About the Author
Tilar J. Mazzeo is the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle bestselling author of several books, including Irena’s Children, The Widow Clicquot, The Secret of Chanel No. 5, and The Hotel on Place Vendôme. The Clara C. Piper Associate Professor of English at Colby College, she divides her time between coastal Maine, New York City, and Saanichton, British Columbia, where she lives with her husband and stepchildren.
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Notes
Notes here are generally limited to occasions of direct quotation and paraphrase only, so that interested readers may conveniently locate passages of particular interest. However, the author wishes to note that she has drawn from the works cited in the following notes as primary sources of material of the life and times of Elizabeth Hamilton. The early biographies of Alexander Hamilton and the memoirs of his friends and children; the early biographies of Catherine Schuyler, Philip Schuyler, and the Schuyler family; the memoirs of Tench Tilghman; and the letters of Elizabeth Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton, their family members, and their friends and colleagues are among the most important of those sources, and the author wishes to acknowledge her debt to these materials, as well as to the important scholarship of the authors whose works are referenced here.
Throughout this biography, the term “cousin” is used, for the sake of simplicity, to refer not only to first cousins but to a larger and more extensive range of family relations of cousinhood and kinship, including second cousins, third cousins, and cousins at generational removes.
PROLOGUE
“I have told you and I told you truly that I love you”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, 5 October 1780, Hamilton Papers, Founders Online, National Archives of the United States. All further references to Founders Online, National Archives, direct readers to the relevant collections and extensive notes at www.founders.archive.gov. The Hamilton Papers are sourced from The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Harold C. Syrett, 27 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961–87).
popular folk song of that same title—“The Nut-Brown Maid”: Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs, and Other Pieces of Our Earlier Poets (London, J. Dodsley, 1765; New York: E. P. Dutton, 1906), 2:303–14; the text has been updated from the original by the author to conform more nearly to Standard American English to ease comprehension.
“I ought at least to hear from you by every post”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, 5 October 1780, Hamilton Papers, Founders Online.
“If that ye were with enemies day and night”: Percy, Reliques, 303–14.
CHAPTER 1
outpost at German Flatts along the Mohawk River: Nelson Greene, ed., History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614–1925 (Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1925), 1:581–87.
the most prominent Dutch entrepreneurial families in the New World: Patricia U. Bonomi, A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonial New York (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014), 179.
the Rensselaerwyck boundaries: Details here and throughout from Warren Roberts, A Place in History: Albany in the Age of Revolution, 1775–1825 (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010), 26, etc.
Kitty was a striking woman: Details here and throughout on the Schuyler family from Mary Gay Humphreys, Catherine Schuyler (Albany, NY: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1897), 28, etc.
“on your escape and arrival and extreme good fortune”: Humphreys, Catherine Schuyler, 63.
Kitty’s construction budget was 1,400 pounds sterling: Historical dollar values from MeasuringWorth, www.measuringworth.com; figure here represents historical economic-status-value comparison.
Anne MacVicar, later left an account of growing up with the Schuyler girls: Jane Williams, The Literary Women of England (London: Saunders, Otley, and Company, 1861), 519ff. See also Anne McVicar Grant, Memoirs and Correspondence of Mrs. Grant of Laggan, ed. J. P. Laggan (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1844); and Anne McVicar Grant, Memoirs of an American Lady, with Sketches of the Manners and Scenery as They Existed in America, Previous to the Revolution (New York: George Dearborn, 1836).
Forty percent of children born in the 1760s died: Max Roser, “Child Mortality,” 2018, Our World in Data, https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality.
the winter that year was particularly hard, with the first snows coming in early November: Noah Webster, A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases; With the Principal Phenomena of the Physical World, Which Precede and Accompany Them, and Observations Deduced from the Facts Stated (Hartford, CT: Hudson & Goodwin, 1799), 1:216ff.
Smallpox continued to plague the Mohawk and Hudson Valleys: Kirrily Apthorp, “As Good as an Army: Mapping Smallpox During the Seven Years’ War in North America” (thesis, University of Sydney, Australia, 2011), 73; S. L. Kotar and J. E. Gessler, Yellow Fever: A Worldwide History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland Publishing, 2017), 284.
CHAPTER 2
Albany County sheriff, Harmanus Schuyler, laid siege to a farmhouse: Collin Jay Williams, “New York Transformed: Committees, Militia, and the Social Effects of Political Mobilization in Revolutionary New York” (PhD diss., University of Alabama, 2013), 53, http://acumen.lib.ua.edu/content/u0015/0000001/0001205/u0015_0000001_0001205.pdf.
Prendergast was ordered “hanged by the neck, and then shall be cut down alive”: William A. Evans, “The Prendergast Family: Loyalists” (lecture, Chautauqua County Historical Society, Jamestown, NY, April 10, 1976), http://mcclurgmuseum.org/collection/library/lecture_list/prendergast_loyalists_by_evans.pdf.
unleashed fresh complaints about years of British mismanagement: Humphreys, Catherine Schuyler, 93.
“Angelica’s early air of Elegance & dignity”: Anne Grant to Elizabeth Hamilton, 18 November 1834, private collection, Sotheby’s, New York.
“two of the children for 50 a year, two pounds of tea, one of loaf sugar”: Humphreys, Catherine Schuyler, 123.
“the young ladies are in perfect health and improve in their education”: Humphreys, 123.
all three of the Schuyler girls learned to play the English “guittar”: Art Schrader, “Guittars and Guitars: A Note on Musical Fashion,” American Music Research Center Journal (University of Colorado, Boulder) 11 (2001), http://www.colorado.edu/amrc/sites/default/files/attached-files/0506-2001-011-00-000001.pdf.
“With respect to the distribution of your time”: Thomas E. Cone Jr., “Thomas Jefferson Writes to His 11-Year Old Daughter,” Pediatrics 51, no. 4 (April 1973), http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/51/4/715.
the grand Indian council of the Six Nations: “Grand Council,” Haudenosaunee Confederacy, accessed April 1, 2018, http://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/grandcouncil.html.
they almost certainly stopped overnight at Johnson Hall, the estate of Sir William Johnson: For details on the life of Sir William Johnson, see, for example, James Thomas Flexner, Mohawk Baronet: A Biography of Sir William Johnson (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990).
He and Sir William joined more than two thousand representatives of the Iroquois and Cherokee nations: For the history of the complex relations between colonial settlers and the Iroquois, see, for example, Daniel K. Richter and James H. Merrell, Beyond the Covenant Chain: The Iroq
uois and Their Neighbors in Indian North America, 1600–1800 (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2010), 148; John Romeyn Brodhead, Documents Relative to the Colonial History: Procured in Holland, England and France (Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons, and Company, 1857), 234.
To accept the gift of wampum meant to accept an agreement as binding: Francis Jennings, The History and Culture of Iroquois Diplomacy: An Interdisciplinary Guide to the Treaties of the Six Nations and Their League (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995), 88.
she was proud of her Indian name, which her father said meant “One of Us”: For details on naming rituals, see “Constitution of the Iroquois Nations,” National Public Telecomputing Network and the Constitution Society, Harvard University, http://cscie12.dce.harvard.edu/ssi/iroquois/simple/7.shtml; for details on Eliza Hamilton’s name, see Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York: Penguin, 2005), 126ff.
satin and brocade dresses cut low enough to raise modern eyebrows: Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 174.
Slaves made up roughly a quarter of the population of New York City: Marc Egnal, A Mighty Empire: The Origins of the American Revolution (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010), 138.
“A very Pretty Young Lady,” as one visitor noted emphatically: Humphreys, Catherine Schuyler, 134.
“a Brunette with the most good-natured, lively dark eyes”: Humphreys, 134.
Now “Lovely Polly,” as she was known: Humphreys, 345.
“Rich and nervously irritable”: W. Stewart Wallace, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada (Toronto: University Associates of Canada, 1948), 3:304. Reprinted at Claude Bélanger, “Sir John Johnson,” The Quebec History Encyclopedia, Marianopolis College, 2005, http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/encyclopedia/SirJohnJohnson-QuebecHistory.htm.
The wedding took place at the end of June in New York City: W. Max Reid, The Story of Old Fort Johnson (New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906), chap. 5, http://montgomery.nygenweb.net/johnson/Chap05.html.
their common aunt, Judith Van Rensselaer: Judith Bayard married first Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, Catherine Schuyler’s brother, who died in 1764; Judith after married William Bruce and was widowed again in 1779. Eliza knew her as Aunt Bruce. According to Thomas Jones, History of New York During the Revolutionary War: And of the Leading Events in the Other Colonies at That Period (New York: New-York Historical Society, 1879), 1:588, Judith Bruce and Judith’s niece Mrs. Stephen De Lancey were the aunts with whom Lady Mary Johnson was sent to stay during her captivity. Aunt Bruce died in 1817 and left $100 to Eliza’s orphanage.
Mary Watts would get drawn into espionage: Ian Mumpton and Danielle Funiciello, “I Desire You Would Remember the Ladies,” Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site, December 9, 2016, http://schuylermansion.blogspot.com/2016/12/i-desire-you-would-remember-ladies.html.
CHAPTER 3
“Much as I love peace,” Philip Schuyler wrote to a friend: Benson John Lossing, The Life and Times of Philip Schuyler (New York: Sheldon and Company, 1860), 2:307.
“brunette with dark eyes, and a countenance as animated and sparkling”: Tench Tilghman, Memoir of Lieut. Col. Tench Tilghman, Secretary and Aid to Washington: Together with an Appendix, Containing Revolutionary Journals and Letters, Hitherto Unpublished, eds. S. A. Harrison and Oswald Tilghman (Albany, NY: J. Munsell, 1876), 89.
“Mr. [Walter] Livingston informed me that I was not mistaken”: Tilghman, Memoir, 89; Walter Livingston was the husband of Eliza’s cousin Cornelia Schuyler, a daughter of Aunt Gertrude Schuyler.
the very elegant Miss Lynch: Miss Lynch was either the twenty-eight-year-old Sabina or, more likely, the twenty-one-year-old Elizabeth; further identification has not been possible.
“made herself merry at the distress of the other Ladies”: Tilghman, Memoir, 91.
“beating their drum, sticking sticks together in Exact time and yelling”: Tilghman, 92.
“I accepted the proposal with thanks”: Tilghman, 95.
“pretty and extremely cleanly they speak tolerable English too”: Tilghman, 96–7.
“the Belle of the Town and therefore a little of the Coquette”: Tilghman, 96–7.
“I sat among them like an old Acquaintance”: Tilghman, 96.
“Who should bless my eye sight this evening”: Tilghman, 98.
“Miss Ransolaer,” he recorded in his journal, “is pretty, quite young”: Tilghman, 98.
“I lamented that my short stay in Albany would so soon deprive me”: Tilghman, 99–100.
captured British officer John André stayed briefly in the Schuyler family: For John André’s pencil portrait of Abraham and Jannetje Cuyler of Albany, see sale 2420, lot 31, Swann Auction Galleries, sales catalogue, June 2016, http://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/asp/fullCatalogue.asp?salelot=2420++++++31+&refno=++719250&saletype=.
“The lively behavior of the young ladies”: Humphreys, Catherine Schuyler, 148.
by November 1776, John Carter was a regular visitor: Weymer Jay Mills, Historic Houses of New Jersey (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1902); Melissa Carrie Naulin, “All That a Genteel Family Need Require: The Church Family’s Frontier Experience at Belvidere, Allegany County, New York” (thesis, University of Delaware, 2000), 9; see “Church Family Papers, 1784–1957, 2000: A Finding Aid S.C.08,” Hobart and William Smith Colleges, March 15, 2018, http://library.hws.edu/ld.php?content_id=28360194.
The Schuyler sisters were already part of that network: Mumpton and Funiciello, “I Would Desire You Remember the Ladies.”
“father was so alarmed by the killing of Miss McCrea”: Jessie Benton Frémont, Souvenirs of My Time (Boston: D. Lothrop, 1887), 119.
CHAPTER 4
“nothing remarkable to distinguish her save her gilding”: Naulin, “A Genteel Family,” 9.
“entered into a partnership with another man, but then took 5000 guineas of the pair’s money”: Naulin, 9; see also R. G. Thorne, ed., The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1790–1820 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1986), 5:441, reprinted at The History of Parliament: British Political, Local, and Social History, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/church-john-barker-1748-1818. MeasuringWorth, purchasing-power calculation.
“Dear Alice, Gr. Grandfather Trumbull writes his wife as follows”: [Unidentified correspondents], 30 June 1777, Church Family Papers, Special Collections, Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
“unacquainted with his Family, his Connections, and Situation in Life”: Lossing, Philip Schuyler, 2:207.
“Mrs. Carter requests you to buy her 5 or 6 Pounds of Hyson Tea”: Lossing, 2:207.
the American currency entered what some feared was a death spiral: James E. Newell, “How Much Is That Worth?,” The Continental Line, www.continentalline.org.
“The General will pay you for them when you come here”: Lossing, Philip Schuyler, 2:207.
“Whether or not Schuyler had agreed to assume Carter’s debts in addition to his married daughter’s”: Naulin, “A Genteel Family,” 13.
prevented Philip Schuyler from being murdered in his bed by the intruder: Eliza Susan Morton Quincy, Memoir of the Life of Eliza S. M. Quincy (Boston: J. Wilson and Son, 1861), 316.
“she possessed courage and prudence in a great degree”: Quincy, Memoir, 312.
“The wife of the General must not be afraid”: Quoted in Samuel Sidney, The Book of the Horse (London: Cassell & Company, 1893), 370.
Kitty ordered the post rider to take back to the general at Fort Edwards: Quincy, Memoir, 318.
“Very well.” Kitty sighed. “If you will not do it, I must do it myself”: Humphreys, Catherine Schuyler, 142.
“wearied out with the Disputes and Bickerings”: Naulin, “A Genteel Family,” 13.
“No part of your buildings escaped their malice”: Quincy, Memoir, 322.
“I must candidly confess that I did not present myself . . . with much courage to the enemy”: Edward St. Germain,
“Frederica de Riedesel,” AmericanRevolution, accessed April 1, 2018, http://www.americanrevolution.org/women/women9.php.
“Do not be alarmed,” he assured her, and he lifted her three little girls: Una Siknickson, “Frederika Baroness Riedesel,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 30, no. 4 (1906): 392.
“You are too kind to me—who have done you so much injury”: Humphreys, Catherine Schuyler, 159.
“Our reception from General Schuyler, and his wife and daughters”: Una Siknickson, “Frederika Baroness Riedesel,” 392.
CHAPTER 5
“I entreat you to purchase for Mrs. Carter”: Lousie Hall Tharp, The Baroness and the General (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1962), 262.
John and Angelica owned at least one slave: Alexander Hamilton to John Chaloner, 11 November 1784, Founders Online, National Archives; Bradford Verter, “Interracial Festivity and Power in Antebellum New York: The Case of Pinkster,” Journal of Urban History 28, no. 4 (May 2002): 398–428.
Angelica, “who, with her sister Betsy, was living in Boston”: Tharp, The Baroness and the General, 242.
“Curiosity and desire urged me to pay a visit to Madame Carter, the daughter of General Schuyler”: Friederike Charlotte Luise Freifrau von Riedesel, Letters and Journals Relating to the War of the American Revolution, and the Capture of the German Troops at Saratoga (London: J. Munsell, 1867), 140.
“Madame Carter,” the baroness decided, “was as gentle and good as her parents”: Riedesel, Letters, 140.
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