Mobs of furious investors stormed the jail: Thomas Fleming, “Wall Street’s First Collapse,” American Heritage 58, no. 6 (Winter 2009), http://www.americanheritage.com/content/wall-street’s-first-collapse.
“I have learned from a friend of yours that [Eliza] has as far as the comparison will hold as much merit as your treasurer”: James McHenry to Alexander Hamilton, 3 January 1791, Founders Online, National Archives.
“a man whose history, from the moment at which history can stoop to notice him”: Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 9 September 1792, Founders Online, National Archives.
“dealing out of Treasury-secrets among his friends”: Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 9 September 1792.
Alexander looked the other direction: Julian P. Boyd, “The First Conflict in the Cabinet,” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 18 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971), http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/TSJN.html.
until it reached the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Frederick Muhlenberg: Jacob Clingman, Appendix No. IV (a), 13 December 1792, Founders Online, National Archives.
“in confidence, that if [William] Duer had held up three days longer”: Clingman, Appendix No. IV (a).
“Mr. Reynolds has once or twice mentioned . . . that he had it in his power to hang Col. Hamilton”: Clingman, Appendix No. IV (a). See also James Reynolds to George Washington, 26 June 1789, Founders Online, National Archives.
“burned a considerable number of letters from him to her husband”: Boyd, “First Conflict.”
“Last night we waited on Colo. H.”: Boyd, “First Conflict.”
“Mrs. Reynolds . . . appeared much shocked”: Boyd, “First Conflict.”
“Beauty in Distress”: Alexander Hamilton, draft of the “Reynolds Pamphlet,” 25 August 1797, Founders Online, National Archives.
“The Chancellor hates, & would destroy you”: John Church Hamilton, Life of Alexander Hamilton (New York: D. Appleton, 1840), 7:505.
“Never was poor Creature so unhappy, and so barbarously used, as poor Pamela!”: Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (New York: Dover, 2015), 59.
“Alas my friend . . . want want what [I] can ask for but peace”: Maria Reynolds to Alexander Hamilton, [23 January–18 March 1792], Founders Online, National Archives.
“was innocent and . . . the defense was an imposition”: Boyd, “First Conflict.”
“Tis the malicious intrigues to stab me in the dark”: Alexander Hamilton to John Jay, 18 December 1792, Founders Online, National Archives.
“designs . . . on the chastity of Mrs. [Tobias] Lear”: John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 11 November 1806, Founders Online, National Archives.
“contrived to get into Mrs. Jay’s bedchamber”: John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 11 November 1806.
“unpretending good sense”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, [2–4 July 1780], Founders Online, National Archives.
“It remains with you to show whether you are a Roman or an American wife”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, [August 1780], Founders Online, National Archives.
CHAPTER 13
“Clingman [reports] that Mrs. Reynolds has obtained a divorce”: Oliver Wolcott Jr., introductory note [3 July 1797], Founders Online, National Archives.
“Mrs Washington sends her Love to Mrs Hamilton”: Joseph E. Fields, ed., Worthy Partner: The Papers of Martha Washington (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994), 253.
“I am truly glad my Dear Madam to hear Colo. Hamilton is better”: Martha Washington to Elizabeth Hamilton, 9 September 1793, Martha Washington Collection, Washington Library, http://catalog.mountvernon.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p16829coll7/id/86.
“I pray she may be handsome, for the sake of my nephews and niece”: Angelica Church to Elizabeth Hamilton, 1 January 1793, Alexander Hamilton Papers Publication Project, Columbia University, finding aid at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4078858/index.html.
“declare war in favor of the French Revolution”: Sandy Hingston, “Eleven Things You Might Not Know About Philly’s 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic,” Philadelphia, February 5, 2016, www.phillymag.com/news/2016/02/05/11-things-you-might-not-know-about-philly-yellow-fever-epidemic/#0BFzdWQC70gv4TLb.99/.
“I hear the Jacobins have made a attack at home”: Angelica Church to Elizabeth Hamilton, 1 January 1793, Alexander Hamilton Papers Publication Project.
“Considerations, relative both to the public Interest and to my own delicacy”: Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, 21 June 1793, Founders Online, National Archives.
“It has been whispered to me that my friend Alexander means to quit his employment of Secretary”: Angelica Church to Elizabeth Hamilton, 25 January 1794, Alexander Hamilton Papers Publication Project, Columbia University AH Papers Box 268.
“I have not seen a fever of so much malignity, so general”: Robert John Thornton, The Philosophy of Medicine: Or, Medical Extracts on the Nature of Health and Disease, Including the Laws of the Animal Oeconomy, and the Doctrines of Pneumatic Medicine (London: C. Whittingham, 1799), 310.
“Your enemies are at work upon Mr. Francis”: William Willcocks to Alexander Hamilton, 25 August 1793, Founders Online, National Archive; see also Larry Tise, The American Counterrevolution: A Retreat from Liberty, 1783–1800 (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1998), 191.
“As it is an affair of delicacy . . . I will thank you to request some gentleman”: Alexander Hamilton to Catharine Greene, 3 September, 1793, Founders Online, National Archives.
“With extreme concern I receive the expression of your apprehensions”: George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, 6 September 1793, Founders Online, National Archives.
“I must give you some information concerning the dreadful distress which prevails in Philadelphia”: Philip Ten Eyck to Philip Schuyler, 10 September 1790, private collection, Sotheby’s.
“We have visited Col. Hamilton and his lady at Greenbush”: Joel Munsell, The Annals of Albany (Albany: J. Munsell, 1850) 1:257.
“Exercise & Northern air have restored us beyond expectation”: Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, 24 October 1793, Founders Online, National Archives.
“It is very natural . . . that you and my Dear Eliza Should be anxious to have your children”: Philip Schuyler to Alexander Hamilton, 17 November 1793, Founders Online, National Archives.
“others we all agree must remain until Spring”: Philip Schuyler to Alexander Hamilton, 17 November 1793.
Albany in mid-November, during the slave uprising: David Levine, “History of the 1793 Fire in Albany,” Hudson Valley Magazine, January 22, 2014, www.hvmag.com/Hudson-Valley-Magazine/February-2014/History-of-the-1793-Fire-in-Albany/.
Their oldest daughter, nine-year-old Angelica, who was studying French in Albany: Philip Schuyler to Alexander Hamilton, 15 December 1794, Founders Online, National Archives.
“alarmed at the state of my Dear Elizas health”: Philip Schuyler to Alexander Hamilton, 5 January 1794, Founders Online, National Archives.
“When am I to hear that you are in perfect health”: Angelica Church to Elizabeth Hamilton, 25 January 1794, Alexander Hamilton Papers Publication Project, AH Papers Box 268.
Alexander noted too little the beauty of his wife: Marquis de Tallyrand to Angelica Church, 11 May 1794, University of Virginia Library, https://explore.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/show/church/angelica.
Dr. Stevens again ordered Eliza and baby James to the country: George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, 11 July 1794, Founders Online, National Archives; George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, 23 July 1794, Founders Online, National Archives; Elizabeth Hamilton to Alexander Hamilton, 31 July 1794, Founders Online, National Archives.
“You press to return to me”: Elizabeth Hamilton to Alexander Hamilton, 17 August 1794, Founders Online, National Archives.
“My dear Hamilton . . . [Mrs. Hamilton] has had, or has been in danger of a miscarriage”: Henry Knox to Alexander Hamilton, 2
4 November 1794, Founders Online, National Archives.
“I confess I should not like to settle at Philadelphia”: Angelica Church to Elizabeth Hamilton, 11 December 1794, Philip Church Papers, New-York Historical Society.
“I have built houses . . . I have cultivated fields”: James McHenry to Alexander Hamilton, 17 February 1795, Founders Online, National Archives.
“Negro boy & woman”: Philip Schuyler to Alexander Hamilton, 31 August 1795, Founders Online, National Archives.
“that Hamilton had vested £100,000 sterling in the British funds”: James Nicholson to Alexander Hamilton, 20 July 1795, Founders Online, National Archives.
“if Hamilton’s name is at any time brought up as a candidate for any public office”: James Nicholson to Alexander Hamilton, 20 July 1795.
“simplicity and humility afford but a flimsy veil to the internal evidences of aristocratic splendor”: Quoted in Chernow, Hamilton, 531.
a certain muckraking anti-Federalist journalist named James Callender ended up with copies: Angela Serratorre, “Alexander Hamilton’s Adultery and Apology,” Smithsonian, July 25, 2013, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/alexander-hamiltons-adultery-and-apology-18021947/#RR0tfMPy95ywTMH1.99.
CHAPTER 14
“a gloom upon the family”: Alexander Hamilton to James McHenry, 29 April 1797, Founders Online, National Archives.
“I shall be so free to tell you I hate you for not acquainting me”: Schuyler Mansion State Historical Site, “This Day in History: Birth of Cornelia Schuyler,” Facebook, December 22, 2016, www.facebook.com/schuylermansion/posts/1500369353311270:0.
Cornelia, a “charming girl”: Humphreys, Catherine Schuyler, 164.
James Callender’s History of the United States for 1796: James Thomson Callender, The History of the United States for 1796: Including a Variety of Interesting Particulars Relative to the Federal Government Previous to That Period (Philadelphia: Snowden and McCorkle, 1797).
“We now come to a part of the work, more delicate, perhaps, than any other”: Callender, History of the United States for 1796, 2:204.
“in consequence of his intrigue with Hamilton to her prejudice”: Oliver Wolcott Jr. to Alexander Hamilton [3 July 1797], Founders Online, National Archives.
Alexander immediately published a letter of denial: Alexander Hamilton, letter to the editor, Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy; or, Worcester Gazette, July 26, 1797.
“I have perused your observations”: James T. Callender to Alexander Hamilton, [29 October 1797], Founders Online, National Archives.
“According to my information”: Quoted in Alexander Hamilton to James Thomson Callender, 10 July 1797, Founders Online, National Archives.
“place the matter more precisely before the public”: Quoted in Alexander Hamilton to James Thomson Callender, 10 July 1797.
“You are in the right . . . for they have at present some unlucky doubts”: Quoted in Alexander Hamilton to James Thomson Callender, 10 July 1797.
“the very derogatory suspicion”: Quoted in Alexander Hamilton to James Thomson Callender, 10 July 1797.
“Alexander Hamilton has favoured this city with a visit”: Quoted in John Church to Alexander Hamilton, 13 July 1797, Founders Online, National Archives, n. 1.
“How is my Dear Eliza? We are anxious to know”: Philip Schuyler to Alexander Hamilton, 8 July 1797, Founders Online, National Archives.
“Eliza is well . . . It makes not the least Impression on her”: John Church to Alexander Hamilton, 13 July 1797, Founders Online, National Archives.
“The affair, My Dearest Eliza, upon which I came here has come to a close”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 19 July 1797, Founders Online, National Archives.
“I apprehended the vile calumny of my Dear Hamilton’s villainous enemies”: Philip Schuyler to Elizabeth Hamilton, 30 July 1797, Library of the Late Benson J. Lossing.
“poor Mrs. H. Account whose feelings on the Occasion”: John Barnes to Thomas Jefferson, 3 October 1797, Founders Online, National Archives.
“When my Brother returned from the sloop”: Angelica Church to Elizabeth Hamilton [after 4 August 1797], New York State Library, http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/msscfa/sc19811.htm, 3:31.
“I have been [charged] . . . with being a speculator, whereas I am only an adulterer”: Alexander Hamilton, draft of the “Reynolds Pamphlet,” 25 August 1797, Founders Online, National Archives.
“Art thou a wife?” the newspapers mocked Eliza: Quoted in Serratorre, “Alexander Hamilton’s Adultery and Apology.”
“in the event of certain political movements”: “Seen and Heard in Many Places,” Philadelphia Times, March 29, 1800, 7.
“Great distress then existing in [the] family”: Letter from Dr. David Hoscack to John Hamilton, quoted in Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 12 September 1797, Founders Online, National Archives, n. 2.
“Mother, overwhelmed with distress”: Letter from Dr. David Hosack to John Hamilton, quoted in Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 12 September 1797, Founders Online, National Archives, n. 2.
“speculate in the public securities lest it should be inferred that their speculations”: Quoted in “The United States Treasury Department,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 44, no. 262 (March 1872): 481–98, 487.
The debts “are too numerous,” Philip Schuyler wrote grimly. “No alternative is now left”: Philip Schuyler to Elizabeth Hamilton, 4 November 1797, private collection, Sotheby’s.
“Her mother and myself had a difference which extended to the father”: Allynne Lange, “Women of the Schuyler Mansion,” Hudson River Maritime Museum, April 14, 2017, www.hrmm.org/history-blog/category/albany.
“slackened his pace to the sober rate befitting a steady-going married man”: Lange, “Women of the Schuyler Mansion.”
“Come into the library”: Lange, “Women of the Schuyler Mansion.”
“I got my wife in opposition to them both”: Lange, “Women of the Schuyler Mansion.”
“if she can possibly enjoy it, with a man of such an untoward disposition as her husband”: Philip Schuyler to Elizabeth Hamilton, 26 November 1797, private collection, Sotheby’s.
“His conduct, whilst here has been as usual, most preposterous”: Philip Schuyler to Elizabeth Hamilton, 26 November 1797.
“If the letters published by Mr. Hamilton in the name of Maria are genuine”: Oliver Wolcott Jr., introductory note [3 July 1797], Founders Online, National Archives.
“These letters from Mrs. Reynolds”: Oliver Wolcott Jr., introductory note [3 July 1797].
“Copy Right not secured according to the Act of Congress”: Oliver Wolcott Jr., introductory note [3 July 1797].
“No Body can prove these things, but every body knows them”: Maclay, Journal, 394.
“Why has the subject been so long and carefully smothered up?”: Oliver Wolcott Jr., introductory note [3 July 1797], Founders Online, National Archives.
Eliza knew whom she blamed for all the heartache: The real culprit was likely Thomas Jefferson’s campaign manager, John Beckley; see Serratorre, “Alexander Hamilton’s Adultery and Apology.”
CHAPTER 15
found Angelica “the mirror of affectation”: Otis, Life and Letters, 142.
“makes it a habit of receiving while lying down in her bedroom”: Naulin, “A Genteel Family,” 25.
“I rely on your promise to compose your dear heart”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 14 January 1798, Founders Online, National Archives.
“I have been extremely uneasy, My beloved Eliza”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 3 June 1798, Founders Online, National Archives.
“dear boys & myself continue in good health & that they thus far behave well”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 5 June 1798, Founders Online, National Archives.
the Harlem Heights area was a popular summer retreat: “Neighborhood,” Hamilton Heights–West Harlem Community Preservation Organization, accessed April 1, 2018, http://westharlemcpo.org/neighborhood-
history/.
“You are my good genius; of that kind which the ancient Philosophers called a familiar”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, [19] November 1798, Founders Online, National Archives.
it was the virtues of the Roman wife recounted by Valerius Maximus: Mary Lefkowitz, Maureen Fant, eds., Women’s Life in Greece and Rome (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 2005), 134ff.
“Why . . . should I now hold up to view our intimate and secret plans”: Women’s Life in Greece and Rome, 137.
“Aided by our natural credulity and the respect paid”: Letter from Peter Augustus Jay to Ann Jay, 14 February 1799, quoted in “Alexander Hamilton Talks to a Ghost,” FoundingFatherFest (blog), September 27, 2011, http://foundingfatherfest.tumblr.com/post/10718081295/alexander-hamilton-talks-to-a-ghost.
“to frighten the family for amusement”: Letter from Peter Augustus Jay to Ann Jay, 14 February 1799, quoted in “Alexander Hamilton Talks to a Ghost.”
“It seems it was a plot laid by General Hamilton, Mrs. Church, young Church”: Bleecker, diary.
“dug in the filthiest corners of the town”: Andy Newman, “Intact Pipes from 1800s Once Carried Water, Though Not Very Well,” New York Times, April 18, 2013, https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/early-water-delivery-system-in-the-city-cut-corners-and-trees/?smid=pl-share.
“in some company intimated that Burr had been bribed”: Chernow, Hamilton, 589.
“a gentleman called this instant to tell me a duel was to take place between General Hamilton and myself”: John Skey Eustace to Alexander Hamilton, January 1799, private collection, Sotheby’s.
“You are perfectly right, Sir, in calling the story you mention a more than ridiculous one”: Alexander Hamilton to John Skey Eustace, 10 January 1799, private collection, Sotheby’s.
“measured the distances [for the building] as though marking the frontage of a [military] camp”: Quoted in Thomas Fleming, “Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of America,” New York: Perseus Books, 1999, republished online at Washington Post, March 31, 2000, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/duel.htm.
Eliza Hamilton Page 35
