Oil painting of Aaron Burr Two hundred years ago, Washington County was one of the few places with a cluster of white settlers in the giant wilderness the federal government called the Mississippi Territory. Two men, Nicholas Perkins, a federal land agent, and Thomas Malone, were playing backgammon by the light of the fire in a cabin in a town called Wakefield. Wakefield was approximately 15 miles south of St. Stephens in the Sunflower Bend of the Tombigbee River, near the present day town of McIntosh. It was midnight, Feb. 18, 1807.

The backgammon play was interrupted by two men on horseback, one of whom rode on by; the other stopped to ask directions to Colonel John Hinson's home. Perkins became suspicious of the two riders and awoke Sheriff Theodore Brightwell and the two of them followed the riders to the Hinson place. Though one of the men kept avoiding looking Perkins in the face, Perkins finally got a look at his eyes. Those famous black eyes, "sparkled like diamonds. I became very confident that this man was Colonel Burr," Perkins later wrote.

Thus, events were set into motion which would lead to the arrest of Aaron Burr, right here in Washington County. Burr was the third vice president of the United States under Thomas Jefferson. Burr is most remembered for what he might have done. He might have conspired to cut the country in two. Burr also killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. And for these two accomplishments, one a fact, the other a conjecture, Burr's legacy is riddled with never-to-be-answered questions.

This old tin sign that marks the spot of the Burr capture is so old the tree it is nailed to has grown around it. Though Burr has been the subject of many books and much research, and appears as a character in 44 novels and short stories, as well as 33 plays, the truth about our third vice-president, a colonel in George Washington's Colonial Army, a U.S. Senator, and the attorney general of New York; the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, remains obscure down to this day. Few figures in American history have been as vilified, or romanticized by modern writers.

Aaron Burr made his debut on the political scene in 1789 when Gov. George Clinton appointed him New York's attorney general. He later won a seat to the U.S. senate by defeating Philip Schuyler. Alexander Hamilton was the son-in-law of Philip Schuyler and henceforward held a grudge against Burr for his defeating his father-in-law.

This monument was erected in 1995 at the spot of the Burr's capture. In the senate, Burr sided with forces who opposed Hamilton's financial system. Bad blood was further aroused between Burr and Hamilton when Burr made public a document authored by Hamilton which was highly critical of the conduct and character of John Adams, president of the United States. Hamilton intended the document only for private circulation and its publication proved highly embarrassing to Hamilton, thereby increasing the rancor between the two men.

When Aaron Burr ran for governor of New York in 1804, Alexander Hamilton strongly opposed him, attempting to galvanize the Federalist vote against Burr. And then there was the matter of an exclusive dinner party for the politically and socially elite of New York. Aaron Burr was not present. Alexander Hamilton rose and spoke forcefully and eloquently against Burr. Burr felt that Hamilton had "insulted" him. Burr demanded an apology; Hamilton refused. Therefore, Burr demanded satisfaction on the "field of honor," a duel.

On the Dueling Grounds at Weehawken, N.J. on July 11, 1804, the two antagonists met to settle their long-festering contempt for one another. When their seconds could not settle the rift by negotiation, Burr and Hamilton stepped off their paces. Each held a .56 caliber dueling pistol. After each got off his one shot, Burr walked away unscathed; Alexander Hamilton, whose photograph appears on the $10 bill, died the next day from his wounds.

After his arrest at Wakefield, present day Washington County, Burr was taken to Fort Stoddard (near Mt. Vernon) and then to Richmond where he was tried for treason and high misdemeanor before the eminent jurist, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay. According to the government, Burr's treason consisted of an attempt to separate the western half of the United States from the eastern half. Burr's defense council was none other than Henry Clay.

The misdemeanor was that Burr had supposedly violated a federal statute forbidding military action against nations with whom the United States was at peace. He had raised an army supposedly for the purpose of attacking an area under the control of Spain in the Western Hemisphere. Because the government could pro- in the Western Hemisphere. Because the government could produce no witnesses who could testify to Burr's use of "actual force or violence" waged against the government, he was acquitted. However, the press of the time believed him guilty and never stopped saying that.

Burr himself said, "I have no wish to attempt a separation of the Union, and I have no connection with any foreign power or government." To his counsel, Henry Clay, Burr wrote, "I have no design, nor have I taken any measures to promote a dissolution of the Union."

Burr lived to see the beginning of the Texas Revolution, a revolution which he might have led 30 years earlier, had events unfolded differently. "There! You see? I was right," he exclaimed to a friend in 1836. "What was treason to me 30 years ago is patriotism today!"

On Nov. 13, 1987, Sen. Robert Byrd making an address on the life and career of the controversial vice president, said, "There is much that we will never know about the man." Much of Burr's early correspondence, entrusted to his daughter for safekeeping, was lost in 1812 when the ship carrying Theodosius Burr Alston from South Carolina to New York disappeared off the North Carolina coast.

Though found innocent, Burr's capture and subsequent trial for treason ended his influence in American politics. He lived a long life, dying on Sept. 14, 1836. In one of those ironic twists of history, the beginning of the end of Aaron Burr's national influence occurred here in Washington County near a place called Wakefield and today called McIntosh.

Down an old road constructed many years ago by CCC workers, the "marshy spot" where Aaron Burr was arrested on Feb. 19, 1807, is marked by an illegible tin sign, so old that the tree that holds it, is growing around it; and a granite marker, placed by the Slade Family in 1995.

(Sources: Alabama Heritage; Winter, 2007. Aaron Burr, by Milton Lomask. Vice-Presidents of the United States ^1789-1993, by Mark O. Hatfield)