Morris-Jumel Mansion

Manhattan’s oldest house: Washington’s headquarters, and later Aaron Burr’s home

Local name: Morris-Jumel Mansion

Collection: Harlem and Upper Manhattan · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

The Morris-Jumel Mansion and its columned portico · Beyond My Ken, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The story

Before you is the Morris-Jumel Mansion, the oldest surviving house in Manhattan. It was built in 1765 for a British officer, Roger Morris, and his wife, Mary. The house stands on one of the highest points of the island: from here you could see both the Hudson and the Harlem River. Morris stayed loyal to the king and left for England in 1775. On the night before the fifteenth of September 1776, General George Washington moved in. The very next day the Battle of Harlem Heights was fought nearby. For about a month this was his headquarters. In late October the army retreated. Until 1783 British and Hessian officers lived in the house. Afterward it changed hands many times, and for a while it was a tavern. In 1790 Washington, by then president, came back here with other Founding Fathers. In 1810 Stephen and Eliza Jumel bought the house and remodeled it in the fashion of their day. As a widow, Eliza married Aaron Burr in 1833: the former vice president, the very man who had killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. They were married here, in the parlor. The marriage was short: a year later Eliza filed for divorce, and it was granted in 1836, shortly before Burr died. In 1903 the city bought the house, and soon it became a museum. They say the house is haunted, perhaps by as many as five ghosts, Eliza and Burr himself among them. Next door is Sylvan Terrace, a cobbled lane that was once the carriage drive to the mansion.

Visiting

65 Jumel Terrace, Roger Morris Park, between West 160th and 162nd Streets. Subway: the C train to 163rd Street, then one block east. The park around the house is open during the day. The house is temporarily closed for indoor tours; check morrisjumel.org for when it reopens.