By Rodger Morrow, Editor & Publisher, Beaver County Business
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Beaver County’s Brush With America’s Oddest Conspiracy
There are days when one suspects the Republic has finally gone off its rocker. A fellow arrives at the borough council meeting dressed like a Founding Father who lost a bet. A cousin swears the government replaced his garage-door opener with an AI spy device. And every few years, somebody marches on Washington carrying a flag last seen in a Revolutionary War reenactment in Zelienople.
But before we congratulate ourselves on having invented modern lunacy, Beaver County might pause to recall that conspiracies and insurrections are nothing new. In fact, one of the great crackpot schemes in American history passed straight through what is now Bridgewater, Pennsylvania—then a modest little spot called Sharon—where the Beaver and Ohio Rivers meet in a polite handshake of conspiracy-friendly geography.
Yes, friends: Aaron Burr, the sitting Vice President who shot Alexander Hamilton in 1804, once inspected boats on the banks of our county’s own rivers while quietly assembling the equipment for a possible overthrow of the United States government.
We didn’t just witness history.
We dry-docked it.
Burr: America’s First Post-Vice-Presidential Freelancer
After killing Hamilton and completing his term as vice president—a résumé line you don’t often see on LinkedIn—Aaron Burr found that doors were closing faster than they could be knocked upon. Even in 1805, America had rules about these things. Usually they involved leaving town before anyone asked too many questions.
Burr headed west.
But he did not travel as the melancholy former statesman. He went instead as a man with plans—big plans—plans the size of Mexico. Historians still quarrel over the exact scale of the madness, but Burr’s goals seem to have included:
- Creating his own independent empire in the Southwest
- Peeling off western states to form a breakaway nation
- Invading Spanish Mexico with a private army
To accomplish this, Burr needed three things: men, munitions, and boats. He chose Sharon—today’s Bridgewater—to build them.
Bridgewater: Launchpad of Dreams, Schemes, and One Near-Treason
In 1805 and 1806, Burr personally visited the boatyard along Bradys Run, managed by local boatbuilder Amasa Brown. Brown built large, covered keelboats—perfect for hauling recruits, supplies, and the founding documents of a brand-new rogue nation.
These Sharon-built boats formed the heart of Burr’s flotilla. The plan was simple: push off from Beaver County, drift down the Ohio, gather more men at Blennerhassett Island, then sweep down the Mississippi toward destiny.
And so in December 1806, Burr’s flotilla launched from the Beaver-Ohio confluence—a tiny armada of half-filled, half-armed riverboats that thundered magnificently into obscurity.
The Collapse: Conspiracies Work Best Without Snitches
Unfortunately for Burr, his associate General James Wilkinson—commander-in-chief of the U.S. Army and part-time Spanish spy—betrayed him to President Thomas Jefferson.
Militias seized boats, the expedition crumbled, Burr was arrested, and the whole affair unraveled like a pickup truck losing its muffler on Route 68.
He was acquitted because he never actually invaded anything and Wilkinson’s testimony was unusable.
Bridgewater’s Brush With Glory (or Something Like It)
Burr’s scheme amounted to confused recruits, scattered boats, and one disappointed would-be emperor. But the Sharon/Bridgewater boatyard remains a factual nerve center of the conspiracy.
So next time the news reports someone trying to overthrow the government with social media and pickup trucks, Beaver County can relax—we’ve seen weirder.
In fact, we built the boats.
Sidebar: By the Numbers – The Great Bridgewater Conspiracy
- 2 — Documented visits Burr made to Sharon to inspect boats.
- 10–15 — Keelboats planned for the flotilla.
- 3–5 — Sharon-built boats that formed the core of the fleet.
- 60–100 — Men Burr expected; far fewer arrived.
- 1 — Ambitious mastermind who thought power flowed through Beaver County.
- 0 — Empires successfully founded from the mouth of Bradys Run.
- 1807 — Year Burr was tried and acquitted of treason.
