothers, Malone, et al, concerning Burr. I
think
I was once a member of the Aaron Burr Society? Anyway, I think it meers
once
a year at Princeton University and that library has a collection oh it?
Family tradition is on a rainy night, Malone and Lt. Gaines were
playing
cards, and after Burr in disguise left, Gaines realized the quality of
the
mount, boots, etc., did not match the poor-man disguise. Malone did not
want
to go but did. At "Burr'sd Rock" S.C. (where is that, I'd like to
visit),
Burr escaped at a crossroads, seeking sucor from the locals (possibly
did
not know who he was?), not getting aid and seeing the futility, Burr
surrendered on his own to Malone who wept at seeing the sad plight of
this
once great man's fallen estate. Malone had been US Land Office Agent,
US
Magistrate, and ASST Indian Agent (to Gaines), and I think a War of
1812
militia Capt., Ft. St. Stephens, Ala. Thomas Malone, Sr., died
"Milford"
(where is that?), Alabama, Feb 17, 1850, age 78. His wife Mary S.
Malone
(who were her parents?) died Milfor Jan 14, 1838, age 49. I descend
their
son, Mobile-Galveston cotton broker, Capt. Edward Malone, Sr., CSA, who
wed
Ann Maria Russell, daughter of War of 1812, Mobile, 3rd US Inf., Col.
Gilbert Christian Russell, Sr., for whom Russell Co., Ala., is named.
James
A Miller Jr, 4978 N Hampton Dr., Southport, N.C. 28461-7420,

focusoninfinity@hotmail.com

Hey y'all:

I spent some time tonight to begin AARON BURR'S SOUTHERN PILGRIMAGE 1806-1807.

Of course, most of my information will focus upon Burr's trip north after his arrest on February 19, 1807, however, there are lots of people and places from Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina which figure in the story of Burr's Conspiracy.

Please take time to at least scroll over this stuff and pass it along to anyone who might be interested in this story.

I was very excited tonight about finding the portrait of Nicholas Perkins, the man who had Burr arrested , who delivered him to federal authorities in Richmond and who collected the $2000 reward.

Let me hear from ya!

Best,
Robert Register http://atlasofalabama.blogspot.com

CHESTER, SOUTH CAROLINA
HAS THE AARON BURR ROCK!
"The Aaron Burr Rock, erected in 1938 by the Mary Adair Chapter of the Daughters of the AmericanRevolution, is said to stand on the spot where Aaron Burr, a Vice-President of the United States under Jefferson, on his way to Richmond to face treason charges jumped from a carriage and asked Chester citizens for assistance."

I also found where someone says that the CHESTER COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM claims to have the bench on which Burr slept at the Lewis Inn outside Chester!!!!


Posted in THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER on Sun, Jun. 19, 2005 http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/states/south_carolina/counties/york/11932048.htm

NEARBY HISTORY
Burr begged, in vain, for help while in Chester
He was en route to Virginia to stand trial for treason charge
LOUISE PETTUS

In 1938, the Mary Adair Chapter, D.A.R. placed an inscription on a rough-hewn rock to commemorate a most unusual event in Chester's history. The inscription on the rock that sits on the highest hill in downtown Chester reads: "In 1806, Aaron Burr, when passing through Chester, a prisoner, dismounted on this rock and appealed in vain to the citizens for help."

The date 1806 is wrong. It was March 1807 when Aaron Burr, former vice president of the United States, the youngest colonel of the Revolutionary War, whose blue-blooded ancestors included the first president of Princeton, was marched into town under arrest by the U.S. Army and charged with high treason.

This was the second blot on Aaron Burr's otherwise satisfactory career. While vice president, Burr challenged and killed Alexander Hamilton, former secretary of the Treasury, in a duel. Dueling was legal in New Jersey, but the act ruined any chances that Burr might become President Jefferson's successor.

Burr made a Southern tour to Georgia, where dueling was more acceptable and came up the coast to visit his beloved daughter, Theodosia Alston, and her family at the Alston plantation (now Brookgreen Gardens, located between Georgetown and Charleston). He then returned to Washington and made a farewell speech to the U.S. Senate.

Burr next got involved in speculation in Western land. Spain gave him a grant for 400,000 acres in Texas for $40,000 with $5,000 down. An estimated 500 followers were ready to join Burr in what many thought was a project to establish a new country. President Jefferson had Burr arrested in Kentucky, but he was ably defended by Henry Clay and acquitted.

In February 1807, Burr was arrested in Mississippi Territory and charged with treason. The Army guards wished to avoid the populous coastal areas and especially the S.C. coast, where Burr was popular, so they marched him through the backwoods destined for Richmond, Va., to be tried by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall.

On horseback, the group reached the village of Chesterville. According to records, there were two soldiers in front of Burr, two behind him and one on each side.

As they approached a tavern, Burr flung himself from his horse, mounted the rock and shouted to the bystanders: "I'm Aaron Burr, under military arrest, and claim the protection of the civil authorities."

Officers forced Burr to remount and marched on. About dark, the party got to John Lewis' Tavern (the spot on S.C. 74 between Chester and Rock Hill now called Lewis Turnout).

Officer Perkins (we don't know his first name), in charge of Burr, later said that at Lewis' tavern, he found his famous prisoner, and the soldier leading his horse, in a flood of tears. Presumably, Burr's usual great self-assurance had vanished with the cold-shoulder treatment by the people of Chesterville.

That night, Burr reportedly slept on a bench at the tavern.
The next day, the party moved on to Richmond for the trial. His son-in-law, Joseph Alston, and daughter, Theodosia, were there to see 51-year-old Burr tried on the charge of conspiring to make himself emperor of a large part of the Louisiana Purchase land and Texas.

Historians still debate whether Burr, who was originally arrested on a misdemeanor charge, not treason, intended to create an empire for himself or whether he was mounting a filibustering expedition against Spain.

The trial was a sensation. Political passions created a stormy setting. Jefferson was summoned to testify but refused to do so. The law required that there be two witnesses to the overt act of treason, and Marshall construed the law narrowly. Only one creditable witness was found. The jury found Burr "not guilty under the indictment by evidence submitted to us."

After the trial, Burr sailed for England, but he returned to New York in 1812 at the same time that Joseph Alston was elected governor of South Carolina. Theodosia Burr Alston sailed alone for New York to see her father. She never arrived. The ship was lost at sea -- either the victim of Cape Hatteras' treacherous currents or of pirates who were active in the area off the Outer Banks at that time.

Usually, the monuments erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution commemorate the deeds of Revolutionary War heroes.
And although Aaron Burr was a genuine hero of the Revolution, the Aaron Burr rock inscription reminds us of one of the most interesting trials in American history.

http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~cmamcrk4/pkt33.html#anchor902926
Chapter 33 of Albert Pickett's History of Alabama,
"The Arrest of Aaron Burr in Alabama"

BURR EXPEDITION http://www.rootsweb.com/~msdesoto/military/hist1803-09.html
In December, 1806, the ketch Vesuvius, fourteen guns, the schooner Revenge, twelve guns, the ketch Etna, fourteen guns, and five gunboats of two guns each, under Commodore Shaw, were stationed in vicinity of Natchez to meet the army which, according to the rumors afloat, Aaron Burr was bringing down the Mississippi for the conquest of Mexico and the annexation of the southwestern United States to his proposed Mexican empire.

Major Joshua Baker of the Mississippi militia occupied Fort Adams with twenty-five men December 14th, and the First, Second, Fourth and Fifth Militia Regiments were ordered to muster in January [1807]. Col. F. L. Claiborne sent an expedition of about 300 men to the mouth of Cole’s Creek. Colonel Woolridge, of the militia, marched to Bayou Pierre, with thirty-five men, when Burr arrived, and with Captain Regan, and Lieutenant Lindsay visited him on the Louisiana shore. Col. Thomas Fitzpatrick next interviewed Burr and on January 16th the Governor’s aides, George Poindexter and William B. Shields, made with Burr arrangement under which he went to the town of Washington for an investigation of his expedition. There were about sixty men in Burr’s party. After a diligent search, Colonel Fitzpatrick discovered no indication that Burr’s expedition was of a military nature.

The country had been greatly excited over Colonel Burr’s mysterious movements, and the National Government had called on the Governor of Mississippi Territory for troops to suppress a warlike expedition. Whatever may have been Burr’s purpose it was thwarted by the prompt action of the authorities of Mississippi Territory.

(taken from “Military History of Mississippi 1803 – 1898” by Dunbar Rowland, 1908; 1978 Reprint, The Reprint Company, Publishers, pp. 1-3)

Mo' Mississippi references-
Rowland, History of Mississippi, 1: 370, 373, 421, 475; J. R. Taylor, “Aaron Burr: An Interesting Account of his Stay in the Territory of Mississippi,” Times-Democrat, Feb. 24, 1901; Stafford, Wells Family, 276-88.

Documents Concerning Jefferson's Proclamation of November 27, 1806 and The Burr Conspiracy http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/burr/burrjeffproclamation.html

I was personally acquainted with the following old and distinguished citizens of Alabama: Gen. Geo. S. Gaines, he told me about the arrest of Ex-vice president Aaron Burr, by his brother, Capt. E. P. Gaines, and his soldiers, in company with Nicholas Perkins, Tom Malone, and others. He was at Ft. Stoddard when Burr was brought there, he became fascinated with him, and regretted the down-fall of this brilliant and distinguished man. Aaron Burr remained in the Fort two weeks when he was taken in a boat up the river to Tensaw Lake where they landed within a quarter of a mile of where Ft. Mims afterwards stood he was taken on horseback through Baldwin Co., stopping at the comfortable residence of my grandfather, David Tate, for dinner. They continued their line of march through the wilderness north.

from the writings of Dr. Marion Elisah Tarvin
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~cmamcrk4/crkst1.html

http://www.vaiden.net/cowles_mead.html

The Williamson County, TN Historical Society has an article about the capture of Aaron Burr
http://www.tngenweb.org/williamson/resources/histsoc.html

http://www.rockwood.k12.mo.us/LASALLE/stretch/eighth/aronburr/trial.htm

AARON BURR 1756-1836 http://www.juntosociety.com/vp/aaronburr.html

The men who escorted Burr north to Richmond:
Arriving at the Boat Yard, Burr disembarked and was delivered to the guard which was so long to be with him in dangers and fatigues. It consisted of Colonel Nicholas Perkins, of Tennessee, who had, as we have seen, been the cause of his arrest; Thomas Malone, formerly a clerk in the land office at Raleigh, North Carolina, but who, at this period, was a clerk of the court of Washington County, Alabama; Henry B. Slade, of North Carolina; John Mills, a native of Alabama; John Henry, of Tennessee; two brothers, named Mc- Cormack, of Kentucky, and two federal soldiers. http://www.mindspring.com/~mchs/herald/burr.htm

Here's a story about a cat who lives in Nicholas Perkins' old house in Tennessee
http://weeklywire.com/ww/12-01-97/nash_8-books.html

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-4642(194902)15%3A1%3C9%3AABIM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1
Here's a link to Thomas Abernathy's article "Aaron Burr in Mississippi".
I'll try to go to the University's library to get the entire article next week.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-4642(193508)1%3A3%3C320%3AEPGAFP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F
Edmund Pendleton Gaines and Frontier Problems, 1801-1849 James W. SilverJournal of Southern History, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Aug., 1935), pp. 320-344

Post on Thomas Malone from Genforum:

I desc John Malone, 1750s Dinwiddie Co., Va., had Rev War Ens Wood Malone of Bute/Warren Cos, NC, had Ft St Stephens, Ala, asst Indian agent Thomas Malone with Lt Gaines arrested Aaron Burr, had Mobile, Ala., Capt Edward Malone, Sr., CSA, buried Trinity Epis, Galveston, TX 7912-H Harris Hill Lane, Charlotte, NC 28269=0704

Seek fellow descendants of Thomas Malone, Sr., Esq., circa 1805, U.S. Land Office Agent, Asst. Indian Agent, Magistrate; Fort Saint Stephens, Alabama; who with Lt. Gaines, captured Aaron Burr; and escorted Burr to trial, Richmond, Virginia. Thomas was a land agent, Raleigh, N.C.; the son of Ens. Wood Malone (Capt Bennett Wood's Bute Co militia) of Malone's Mill Creek, Warren Co., N.C.; the son of John Malone, of Malone's Bridge, Dinwiddie Co., Virginia. I descend Tomas Malone's son, Capt Edward Malone, Sr., a Mobile and Galveston cotton broker. James A Miller Jr, 4978 N Hampton Dr, Southport, N.C. 28461.

Nicholas "Bigbee" Perkins, II (1779-1848)
http://www.tnportraits.org/30217-perkins.htm
Married his 1st cousin Mary Harden Perkins, 1808. Arrested Aaron Burr & took him to Richmond, VA for trial. Helped write State Constitution of Alabama.

Death notice from the 1848 Western Weekly Review, Franklin, TN
Major NICHOLAS PERKINS died January 6, 1848, "one of our most distinguished citizens." [In William K. Wall's DESCENDANTS OF NICHOLAS PERKINS OF VIRGINIA, Ann Arbor, 1957, pages 126-127, it is noted that Major Perkins was born in Pittsylvania Co., Va., March 14, 1779; died Jan. 6, 1848; married Mary Harden Perkins (1794-1840), Jan. 28, 1808; father of eleven children. It was he who arrested Aaron Burr for treason in 1807. He was a first cousin of Colonel Nicholas Tate Perkins, also of Williamson County.]


Mary Hardin Perkins 1794-1840
Nee Mary Harden Perkins. Married her 1st cousin, 1808. 12 children.


I found this post on Genforum:

Since I last posted on the Perkins Family Genealogy Forum I have researched my family in the William K. Hall book, "Descendants of Nicholas Perkins of Virginia."

I have also found mentions of Perkins and Burr in Milton Lomask's book, "Aaron Burr: The Conspiracy and Years of Exile 1805-1836." So I think I can clear up the Burr-Perkins connection now.

My ancestor, Nicholas "Bigbee" Perkins, b. 3-14-1779, Pittsylavian Co., VA, was mentioned in both of the above books as being instrumental in the arrest of Burr (Hall, p. 127; Lomask, pp. 222-225). Hall states, "It was while living there [the Mississippi Territory]that he [Bigbee Perkins] apprehended Aaron Burr in Feb. 1807." Lomask states, "Gaines [a lieutenant at Fort Soddert] announced that he had not arrested Burr 'militarily,' that the onus for that action rested on the shoulders of Nicholas [Bigbee] Perkins. Perkins accepted the burden with pleasure."

This Nicholas (Bigbee)Perkins married Mary Harden Perkins; their son, Philip Gaspard Stiver Perkins (1818-1881), was my great, great,grandfather on my father's maternal side.The Hall book has been a great help. Thanks to all who have mentioned it.
Bette Hill
bhill@eohio.net