Background
His mother, Esther Edwards, was the daughter of Jonathan Edwards, the famous Calvinist theologian, making Burr Edwards's grandson. The Burrs also had a daughter, Sarah, who married Tapping Reeve, founder of the Litchfield Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut. Aaron Burr's father died in 1757, and his mother the following year, leaving him an orphan at the age of two. Grandfather Edwards and his wife Sarah also died that year; young Aaron and his sister Sally went to live with the William Shippen family in Philadelphia. In 1759, the children's guardianship was assumed by twenty-one-year-old uncle Timothy Edwards.