Theodosia, the only daughter of Aaron Burr, was a woman of superior mental accomplishments, and very strong affections. She was married to Joseph Alston, Esq., afterwards Governor of South Carolina, in 1801. She was then in her eighteenth year. That she was an excellent wife may be gathered, not merely from the story of her life, but from the testimony of her husband. Writing to her father in 1813—soon after her death—he says, "The man who has been deemed worthy of the heart of Theodosia Burr, and has felt what it was to be blest with such a woman's, will never forget his elevation."[66]

In regard to her attachment to her father, a writer, quoted in the appendix to Safford's Life of Blennerhassett, remarks as follows: "Her love for her father partook of the purity of a better world; holy, deep, unchanging; it reminds us of the affection which a celestial spirit might be supposed to entertain for a parent cast down from heaven, for sharing in the sin of the 'Son of the Morning.' No sooner did she hear of the arrest of her father, than she fled to his side.[67] There is nothing in human history more touching than the hurried letters, blotted with tears, in which she announced her daily progress to Richmond; for she was too weak to travel with the rapidity of the mail."

Had her health permitted, and occasion presented itself, she would have matched in heroism any act in the life of Margaret Roper or Elizabeth Cazotte.[68]

The trial of her father for treason, and his virtual banishment, not only depressed her spirits, but fearfully racked her already feeble constitution, yet his disgrace abated not a tittle the ardor of her affection; and when he returned from Europe, though in feeble health, she resolved to visit him in the city of New York. She was then in South Carolina. Embarking in the privateer Patriot, on the thirteenth of January, 1813, she was never heard of afterwards. The schooner may have fallen into the hands of pirates; but, as a heavy gale was experienced for several days soon after leaving Georgetown, the probability is that the craft foundered. Thus closed a life to which the panegyrical exclamation of Milton happily applies: