The Coquette | Page 5

Aaron Burr. He was
also brother to Rev. Jonathan Edwards, president of Union College.
His mother, Sarah Pierrepont, was of aristocratic origin, and the
daughter of Rev. James Pierrepont, and granddaughter of John
Pierrepont, of Roxbury, from whom descended Rev. John Pierpont, the
celebrated poet and divine of our own time. The Pierrepont family was
a branch of the family of the Duke of Kingston, (Pierrepont being the
family name;) and the mother of Mr. Edwards was thus cousin-german
to Mary Pierrepont, (Lady Mary Wortley Montague.)
Through his whole ancestral line we trace the "laying on of hands" in
the most conspicuous as in the divinest order; and thus might he be
truly called a child of prayer and consecration. What pity that his
biographer should have been compelled to record, "The most
remarkable feature of his character was his unbridled licentiousness"!
But we cannot drop the curtain here. We would relieve the picture by
this somewhat lighter shade. "His intellectual energies were gigantic.
As a pleader and a determined and artful advocate, he had few equals.
Hence, as a lawyer, he scarcely ever lost a case in his whole practice."
An amusing anecdote is related of him in his professional career.
"In an insurance case, the evidence of which was strongly against him,
he went in disguise to New London, where the witnesses, mostly
sailors, resided. In a loafer-like swagger he proposed and secured bets
from every material evidence in the case, and thus disqualified them
from bearing testimony, on the ground that they were interested

witnesses." In his old age he married his housekeeper, and closed an
eventful and unblessed life at Bridgeport, April 14, 1826. 'Tis well to
memorize him here, and thus register birth and death on the very page
that records the most mysterious chapter of his history.
Let us return to unite and conclude our story. In June, 1788, a female of
uncommon beauty of person, yet with an oppressed and melancholy
bearing, suddenly appeared at the old Bell Tavern in Danvers,
Massachusetts, (a drawing of which is here introduced.) She was
habited in black, and was seldom seen abroad, never except alone, and
at twilight, when she was observed to wander as far as the old burying
ground hard by, and there to pause at its entrance, gazing long and
earnestly upon its silent, scattered mounds, at length retracing her steps
with the same melancholy gait and air.
Here she remained nearly a month, discovering to none her real name
or situation. She passed her time in writing, and occasionally playing
upon a guitar, which was the only companion of her solitude. After
remaining there about two weeks a chaise was seen to pause before the
door, upon the lintel of which had secretly been traced in chalk, as it
afterwards appeared, the letters "E.W." A gentleman hastily alighted,
and was also observed through the darkness of the evening to examine
the casing of the door, and then return to the chaise and drive rapidly
away.
The opinion was, by those who were cognizant of the fact, that this was
a secret, preconcerted sign by which the lover should recognize the
place of her retreat; and being too faintly drawn, through the darkness
of the night he failed to discover the characters.
From this time, however, the spirits of the stranger evidently sunk; and
in two weeks more birth and death had followed each other, and the
grave had closed over all.
This stranger had, in her peculiar situation, tenderly won upon the
sympathies of a few kind-hearted individuals who had made their way
to her, one of whom, a Mrs. Southwick, lived directly opposite the Bell
Tavern. These were with her in her last great agony, in which all sense
of guilt was lost in pity. Mrs. S. has related that no word of complaint
or accusation was heard to fall from her lips, while the spirit seemed
brightening with an unearthly hope, till what was charming in life was
indescribably lovely in death. Thus they laid the beautiful stranger in

the saintly robes of the sepulchre without censure and without
accusation, not knowing how painfully she was mourned and missed,
as a star shut out of vision by clouds and storm, in the home of her
childhood and in the heart of a widowed mother.
She had passed under the assumed name of Walker while at the Bell
Tavern of Danvers, and her wardrobe was found marked with the
corresponding initials, "E.W.," although applying to her real name as
well. These facts, in connection with her death, were immediately
published in the Boston and Salem journals, and her friends advertised
to appear; and thus were her real name and place of residence elicited.
A short time afterwards, and a stranger came and caused