Occasionally I stumble across interesting historical sites that are virtually unknown except to those living nearby. This is just such a curiosity. Warthen is in Washington County’s northwest corner of Washington County, Georgia, south and west of Augusta and just below the small town of Mitchell, Georgia which is in Glascock County. At the time of Burr’s incarceration here, this was on the edge of Georgia’s western frontier near the Ogeechee River. Washington County, though far from Atlanta, is one of the earliest and most historic of Georgia’as counties.
The third U.S. Vice President, Aaron Burr, was held one night as he was returned to stand trial for treason in Washington. Burr was arrested several times under a warrant from the administration of President Thomas Jefferson, but several courts refused to honor the warrant. Charges arose out of equipping an expedition into the newly purchased Louisiana Territory. He was accused defying the government, leading an armed expedition into recently acquired Louisiana Territory with the intent create an independent state in defiance of federal law, an act of treason. Arrested in Mississippi Territory (now part of Alabama), he was brought back to stand trail, and was acquitted. His reputation, already tarnished by his killing of Alexander Hamilton in a duel, never recovered.