Aaron Burr was a smart kid
The Reverend Aaron Burr Sr., a Presbyterian preacher and the second president of the College of New Jersey, which later became Princeton University, gave birth to Aaron Burr Jr. in Newark, New Jersey, in 1756. The daughter of eminent theologian Jonathan Edwards and his wife Sarah, Esther Edwards Burr was his mother. When Burr's father passed away in 1757. Jonathan Edwards, who took over as president after Burr's father, moved in with Burr and his mother in December 1757. When Edwards passed away in March 1758, Burr's mother and grandmother also passed away within the same year.
Burr was an orphan when he was just 2 years old. Timothy Edwards, their maternal uncle, took in the little child and his sister Sally, who was almost 4 at the time. The children resided in Stockbridge, Massachusetts for two years before moving to Elizabethtown, New Jersey, with Edwards. Burr, a bright and early applicant, applied to Princeton (then the College of New Jersey) at the age of barely 11. Although an examiner denied his application, Burr decided to resubmit two years later. Burr, now 13 years old, got admitted this time to the university that his late father had overseen. He received the loving moniker "Little Burr" due to his age, which was four years younger than most of his peers, as well as his tiny stature.
At the age of 13, Burr was accepted to Princeton as a sophomore. There, he joined the college's literary and debating groups, the American Whig Society and the Cliosophic Society. At the age of 16, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1772, but he spent one extra year at Princeton studying religion. He then underwent extensive theological instruction with Presbyterian Joseph Bellamy, but after two years, he changed his vocation. He traveled to Connecticut at the age of 19 to attend law school alongside his brother-in-law Tapping Reeve. When word of the battles with British forces at Lexington and Concord reached Litchfield in 1775, Burr decided to put his studies on hold and join the Continental Army.
