There are few residents who are unfamiliar with Mr. Morris Burr. That’s because he’s been involved in most aspects of the community since his arrival in 1958. He has served as a Selectman, as the Chairman of the Republican Town Committee, on the Planning and Zoning Commission and on the Zoning Board of Appeals. He has served on the Memorial Day Committee, and for many years as Master of Ceremonies, as President of the Fire Department, and as a Deacon of the Congregational Church, barbecuing the chicken for those two organizations for years.

It seems as though this extraordinary level of civic involvement runs in the family: Morris is a descendent of Aaron Burr, a distinction proven through DNA, and a member of the Aaron Burr Association which meets the first weekend of September at different locales relevant to Burr’s history. This year the meeting is at Princeton where Aaron Burr is buried. Morris’s grandson is named “Aaron” for his famous ancestor.

According to Morris, the Burr family left England and arrived in 1640 at Plymouth. Four members of the family would eventually move west, settling in Springfield, Massachusetts for a while before traveling down the Connecticut River, by boat or on foot, where they were one of the four families to establish the City of Fairfield, circa 1660. It was a good site for settling, protected by the Penfield Reef, one of the most treacherous areas in the Long Island Sound. Their homestead remains today and serves as the Town Hall. The British burned the city during the war, but not the home.

Aaron Burr’s father was a Presbyterian minister who lived in New Jersey and was one of the founders, and second President, of Princeton University. He died of pneumonia shortly after presiding over a funeral in the rain. His mother would die within a year, leaving Aaron and his sister orphans to live for a brief time with their grandfather in Fairfield, until he, too, passed away. Aaron would later attend Princeton, graduating at the age of 14 at the top of his class, and return to Fairfield to practice law.

With the American Revolution brewing, Aaron and his cousin went to Boston to sign on with the Continental Army. Shortly after he would march through Maine and Canada and fight in the Battle of Quebec where General Montgomery was fatally wounded; Burr is credited with the evacuation of the General’s body from the battlefield. Aaron also fought with Benedict Arnold, served under George Washington, and later with Israel Putnam, who promoted him to Lt. Colonel.

Of course, Aaron Burr is most famous, or infamous, for shooting Alexander Hamilton in a duel. The Broadway sensation “Hamilton” has illuminated this chapter of history for most Americans, broadening it far beyond the mention in school history texts. Hamilton, the protagonist, and Burr, the antagonist, are the stars of the production; Burr has the opening number, introducing Hamilton and himself as “the damn fool who shot him”. For those few unfamiliar with the musical, or the history, after Hamilton refused to apologize for the disparaging remarks he published about his political opponent, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel, which took place on July 11, 1804 in New Jersey, where duels were still legal. Burr’s bullet would prove fatal; Hamilton was transported by row boat up the Hudson River to New York City, but he couldn’t be saved. On the 200th anniversary, replication of this tragic event took place at Weehawken, the site of the duel, and the Hampton Burrs attended. Weehawken, interestingly, means “blood of my enemy” in Algonquin.

The duel was not a singular tragedy for Aaron. His wife, Theodosia, though formerly married to a British officer, was sympathetic to the patriot’s cause, quartering the troops for a week in 1788 and hosting the officers, among them Lt. Col. Burr. She would later die of cancer. Their only child to survive to adulthood, Theodosia, lost her son, Aaron’s grandson, to malaria, and the ship that was transporting Theodosia from her home in South Carolina to visit her father in New York was lost at sea. There were, however, other offspring, and the current Vice President of the Association is one of his black descendants, a law professor at the University of New Mexico.

Burr’s resume of military and political service to our country is long. He served in the New York Assembly, as a U .S Senator, and as the third Vice President with the Jefferson administration, however when he traveled west, he was suspected of trying to form an allegiance with a foreign country to wage war against the United States. (Though Burr’s motivation is still uncertain, Morris speculates that the trip was possibly meant to simply see what was on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains.) Burr was arrested and returned to stand trial in Richmond, Virginia, Chief Justice John Marshall presiding. The better attorney, Burr and his legal counsel prevailed, and he was found not guilty of treason, but the trial also resulted in a self-imposed exile to Europe for four years before Burr returned to America and resumed his law practice.

Aaron Burr was 80 years old when he died. Longevity, it seems, also runs in the family. The 95 year old Morris relays all of this history, all of these facts, accurately and without notes. “The duel did him in”, says Morris. “He never returned from that to realize his full potential.”

The musical, “Hamilton”, explained the complicated relationship between Hamilton and Burr, shed light on Burr’s skill as a lawyer, and awakened a new interest in him. Some lesser known facts: though a slave owner, Burr educated his house servants and proposed the abolition of slavery as early as 1785. That same year, and still topical in 2024, Burr defended the rights of naturalized immigrants, was instrumental in separating the powers of the Judicial and Executive branches, and was a champion of women’s rights. His daughter received an extraordinary education for the time period, and the three, Burr, his wife and their daughter, are often referred to as “the first feminists”.

One of the themes of “Hamilton” is: “who lives, who dies, who tells your story”, and Burr’s, like so many historical figures, is still unfolding.

Dayna McDermott