Lost at sea

The deep blue water has some dark secretsé

her spirit has been seen at her father’s place

On New Year’s Eve 1812, Theodosia Burr Alston, the daughter of the former Third Vice President of the US, Aaron Burr, boarded a boat to New York to visit her father.

Life hadn’t been easy for Theodosia, 29. Just six months earlier, her son had died from malaria at the tender age of 10.

Set sail

Coupled with that, it’d been a long time since she’d seen her dad, who’d fled to Europe in 1807 after being accused of treason. Aaron Burr had been plagued by scandal after he killed his political rival, Alexander Hamilton in 1804.

Theodosia set sail from Georgetown, South Carolina on the schooner Patriot, but never reached her destination.

Weeks passed and neither Aaron or her husband Joseph Alston heard any news about Theodosia.

‘My boy and my wife gone both!’ Joseph wrote to his father-in-law.

Storm?

In the wake of Theodosia’s disappearance, rumours were rife over what’d happened. Many assumed pirates had attacked Patriot, and Theodosia had been forced to walk the plank. Others said storms had destroyed the boat. One hopeful suggestion was that Theodosia had survived the shipwreck and had become the wife of a Native American chief on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Another possibility is that Theodosia ended up in a town called Alexandria, Virginia…

Theodosia’s fate

An unidentified female was buried in a grave there – she died on 14 October 1816.

It’s been speculated that it was Theodosia, who’d walked into the town after escaping captivity, only to die before she was able to give her name.

In 1869, the mystery deepened when a portrait resembling Theodosia was discovered.

The owner said her husband had found it in a shipwreck washed up in North Carolina.

The portrait gives credence to the theory that Theodosia’s boat was in a storm. Today, the mystery persists, with sightings of Theodosia’s spirit being seen at her plantation home in South Carolina and at her dad’s place in Manhattan, which is now a restaurant.

However Theodosia met her fate, we can only hope that the longed-for reunion with her dad eventually took place.