ould be many years
before anyone would live far enough uptown to notice the difference.
How odd this seems in these days, when the City Hall is quite at the
beginning of the city.

Aaron Burr had by this time been elected Vice-President of the United
States. But he soon lost the confidence of the people, and when, in the
year 1803, he hoped to be made Governor of the State of New York, he was
defeated.

[Illustration: The Grange, Kingsbridge Road, the Residence of Alexander
Hamilton.]

Now at this time Alexander Hamilton was still a leader in the party
opposed to Aaron Burr, and did everything possible to defeat him. And
Burr, angered because of this, and believing that Hamilton had sought to
bring dishonor upon him, challenged Hamilton to a duel--the popular way
of settling such serious grievances. So Hamilton accepted the challenge
and on a morning in the middle of the summer of 1804, just after
sunrise, the duel took place on the heights of the shore of New Jersey,
just above Weehawken. Hamilton fell at the first fire mortally wounded.
The next day he died.

There was great sorrow throughout the entire country, for he was a brave
and good man, and had been a leader since the War of the Revolution. All
the citizens followed him to his rest in Trinity Churchyard, and in the
churchyard to-day you can see his tomb carefully taken care of and
decorated, year by year.

After the death of Hamilton the feeling against Burr in the city was
bitter indeed, and he soon went away.

A few years later, when a project was formed for establishing a great
empire in the southwest and overthrowing the United States, this same
Aaron Burr was thought to be concerned in the plot. When, after a trial,
he was acquitted, he went to live in Europe. But he returned after a
time, and the last years of his life were passed in New York.

CHAPTER XXXV

ROBERT FULTON BUILDS a STEAM-BOAT

There had come to be a great need for schools. There were private
schools and there were school-rooms attached to some of the churches,
but it was in this year, 1805, that the first steps were taken to have
free schools for all.

A kindly man named De Witt Clinton was Mayor of the city, and he, with
some other citizens, organized the Free School Society that was to
provide an education for every child. The following year the first free
school was opened. The society continued in force for forty-eight years,
each year the number of its schools i