About This Location
Built in 1765, the Morris-Jumel Mansion is the oldest surviving residence in Manhattan. This Georgian-style mansion served as headquarters for both British and American forces during the Revolutionary War, including a brief stay by George Washington. The home later belonged to wealthy wine merchant Stephen Jumel and his ambitious wife Eliza, who later married former Vice President Aaron Burr.
The Ghost Story
The mansion has been called one of New York's most haunted buildings, appearing on Ghost Adventures and The Holzer Files. Eliza Jumel, who allegedly murdered her first husband by letting him bleed to death from a fall so she could marry Aaron Burr, is the primary ghost. In the 1960s, a group of schoolchildren reported seeing a woman in a violet dress scold them from a balcony - no woman matching that description was in the house. Visitors report disembodied voices emanating from an antique grandfather clock, cold spots, and the sensation of being watched throughout the mansion.
