Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton occasionally worked together

Hamilton and Burr were two of the finest attorneys in post-World War II Manhattan. The two decorated warriors attracted clients, and Hamilton and Burr engaged in numerous legal battles. They occasionally collaborated on the same criminal or civil case, such as People v. Levi Weeks (1800), which is regarded as the earliest murder trial in the United States for which we have a written record.

Gulielma Sands, a young woman, unexpectedly disappeared in December 1799. Her remains were discovered at the bottom of a Manhattan well eleven days later. A suspect was named the carpenter Levi Weeks, who had been pursuing Sands and shared a boarding home with her.

People believed Weeks was guilty. Fortunately for the carpenter, though, Hamilton's Convent Avenue estate had been built under the supervision of his architect older brother Ezra. Ezra had also conducted business with the Manhattan Company, which was established by Burr and, coincidentally, owned the well where Sands's body was discovered.

Weeks' legal team consisted of Burr, Hamilton, and Brockholst Livingston, who later rose to the rank of Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. They deconstructed the state's mainly circumstantial case against their client during the two-day trial, and the carpenter was declared not guilty. Weeks eventually relocated to Natchez, Mississippi, and remade himself as a renowned architect in the South.