Photograph: Senta SundbergBR>
The Morris-Jumel Mansion, on West 160th Street and Edgecombe Avenue, is Manhattan's oldest house, built in 1765 by Lt. Col. Roger Morris. Morris had served in the French and Indian War and was a friend of George Washington. When the American Revolution broke out, Morris, a loyalist, returned to England. The commanding view of Manhattan, the harbor, and Long Island Sound made the mansion an ideal headquarters for General Washington, who occupied it from September 14 to October 21, 1776. When the Colonial army left Manhattan, British and Hessian soldiers moved in.

After the war, it became a tavern called Calumet Hall, where Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and others met for a celebratory dinner in 1790.

Eliza Bowen was born in Providence, Rhode Island, where she plied the world's oldest profession to make ends meet. In 1804, then the mistress of wealthy French wine merchant Stephen Jumel, she became deathly ill; her dying wish was that Jumel make her an honest woman. The ceremony was performed immediately; the next day Eliza had a miraculous recovery. In 1832, Jumel suffered internal injuries in a carriage accident. Although the doctor warned Eliza not to remove his bandages or move him, she did so, and Stephen's widow became one of the richest women in New York. Because of her background, though, she had little social standing, so one year later she married a near-penniless former Vice President of the United States, Aaron Burr. She was 58; he was 77. The marriage lasted about a month. Burr died the day the divorce papers came through; no one knows if he signed them.

Over the ensuing three decades Madame Jumel became increasingly eccentric and reclusive. When her nephew threw an inkwell at her, and instead hit a portrait so that the ink covered his own face, she left the stain as a rebuke. In 1865, 90 year old Madame Jumel died, leaving the house hotly contended for twenty years. It was leased in 1887 to Augustin Le Prince, who intended to use it to show off his new invention, the motion picture camera. Before he could do so, he disappeared in France, likely the victim of thugs. Madame Jumel was a Francophile, particularly an admirer of Napolean; possibly she disapproved of Le Prince's scheme, and made her displeasure known across the Atlantic.

The house is now an historic museum, each room representing a different period in its history. Madame Jumel, who never gave up anything easily, is often seen or heard by staff and visitors. More than once she has appeared on the balcony to hush a rowdy group of visiting school children. Also making their presence felt: a Hessian soldier who stumbled onto his own bayonet, and an unidentified child, likely that of one of the servants.

The room set up as Aaron Burr's chamber has a lifeless feel to it; Burr is rumored to haunt many places, but this is not one of them.

Madame Jumel is buried in nearby Trinity cemetery.

www.morrisjumel.org

Gordon Linzner is a horror writer, former editor and publisher of Space and Time magazine, story-teller, and professional tour guide. Once a month, usually the second Friday, as Doctor John Seward, he explains the secret vampire history of New York (register at glinzner@hotmail.com ). On October 28th, just before Halloween, he conducts a haunted walk through the streets of East and Greenwich Village (register at www.92y.org and click on Greenwich Village ghosts Code: T-LP3CW08-01).