Eliza Hamilton
Page 33
“I did not understand you . . . in what you mention’d in your note about Carter”: Tharp, The Baroness and the General, 264.
“salt them down in small barrels, and send over to the English one of these barrels”: Tharp, 264.
“the little Fellow of two Days old ‘grows finely’ ”: John Carter to Philip Schuyler, 8 May 1788, Church Family Papers.
“where all is under the secure lock and key of Friendship”: Bernard Christian Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry, Secretary of War Under Washington and Adams (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers Company, 1907); see also Humphreys, Catherine Schuyler, 169; and “Beverwyck Site,” National Register of Historic Places, United States Department of the Interior, National Parks Service, application, May 2004, https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset?assetID=78cac489-7e8c-4e04-920c-51ba81d9f87c.
Cornelia Lott, daughter of the wealthy but rather shady merchant: Cornelia Lott was the sister-in-law of General Greene’s aide-de-camp Lieutenant Colonel William Smith Livingston, another of the Schuyler-Livingston cousins; for more on the Lott family, see Lott Family Papers, ARC.186, Brooklyn Historical Society; and Alexander Van Cleve Phillips, The Lott Family in America: Including the Allied Families: Cassell, Davis, Graybeal, Haring, Hegeman, Hogg, Kerley, Phillips, Thompson, Walter and Other (Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Brothers, 1942).
“Such a wife as I want will, I know, be difficult to be found”: Alexander Hamilton to Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens, [April 1779], Founders Online, National Archives.
“After knowing exactly your taste, and whether you are of a romantic”: Alexander Hamilton to Catharine Livingston, 11 April 1777, Founders Online, National Archives.
“What bend the Stubborn knee at last”: Quoted in Chernow, Hamilton, 94.
Abraham Lott was hopelessly indebted: “Abraham Lott, the Colony Treasurer,” American Archives: Documents of the American Revolutionary Period, 1774–1776, Southern Illinois University Libraries, accessed April 1, 2018, http://amarch.lib.niu.edu/islandora/object/niu-amarch%3A106007.
Mary, known as “Polly,” the daughter of Colonel Edward Tilghman: Mary “Polly” Tilghman (1762–1793), the daughter of Tench’s uncle, Colonel Edward Tilghman of Philadelphia, and his first cousin. This identification is conjectural, but the evidence for the identification is very strong. Tench Tilghman’s reference to Polly by her Christian name, in a letter to a relation, among other facts, indicates that she was a member of his family, and Colonel Edward Tilghman was in and out of Morristown in 1780 and remained in contact with Alexander Hamilton afterward. Edward Tilghman assisted Elizabeth Hamilton financially after her widowhood.
Anna Tilghman was a young lady who knew precisely: Tilghman, Memoir, 112.
applauding Anna for not “surrendering at the first Summons”: Daniel Blake Smith, Inside the Great House: Planter Family Life in Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 133.
“evidently very attractive and must have possessed a great charm”: C. V. Hamilton, “The Erotic Charisma of Alexander Hamilton,” Journal of American Studies 45, no. 1 (February 2011): 1–19, http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/5848/.
“his complexion was exceedingly fair and varying from this”: Hamilton, “Charisma of Alexander Hamilton.”
“Alas poor Polly! Hamilton is a gone man”: Tilghman, Memoir, 173.
CHAPTER 6
“cavalry-like advances on the latest feminine arrival”: Phillip Thomas Tucker, Alexander Hamilton’s Revolution: His Vital Role as Washington’s Chief of Staff (New York, Skyhorse Publishing, 2017), n.p.
more trunks of extravagant French fashion than was strictly decent: Pamela Murrow, “The Role of Dancing,” Journal of the American Revolution, March 14, 2013, https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/03/the-role-of-dancing/.
Wrapped in thick cloaks, their hands protected in beaver muffs: Details here and throughout from Harry M. Ward, The War for Independence and the Transformation of American Society: War and Society in the United States, 1775–83 (New York: Routledge, 2014), 90; and Benson John Lossing, The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution or, Illustrations, by Pen and Pencil, of the History, Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the War for Independence (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1851), 307.
“Her hair in front is craped at least a foot high”: Lyman Henry Butterfield and Margaret A. Hogan, Adams Family Correspondence: March 1787–December 1789 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), 268.
“Coiffures dressed à la Americaine”: Ward, The War for Independence, 223.
Peggy, had sat for a wedding portrait: Victoria Cooney, “Love and the Revolution,” Humanities: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities 34, no. 5 (September/October 2013), www.neh.gov/humanities/2013/septemberoctober/statement/love-and-the-revolution.
Eliza called it later her “Marie Antoinette coiffure”: John Sedgwick, War of Two: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Duel That Stunned the Nation (New York: New American Library, 2015), 107.
“good natured affability and vivacity unembellished”: Alexander Hamilton to Margarita Schuyler, [February 1780], Founders Online, National Archives.
“I am a stranger in this country”: Alexander Hamilton to Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens, 8 January [1780], Founders Online, National Archives.
when General Schuyler passed through camp briefly in early March: Philip Schuyler to Alexander Hamilton, 8 April 1780, Founders Online, National Archives; Philip John Schuyler to George Washington, 12 March 1780, Founders Early Access, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=FOEA-print-01-01-02-1113.
“You cannot, my dear sir,” Philip Schuyler wrote to Alexander: Quoted in Roberts, A Place in History, 124.
“she consents to Comply with your and her daughters wishes”: Philip Schuyler to Alexander Hamilton, 8 April 1780, Founders Online, National Archives.
“You will see the Impropriety of taking the dernier pas”: Philip Schuyler to Alexander Hamilton, 8 April 1780.
“If I were not afraid of making you vain”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, 17 March 1780, Founders Online, National Archives.
“I cannot tell you what extacy I felt in casting my eye over the sweet effusions”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, 17 March 1780.
“Have you not heard that I am on the point”: Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens, 30 June 1780, Founders Online, National Archives.
Kitty was determined to see to it that no early infant arrival: Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary, eds. Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, and Paul S. Boyer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 1:244.
“kicked up a hell of a dust” until June: Kate Van Winkle Keller, Dance and Its Music in America, 1528–1789 (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2007), 549.
“A love like mine so tender, true”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, [2–4 July 1780], Founders Online, National Archives.
“I intend to restore the empire of Hymen”: Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens, 16 September, 1780, Founders Online, National Archives.
“The sweet softness and delicacy of your mind and manners”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, [2–4 July 1780], Founders Online, National Archives.
“It is an age my dearest,” he wrote: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, 20 July 1780, Founders Online, National Archives.
“Do you soberly relish the pleasure of being a poor mans wife”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, August 1780, Founders Online, National Archives.
“I know too you have so much of the Portia in you”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, [August 1780], Founders Online, National Archives.
“When I come to Albany, I shall find means to take satisfaction”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, [8 August 1780], Founders Online, National Archives.
Eliza responded teasingly by sending Alexander a cockade: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, [3 September
1780], Founders Online, National Archives.
“If America were lost”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, 6 September 1780, Founders Online, National Archives.
“I was once determined to let my existence”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, 6 September 1780.
“I have no body between me and the Enemy except two poor famalies”: Philip Schuyler to Alexander Hamilton, 19 October 1780, in The Works of Alexander Hamilton, Comprising His Correspondence, ed. John C. Hamilton (New York: John F. Trow, 1850), 5:191; also available at Founders Online, National Archives.
CHAPTER 7
in accordance with an ancient Schuyler family recipe: “Schuyler Wedding Cake 1690,” What America Ate, Michigan State University, http://whatamericaate.org/full.record.php?kid=79-2C8-30A&page=1.
As evening fell, the house rang with laughter and the clink of glassware: Details here and throughout from “1779 Rev War General Philip Schuyler Slave Sale,” Live Auctioneers, lot 0114, April 2015, https://new.liveauctioneers.com/item/36094021_1779-rev-war-general-philip-schuyler-slave-sale.
a small gold ring, engraved simply: “Gold double-band wedding ring of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, and wedding handkerchiefs of Alexander and Elizabeth Hamilton, 1780,” Special Collections, Columbia University Libraries, www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/treasures/html/39b.html.
Mac read a poem he’d composed: Poem by Major James McHenry, [14–15 December 1780], Founders Online, National Archives; Roberts, A Place in History, 154.
“Hers,” he said, “was a strong character with its depth and warmth”: Quoted in Chernow, Hamilton, 131.
“a handsome house, halfway up the bank opposite the ferry”: Humphreys, Catherine Schuyler, 65.
“found ourselves in an instant in a handsome drawing room near a good fire”: The Schuyler Mansion at Albany: Residence of Major-General Philip Schuyler (New York: DeVinne Press, 1911), 10.
Alexander set off for camp immediately after the New Year: Michael E. Newton, Hamilton: The Formative Years (Phoenix: Eleftheria Publishing, 2015), 691.
Benjamin Franklin asked a mutual acquaintance in 1778: J[ohn] C[arroll] to Benjamin Franklin, 18 January 1778, Founders Online, National Archives.
“persuade all her friends to embark with her in the matrimonial voyage”: Alexander Hamilton to Margarita Schuyler, 21 January 1781, Founders Online, National Archives.
“Mrs. Carter told me you was soon to be married to her sister, Miss Betsy Schuyler”: Marquis de Fleury to Alexander Hamilton, 20 October 1780, Founders Online, National Archives; Mary Duane, b. 1762, later married General William North; James Duane’s wife was Mary Livingston.
“I am composing a piece”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, [5 October 1780], Founders Online, National Archives.
in love “with an old man of fifty”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, [2 October 1780], Founders Online, National Archives.
“Mrs. Carter is a fine woman. She charms in all companies”: James McHenry to Alexander Hamilton, 11 August 1782, Founders Online, National Archives. The allusion to Swift’s Vanessa in the letter is a reference to Jonathan Swift, “Cadenus and Vanessa” (1713), Luminarium Editions, December 2006, www.luminarium.org/editions/cadenusvanessa.htm.
“Pray do you talk of a Jaunt to New York”: Kitty Livingston to Elizabeth Hamilton, 11 February 1781, in Allan McLane Hamilton, The Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1910), 101.
“If I did not know any apology made a bad thing worse”: Kitty Livingston to Elizabeth Hamilton, 7 February 1781, in McLane Hamilton, Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton, 101.
Edward’s increasingly desperate letters: Mary Van Deusen, “The Antill Branch,” Memories of People I Never Knew, www.iment.com/maida/familytree/antill/antill.htm; Gavin K. Watt, Poisoned by Lies and Hypocrisy: America’s First Attempt to Bring Liberty to Canada,1775–1776 (Toronto: Dundurn, 2014), 124.
prisoner exchange to free Edward took place: George Dawson, “Washington’s Valley,” The Link (Raritan Millstone Heritage Alliance) 7, no. 1 (February 2005), www.raritanmillstone.org/linknewsletters/TheLink_vol7_issue1.pdf.
“Lieutenant Colonel Antill appears to have been captured”: Mary Van Deusen, “Lt. Colonel Edward Antill,” Memories of People I Never Knew, www.iment.com/maida/familytree/antill/coledwardletters1781.htm.
Orders flew to John Carter’s business partner, Jeremiah Wadsworth: See, for example, Alexander Hamilton to Jeremiah Wadsworth, [16 April 1781], Founders Online, National Archives.
a slave woman from the wife of General George Clinton: Alexander Hamilton to George Clinton, [22 May 1781], Founders Online, National Archives. The text of the letter reads: “I expect by Col Hay’s return to receive a sufficient sum to pay the value of the woman Mrs. H had of Mrs. Clinton,” and as the archivists at the National Archives note, “This sentence provides one of the few pieces of extant evidence that either H[amilton] or his wife owned slaves.”
Alexander also bought a small boat: Alexander Hamilton to Major Richard Platt, [28 April 1781], Founders Online, National Archives.
“riches enough, with common management, to make the longest life very comfortable”: Quoted in R. G. Thorne, The House of Commons (London: Boydell and Brewer, 1986), 5:441.
“proceed immediately with Colonel [Moses] Hazen’s Regiment to Albany”: Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society (Edison, NJ: New Jersey Historical Society, 1899), 42–48. Some historians have suggested that Marie-Charlotte Antill resided with her mother-in-law rather than removing to Albany to join her husband. However, her mother-in-law was a Loyalist in occupied New York, making this extremely unlikely given Edward’s active military engagement in support of the Americans; see also Van Deusen, “Lt. Col. Edward Antill.”
“Though I know my Betsy would be happy to hear I had rejected this proposal”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, [10 July 1781], Founders Online, National Archives.
“I impatiently long to hear from you the state of your mind since our painful separation”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, [10 July 1781].
“I am inexpressably happy . . . to find that you seem at present to be confirmed”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 16 August 1781, Founders Online, National Archives.
By nine o’clock in the evening, the family gathered in the front hall for dinner: Details here and throughout from Jeptha R. Simms, The Frontiersmen of New York (Albany, NY: 1883), 2:487, http://threerivershms.com/simms1781.htm.
“carry[ing] off some of the most inveterate and active Leaders in the Rebellion”: Dictionary of Canadian Biography online, s.v. “Meyers, John Walden,” by Robert J. M. Shipley, accessed April 1, 2018, www.biographi.ca/en/bio/meyers_john_walden_6E.html.
“The attack and defense of the house was bloody and obstinate, on both sides”: Mary Beacock Fryer, Loyalist Spy, The Experiences of Captain John Walden Meyers During the American Revolution (Brockville, ON: Besancourt Publishers, 1974), 124ff.
came instead face-to-face with Captain John Meyers: Dictionary of Canadian Biography online, s.v. “Meyers, John Walden.”
“Wench, wench, where is your master?” demanded John Meyers: Humphreys, Catherine Schuyler, 34.
The attackers fled, taking the family silver and the three sentinels: Humphreys, 34.
“Upon the whole I am glad this unsuccessful attempt has been made”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 16 August 1781, Founders Online, National Archives.
“I am unhappy my Betsey,” he wrote. “I am unhappy beyond expression”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 22 August 1781, Founders Online, National Archives.
“the caprices of her father and then she will enslave”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 12 October 1781, Founders Online, National Archives.
CHAPTER 8
“Two nights ago, my Eliza, my duty and my honor obliged me to take a step”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 16 October 1781, Founders Online, National Archives.<
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“the assurance of never more being separated”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 6 September 1781, Founders Online, National Archives.
Aaron Burr, living by now with the Van Rensselaer family: James Parton, The Life and Times of Aaron Burr (New York: Mason Brothers, 1861), 138.
“I am told Miss is in great distress”: Alexander Hamilton to Major Nicholas Fish, [29 December 1781], Founders Online, National Archives.
The young teenage patroon Stephen Van Rensselaer: Richard A. Harrison, Princetonians, 1776–1783: A Biographical Dictionary (Princeton, NJ: Prince-ton University Press, 2014), xxviii; George Rogers Howell, Bi-centennial History of Albany: History of the County of Albany, NY from 1609 to 1886 (Albany: W. W. Munsell & Company, 1886), 1:261.
“You cannot imagine how entirely domestic I am growing”: Alexander Hamilton to Richard Kidder Meade, March 1782, Founders Online, National Archives.
Could an acquaintance help him find four pint-size wine decanters?: Alexander Hamilton to Richard Kidder Meade, March 1782, Founders Online, National Archives.
Aaron Burr, who had been introduced to the Schuyler family by the good offices of General Alexander McDougall: The Schuyler Mansion at Albany, 9.
But when Aaron Burr soon became fast friends with Stephen Van Rensselaer, Aaron confided in his amorous letters: Aaron Burr, The Private Journal of Aaron Burr, During His Residence of Four Years in Europe, with Selections from His Correspondence (New York: Harper Brothers, 1836), 1:234.
“I have been employed for the last ten months in rocking the cradle”: Alexander Hamilton to Marquis de Lafayette, [3 November 1782], Founders Online, National Archives.
“Remember your promise”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, [18 December 1782], Founders Online, National Archives.
When a letter arrived at the Pastures warning that Peggy and Angelica were both gravely ill: James Duane to Alexander Hamilton, 17 February 1783, Founders Online, National Archives.
“When you are in the Jerseys write me of your arrival and I will come for you”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 27 October 1780, Founders Online, National Archives.