Madame Eliza B. Jumel (1775–1865)

Bowen into grinding poverty, the girl who became Eliza Jumel and then Mrs. Aaron Burr was raised in a brothel, indentured as a servant, and confined to a workhouse when her mother was in jail. Yet by the end of her life, “Madame Jumel” was one of New York's richest women. She had

• servants of her own
  
• a mansion in Upper Manhattan (today's Morris-Jumel Mansion)
• a summer home in Saratoga Springs
• and several hundred acres of land.

Madame Eliza Jumel's home, the Morris-Jumel Mansion.

Eliza Jumel's home in Saratoga Springs.

She used marriages and money to improve her social standing and the legal system to protect her financial security. When she died, her estate was worth some one million dollars, comparable in buying power to $15 million today. Madame Jumel even managed what Alexander Hamilton could not: she triumphed over Aaron Burr.

Eliza Jumel's second husband, Aaron Burr. New York Public Library.

"Her history is romantic, strange, eventful, and ahead, in many respects, of the most exciting novel."
--Chauncey Shaffer, 1872

Detail of a portrait of Eliza Jumel that hangs at her former home, the Morris-Jumel Mansion.

On this website you will find:

• General information about visiting Eliza's Jumel's home
  
• Secrets of the Morris-Jumel Mansion, a series of articles revealing newly discovered details about the appearance and decoration of Eliza's house in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
• Information about a legend-busting, new biography of Madame Eliza B. Jumel, including a free sample, reviews in the media and discussion questions for readers
  
• Details on who is buried in Eliza Jumel's grave.
• The Madame Jumel, a blog devoted to Eliza Jumel and her home, the Morris-Jumel Mansion

Eliza Jumel's home, The Jumel Mansion, in 1854.