Duel with the Devil: The True Story of How Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr Teamed Up to Take on America's First Sensational Murder Mystery

178 Pages·2016·1.75 MB·English

by  Paul Collins

ALSO BY PAUL COLLINS
Banvard’s Folly:
Thirteen Tales of People Who Didn’t Change the World
Sixpence House:
Lost in a Town of Books
Not Even Wrong:
A Father’s Journey into the Lost History of Autism
The Trouble with Tom:
The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine
The Book of William:
How Shakespeare’s First Folio Conquered the World
The Murder of the Century:
The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars
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Copyright © 2013 by Paul Collins
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the Library of Congress.
eISBN: 978-0-307-95647-7
Map by David Cain
Jacket design by Albert Tang
Jacket illustrations: [House of Representatives] Encyclopaedia Britannica/
Universal Images Group/Getty Images; [Burr] MPI/Stringer Collection/Archive
Photos/Getty Images; [Hamilton] Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images
v3.1
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To my brother Peter,
whose room was my first library
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[C ]
ONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map of the City of New York, 1798
Prologue
PART I
THE VICTIM
1. T G S
HE REAT ICKNESS
2. A B C
OARDINGHOUSE BY ANDLELIGHT
3. T Y Q
HE OUNG UAKER
4. T B V
HE LACK EIL
5. T M M
HE YSTERY IN THE EADOW
PART II
THE ACCUSED
6. S P P Y U
OME ERSON OR ERSONS AS ET NKNOWN
7. T G C N
HE LOOMS OF ONSCIOUS IGHT
8. W I B A
HATEVER S OLDLY SSERTED
9. A P M
ERFECT ONSTER
10. T S S
HE ILENT LEIGH
PART III
THE TRIAL
11. T A P
HE MERICAN HENOMENA
12. B H S
Y THE OLLOW TAIR
13. T C H N
HE OLOR OF A ORSE IN THE IGHT
14. A , S
SLEEP EEMINGLY
15. T D ’ A
HE EVIL S DVOCATE
PART IV
THE VERDICT
16. L P
OOK UPON THE RISONER
17. T C C
HE ATCHPENNY ONTRIVANCE
18. E M V
VERY ARK OF A ILLAIN
19. D D
UEL AT AWN
20. A C E
OMPLICATED VIL
Acknowledgments
Notes
Sources
About the Author
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D D
UEL WITH THE EVIL
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P
ROLOGUE
[January 2, 1800]
A B a horsebreaker when Elias Ring
NDREW LANCK HAD JUST BEEN SITTING DOWN TO LUNCH WITH
and Joseph Watkins showed up and battered on his door. It was a bitterly cold
day, and it took a fairly tough sort to live out in Lispenard’s Meadow—but the
boardinghouse owner and his neighbor, an ironmonger, were not to be trifled
with.
Where did you get it?
The well, Blanck replied. One of Aaron Burr’s new municipal wells was out in
the meadow, and Blanck’s son had found a muff, for covering the hands in cold
weather, floating in there more than a week before. On Christmas Eve, in fact—
just as the bells were tolling for the death of General Washington.
I went to the well the next day and looked in, he explained, but I saw nothing.
Joseph and Elias marched out to the meadow, followed by the horsebreaker.
The men threw off the wooden cover and ran a long pole down into the dark
hole. Mr. Ring could feel an object in the water, a heavy and inert mass, but he
couldn’t hook it. The local boys were now gathering to look, and one was sent
back for some rope, with which they created a simple net. This time the mass
came up.
There was a tangle of hair floating in the water—a wet shoulder—and a face
looking upwards …
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[Six Months Earlier]
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