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That the harshness and unfailing gloom of Puritan households have been greatly exaggerated and overdrawn is sufficiently proved in the person of Esther Burr herself. She had been reared in the very pith and center of the Calvinist domain, yet all contemporary accounts and the more concrete evidence of her own unpublished letters and private diary disclose an alert, lively young woman, sincerely and unaffectedly religious, it is true, but not untouched with normal feminine frailties, a proneness to laughter and gossip, and a certain light, skimming touch on sex and marriage that consort oddly with the supposedly sacred nature of those hoary institutions. And she adored her father, that thundering fount of wrath and brimstone and hellfire!

She slipped easily and graciously into the life at Newark. Her father saw to it that her spiritual welfare was not neglected. On September 17, 1753, the Reverend Jonathan Edwards of Stockbridge wrote to the Reverend Aaron Burr of Newark with all formality that the Church of Stockbridge at a meeting had unanimously recommended Mrs. Esther Burr, formerly Edwards, of their Communion, as worthy of entering “your stated Communion as a member in full standing.”^[14]

But there were other things that interested her. Their first child was born May 3, 1754, and was christened Sarah Burr—known ever after to her family and intimates as Sally. Yet, with Sally, an infant barely six months old, in her arms, she could still write her sister Lucy, at Stockbridge, all the gossip of the town. Curiously this news showed a fine preoccupation with the fundamentals of life—births, marriages and deaths. “Miss Elez-h Eaton is like to be married....” she reports, “ant you glad? Now I think of another piec of News. Joseph Woodruffs Wife has got a fine Son. One thing brings another, I thought I had no news. Mrs. Serjent is like to have a Child, pray what do you think of this? I know you will laugh ... Loyer Ogdens Wife lately lay in with Twains, two Daughters & lost em both.”^[15]

She loved her minister-teacher husband. When he had gone to Boston on College business, she confided to her diary and her friend, Miss Prince, of that Puritan and maritime stronghold, that “O my dear it seems as if Mr. Burr had been gon a little Age! & it is yet but one Fortnight! I dont know what I shall do with myself the rest of the time. I am out of patience already. I imagine now this Eve Mr. Burr is at your house, Father is there & some others, you all set in the Middleroom, Father has the talk, & Mr. Burr has the laugh, Mr. Prince gets room to stick in a word once in a while, the rest of you set & see, & hear, & make observations to your selves, Miss Janny amongst the rest, & when you get up stairs you tell what you think, & wish I was there too.”^[16] Dour, repressed Calvinist households!

There were consolations, however, for her husband’s necessary absences. The Governor of New-Jersey, the estimable Jonathan Belcher, came to take her to the militia parade, and he and his lady stayed for tea.

Her life was a round of entertaining company, of dining from eight to ten ministers with dreadful regularity, of domestic affairs, of gossip, of attending sermons, of meetings of the Presbytery, of hearkening to the state of her soul and a little aghast at what she found, of tenderness for her husband, of antic fun withal and a quizzical attitude toward life.

Her diary is a remarkable document, filled to the brim with day to day matters, by turns sunny, sprightly, and religiously exalted.

“Pray what do you think every body marrye in, or about winter for,” she inquires. “Tis quite merry, isn’t it? I realy belive tis for fear of laying cold, & for the want of a bed fellow. Well, my advice to such ye same with ye Apostles, Let them marry—& you know the reason given by him, as well as I do—Tis better to Marry than to—” But when it came down to cases, alas! “Cousin Billy Vance is going to be Married—did you ever hear the like? Pray what can he do with a Wife? He is more of a Woman than of a man.”^[17]

Of her husband she writes vehemently, passionately. “Do you think I would change my good Mr. Burr for any person, or thing or all things on the Erth? No sure! not for a Million such Worlds as this [that] had no Mr. B—r on it.”

Life went on apace. The Lord’s work had to be done; the training of the students, the needs of the infant College required the unremitting efforts of the Reverend Mr. Burr. It was soon evident that the cramped quarters of his parsonage were too limited, that the multitudinous requirements on his time and energy were too great to be united in a single individual. He had to decide between the First Presbyterian Church and the College. He decided in favor of the latter.

New quarters for the College had to be found. Meetings of the Trustees were held. The matter was debated. Suitable sites were discussed. The little village of Prince Town was finally decided on. It was well situated, in the heart of good farming country and great forests from which the winters’ firewood could be readily obtained; it was the halfway station on the stage lines between New York and Philadelphia. The chief difficulty, however, was the raising of sufficient funds.

A great campaign was instituted under the immediate personal attention of President Burr. Governor Belcher, his close friend, assisted in every way possible. Funds were solicited among the elect and well-disposed in the Colonies; a vigorous drive was made abroad. Contributions poured in from Scotland, Ireland and “South Britain.” Mr. Burr expressed his complete satisfaction with the agreeable returns. Over 1000 pounds came in from Scotland alone. They would “be able before long,” he hoped, “to support a Professor of Divinity, that Office at present lies on the President, with a considerable part of the Instruction in other branches of Literature.”^[18]

Nor were the faithful the only sources of supply. The unregenerate disgorged too, via the worldly method of lotteries. Burr petitioned for, and received, permission from the Governor and General Court of Connecticut to draw “a Lottery in their Colony for the benefit of said College.”^[19] Similar permission was obtained elsewhere. In Philadelphia, in New York, in Boston, in the South, the tickets were sold, the prizes distributed, and the resulting proceeds used to swell the College treasury.

President Burr did not withhold his own purse. He purchased the lottery tickets on a generous scale—too generously, thought his somewhat resentful wife. “Mr. Burr has put Some Tickets into ye Philadelphia Lottery,” she complains, “& I think we have lost enough by lotteries. We have lost about a hundred pounds York money by em, & I’m not willing to loose any more unless Duty evidently calls.”^[20]

Finally, in February, 1755, the contracts were let, and the building begun. He was busier than ever. To all his other duties was added the supervision of the slowly growing structures in far-off Prince Town. Yet he found time to exhort and preach with renewed vigor to his Newark flock. Mr. Burr, records his wife, “has been remarkably Stired up to be fervent in his preaching of late. O if the Lord would bless his labours!”^[21]

Nor did he forget that learning, like charity, begins at home. Esther had received the normal girl’s education. Her spelling was weird and wonderful, her command of foreign languages nil. Wherefore “we have a French Master in the House with us. He is lerning the Scholars french & Mr. Burr is lerning too, he knew Somthing of it before. Mr. Burr has had a mind [that] I should lern, but I have no time.” Rebellion stirred in the wifely bosom, albeit somewhat apologetically. “The married women has Something else to care about besides lerning French tho if I had time I shoul be very fond of lerning.”^[22]