Jumel Mansion: Roger and Mary Philipse Morris House Washington Heights

Kindle version of vintage magazine article originally published in 1900. Contains lots of great info and illustrations seldom seen in the last 110 years.

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There is probably no house in America, except perhaps Mount Vernon, about which clings such a host of recollections. Here dwelt one of Washington's early loves—and though he had a number before he settled down with the serene and stately Widow Custis, it is doubtful if any of them made him more unhappy by her rejection than did Mary Phillipse, first chatelaine of the great house on Washing¬ton Heights.

Here, too, Aaron Burr, that brilliant chevalier d'industrie, paid courtly compliments to Mme. Jumel until he tempted her, though neither of them was young, into a match amazing in its indiscretion.

Here cypress trees from the Tuileries were set by Stephen Jumel, admirer and lover of the great Napoleon. From this place the boy Nathan Hale went forth on the mission that brought him death, Here, in the earliest, days of the republic; Washington wrestled with the difficulties of being a commander in chief with an apparently very inadequate force.

Every bicyclist knows the historic house by sight at least. Every picnicker whirled up in the electric cars towards the summer gardens above the Harlem knows it. It is one of the most conspicuous places in the northern part of the city. It lies between One Hundred and Sixtieth and One Hundred and Sixty Second Streets, Jumel Terrace and Edgecombe Avenue. Built on the old colonial lines of breadth and dignity, standing upon the highest ridge of land in all Manhattan Island, it is perhaps even more inspiring and beautiful in these days of crowded sky scrapers than when it was new and Mary Phillipse first came to be its mistress.