“Tell the Renowned Philip . . . I have been told that he has out stript all his Competitors”: Gertrude Lewis to Elizabeth Hamilton, 17 October 1800, quoted in McLane Hamilton, Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton, 103.
“Don’t be alarmed that Kitty is sent for”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 23 September 1801, Founders Online, National Archives.
“On Saturday, My Dear Eliza, your sister took leave of her sufferings”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 2 October 1801, Founders Online, National Archives.
“I was extremely disappointed, My Dear Eliza”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 2 October 1801.
“Naughty young man,” Alexander sympathized: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 25 October 1801, Founders Online, National Archives.
in the words of one of his father’s friends, a “sad rake”: Remark by Robert Troup, quoted in Fleming, Duel.
A Friday night at the Park in the early 1800s was not a staid affair: Timothy J. Gilfoyle, City of Eros (New York: Norton & Co., 1992), 67.
“replete with the most sarcastic remarks”: “The Duels Between Price and Philip Hamilton and George I. Eacker,” New York Gazette and General Advertiser, November 24, 1801; [Philip Hamilton], obituary, New-York Evening Post, November 28, 1801
“It is too abominable to be publicly insulted by a set of rascals”: “The Duels Between Price and Philip Hamilton and George I. Eacker,” New York Gazette and General Advertiser.
Circa 1801, “rascal” retained its original sense: Francis Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (London: S. Hooper, 1785; rpt. 1811), s.v. “rascal.”
“Who do you call damn’d rascals?”: American Citizen and General Advertiser, November 26, 1801; New-York Evening Post, November 28, 1801; for Thomas W. Rathbone, November 21–December 9, 1801, see Benjamin Rush to Alexander Hamilton, 26 November 1801, n1, Founders Online, National Archives.
His challenge followed, just before midnight: Lamb, History of the City of New York, 2:478.
“On Monday before the time appointed for the meeting”: Thomas Rathbone, November 21–December 9, 1801; see Benjamin Rush to Alexander Hamilton, November 26, 1801, n1, Founders Online, National Archives.
But form gave George Eacker the first shot: Fleming, Duel.
“Doctor, I despair”: See Alexander Hamilton to Benjamin Rush, November 26, 1801, n. 1, Founders Online, National Archives.
“Never did I see a man so completely overwhelmed with grief as Hamilton”: Charles R. King, ed., The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, Comprising his Letters, Private and Official, his Public Documents and His Speeches (New York: G. P. Putman’s Sons, 1900), 4:28.
“On a Bed without curtains lay poor Phil”: “The Duels Between—Price and Philip Hamilton, and George I. Eacker,” Historical Magazine 2, no. 2 (October 1867): 203–4.
“Philip Hamilton linger’d of his wound till about five o’clock”: Bleecker, diary.
“upon receipt of the news of her brother’s death in the Eacker duel”: McLane Hamilton, Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton, 219.
the trauma of her brother’s death triggered psychosis: On the connections between trauma and schizophrenia, see Mick P. Fleming and Colin R. Martin, “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Schizophrenia: Case Study,” in Colin Martin, Victor Preedy, Vinood Patel, eds., Comprehensive Guide to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (New York: Springer, 2016), 2275–84.
“Considerations like those my Child”: Philip Schuyler to Elizabeth Hamilton, 19 February 1802, Alexander Hamilton Papers Publication Project, AH Papers Box 278.
“Exert therefore my dearly beloved child that energy”: Philip Schuyler to Elizabeth Hamilton, 19 February 1802.
“May the loss of one be compensated by another Philip”: Philip Schuyler to Elizabeth Hamilton, 23 August 1802, Schuyler Mansion Archives, https://parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/33/details.aspx.
“In the later period of life misfortunes seem to thicken round us”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, March 1803, Founders Online, National Archives.
“Remember that the main object of the visit is to console him”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 16–17 March 1803, Founders Online, National Archives.
“pouts and plays, and displays more and more her ample stock of Caprice”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 20 March 1803, Founders Online, National Archives.
“after giving and receiving for nearly half a century a series of mutual evidences of an affection”: Philip Schuyler to Alexander Hamilton, 16 April 1803, Founders Online, National Archives.
CHAPTER 16
“I shall be glad to find that my dear little Philip is weaned”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, October 1803, Founders Online, National Archives.
“I observe in your warrant of Attorney a new error”: Alexander Hamilton to Aaron Burr, 10 October 1803, Founders Online, National Archives.
“For God’s sake . . . cease these conversations and threatenings”: Quoted in John Torrey Mores, The Life of Alexander Hamilton (New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 1876), 354.
“If not prevented by the cleaning of your house”: Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, 7–11 May 1804, Founders Online, National Archives.
“Who do you think was at the door?”: Church Hamilton, Life of Alexander Hamilton, 7:802.
“Gen. Hamilton, the Patroon’s brother-in-law, it is said, has come out decidedly”: Peter Hess, “The Albany Connections of Burr, Hamilton, and Schuyler,” New York History Blog, May 14, 2015, http://newyorkhistoryblog.org/2015/05/14/the-albany-connections-of-burr-hamilton-and-schuyler/.
“still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed”: Alexander Hamilton to Aaron Burr, 20 June 1804, Founders Online, National Archives.
“upward of twenty women of ill fame”: Sedgwick, War of Two, 326.
Burr, like Thomas Jefferson, had mixed-race illegitimate children: Greg Ip, “Aaron Burr Fans Find Unlikely Ally in Black Descendent,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 4, 2005, www.post-gazette.com/news/nation/2005/10/05/Aaron-Burr-fans-find-unlikely-ally-in-black-descendant/stories/200510050184.
nefarious plot to betray the Americans in the West: R. Kent Newmyer, “Burr Versus Jefferson Versus Marshall,” Humanities: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities 34, no. 3 (May/June 2013), www.neh.gov/humanities/2013/mayjune/feature/burr-versus-jefferson-versus-marshall.
“laid with them upon the grass”: Church Hamilton, Life of Alexander Hamilton, 7:823.
“With what emphasis and fervor did he read of battles”: Church Hamilton, Life of Alexander Hamilton, 7:827.
Their destination was the marshland of Weehawken: Jason George, “A Duel Evokes Emotions over a Unique Place in History,” New York Times, July 5, 2004, www.nytimes.com/2004/07/05/nyregion/a-duel-evokes-dueling-emotions-over-a-unique-place-in-history.html?mcubz=3.
He had already decided to throw away his shot: William Coleman, Collection of the Facts and Documents Relative to the Death of Alexander Hamilton, with Comments Together with the Various Orations on His Life and Character (New York: I. Riley and Company, 1804), 20.
“This is a mortal wound”: David Hosack to William Coleman, 17 August 1804, Founders Online, National Archives; Church Hamilton, Life of Alexander Hamilton, 7:829.
“He asked me once or twice how I found his pulse”: David Hosack to William Coleman, 17 August 1804; Church Hamilton, 7:829.
“Let Mrs. Hamilton be immediately sent for”: David Hosack to William Coleman, 17 August 1804; Church Hamilton, 7:829.
“My beloved wife and children”: Church Hamilton, 7:829.
“Remember, my Eliza, you are a Christian”: Church Hamilton, 7:836.
“If it had been possible for me to have avoided the interview”: Robert Brammer, “My Beloved Eliza: The Final Letters from Alexander Hamilton to his Wife,” In Custodia Legis (blog), Library of Congress, September 19, 2016, https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2016/09/my-beloved-eliza-the-final-letters-from-alexander-ha
milton-to-his-wife/.
“Fly to the bosom of your God and be comforted”: Brammer, “My Beloved Eliza.”
“Adieu best of wives and best of Women”: Brammer, “My Beloved Eliza.”
Angelica lay curled on a sofa next door, “weeping her heart out”: Richard Brookhiser, “July 11, 1804: How Alexander Hamilton’s Friends Grieved,” New York Post, July 10, 2015, http://nypost.com/2015/07/10/july-11-1804-how-alexander-hamiltons-friends-grieved/.
“to join her in prayers for her own death”: Brookhiser, “How Hamilton’s Friends Grieved.”
“a melancholy event—the circumstances of which are really too bad to think of”: Joan Barthel, American Saint: The Life of Elizabeth Seton (New York: Macmillan, 2014), 98.
CHAPTER 17
“not having the fear of God before his eyes”: The State of New Jersey v. Aaron Burr: indictment for murder, October 23, 1804, Founders Online, National Archives.
a habit after church of visiting Elizabeth De Hart Bleecker: Bleecker, diary.
“immediately set about the execution of the plan suggested”: “Oliver Wolcott Jr. Papers: Letters and Documents Concerning Alexander Hamilton, July 1804,” Connecticut Historical Society, http://collections.ctdigitalarchive.org/islandora/object/40002:27304#page/38/mode/2up.
“on the Subject of Gen. Hamilton affairs”: “Oliver Wolcott Jr. Papers.”
“Your brother[-in-law] deems it the most prudent”: Angelica Church to Elizabeth Hamilton, n.d., quoted in McLane Hamilton, Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton, 355–56.
“sufficiently large that you may not be in the least crowded”: Philip Schuyler to Elizabeth Hamilton, 22 July 1804, Schuyler-Malcom Family Papers.
“a place where the Sweet Smiles, the Amiable affability”: Philip Schuyler to Elizabeth Hamilton, 25 October 1804, private collection, Sotheby’s.
“I have removed the Bust”: Elizabeth Hamilton to Philip Schuyler, 6 November 1804, Schuyler-Malcom Family Papers.
“accessory before the fact”: “Guide to the Papers of Nathaniel Pendleton 1767–1867,” New York Historical Society Museum and Library, MS 483, accessed April 1, 2018, http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/nyhs/pendleton/; the trial was ultimately abandoned.
“The Grievous Affliction I am under”: Elizabeth Hamilton to Nathaniel Pendleton, 17 September 1804, Alexander Hamilton Papers Publication Project.
“Do I not owe it to the memory of my beloved Husband”: Elizabeth Hamilton to Nathaniel Pendleton, 29 September 1804, Alexander Hamilton Papers Publication Project.
“My dear papa . . . I have not said anything to Mr. [John] Mason”: Lossing, Life and Times of Philip Schuyler, 2:476.
“That your afflictions, my dear, dearly beloved child, had added to mine”: Lossing, 2:476.
“Since my last letter to you I have no gout”: Lossing, 2:476.
Her other siblings were all on firm financial ground: Lange, “Women of the Schuyler Mansion.”
“A report has prevailed . . . that my father gave me”: McLane Hamilton, Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton, 140.
Adams was among Alexander’s most vituperative enemies: “Introductory Note: Letter from Alexander Hamilton, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq. President of the United States, [24 October 1800],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-25-02-0110-0001.
“marriage with the youngest daughter of General Schuyler”: Samuel B. Malcom to Thomas Jefferson, 15 May 1812, Founders Online, National Archives.
But Samuel was also in the newspapers: Edwin Burritt Smith, Reports of Cases Adjudged and Determined in the Supreme Court of Judicature and Court for the Trial of Impeachments and Correction of Errors of the State of New York (New York: Lawyer’s Cooperative Publishing Company, 1883), 3:563.
“Dear Sister . . . Mr Church waited on you”: Angelica Church to Catherine Malcolm, 8 December 1804, Schuyler-Malcom Family Papers.
The will, written before the two youngest girls were settled: Philip Schuyler, “Last Will and Testament,” 1803, New York State Museum, accessed April 1, 2018, https://exhibitions.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/wills/willphschuyler1750.html.
she was due income of $62.35: John Henry to Elizabeth Hamilton, 3 January 1805, Alexander Hamilton Papers Publication Project, AH Papers Box 280.
“My Dear Brother . . . Thus is our family situated”: Elizabeth Hamilton to Philip J. Schuyler, 1805, Alexander Hamilton Papers Publication Project, AH Papers Box 280.
“I am told a farm has lately been sold”: Elizabeth Hamilton to Philip J. Schuyler, 13 May 1805, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton Papers, New-York Historical Society.
What she did not know was that behind the sale lay a marvelous secret: John L. Brooke, Columbia Rising: Civil Life on the Upper Hudson from the Revolution to the Age of Jackson (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 542.
“Dear Madam . . . We have this moment parted”: John Mason to Angelica Church, 23 September 1805, private collection, Sotheby’s.
So when Sarah Hoffman discovered in a shabby tenement: Notable American Women, 1607–1950, 1:139.
Would “Mrs. General Hamilton” join them: Anne M. Boylan, The Origins of Women’s Activism: New York and Boston, 1797–1840 (Raleigh, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 104.
Among the trustees were more society women, almost all of whom had long been part of Eliza and Alexander’s inner circle: Ellin Kelly, “Elizabeth Seton: Key Relationships in Her Life, 1774–1809,” Vincentian Heritage Journal 14, no. 2 (Fall 1993): 305–27.
But they had turned away nine times as many: “History,” Graham Windham, accessed April 1, 2018, http://www.graham-windham.org/about-us/history/.
The women turned to the local churches and newspapers: Boylan, Origins of Women’s Activism, 104.
“In the space of fourteen months,” the editors gushed: Boylan, 104.
CHAPTER 18
Catherine’s husband, Samuel Malcolm, who still nursed old grievances: Samuel B. Malcom to John Adams, 26 September 1797, Founders Online, National Archives.
Washington Morton, caught up in a second fatal duel: J. Jefferson Looney and Ruth L. Woodward, Princetonians, 1791–1794: A Biographical Dictionary (Princeton, NJ: University of Princeton Press, 1991), 201–2.
“losing her reason amid the sudden horrors of her father’s death”: George Washington Bethune, Memoirs of Mrs. Joanna Bethune (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1863), 116.
“I have returned home my jaunt to the city was more fatiguing than pleasant”: Mary Anna Hamilton to Catherine Malcolm, n.d., Schuyler-Malcom Family Papers, New York Public Library.
“at that time an attack on New York city, by the British, was considered imminent”: James Hamilton, Reminiscences of James A. Hamilton; Or, Men and Events, at Home and Abroad, During Three Quarters of a Century (New York: Charles Scribner and Co., 1869), 41.
An Act for the Relief of Elizabeth Hamilton: Alexander Hamilton, explanation of his financial situation, [1 July 1804], Founders Online, National Archives; citing Nathaniel Pendleton, ADS, RG 233, Records of the Committee on Pensions and Claims, National Archives.
“Shortly after the death of General Hamilton”: Oliver Wolcott Jr., introductory note [3 July 1797], Founders Online, National Archives.
“small bundle inscribed thus—J R To be forwarded to Oliver Wolcott Junr. Esq.”: Oliver Wolcott Jr., introductory note [3 July 1797].
“a Packet of Papers . . . which were deposited”: Oliver Wolcott Jr., introductory note [3 July 1797].
“to be retained by myself”: Oliver Wolcott Jr., introductory note [3 July 1797].
“I have been so disappointed by the promises of Mr. Masson in writing the life of your brother[-in-law]”: Hamilton, Reminiscences, 17.
“who will devote himself to it [is] a Mr [Joseph] Hopkinson now in Congress”: Hamilton, Reminiscences, 18.
“the more debt Hamilton could rake up, the more plunder for his mercenaries”: Hamilton, Reminiscences, 17.
“The charge against Hamilton is, substantially, that he enabled his myrmidons to amass fortunes”: Hamilton, Reminiscences, 18.
“debauchery of all the Sisters of his Wife”: William Cunningham to John Adams, 18 April 1811, Founders Online, National Archives.
“Should you now refuse to recal the calumny you have spread of Hamilton”: William Cunningham to John Adams, 18 April 1811.
“no publication of the kind ever produced a deeper or wider sensation”: Arthur Schlesinger Jr., “The War Between Adams and Hamilton,” New Republic, December 31, 1961, https://newrepublic.com/article/63493/the-war-between-adams-and-hamilton; Octavius Pickering and Charles Wentworth Upham, The Life of Timothy Pickering (Boston: Little, Brown, 1873), 4:338.
“Mrs. Hamilton and her children”: Pickering and Upham, Timothy Pickering, 339–40.
“all the papers relating to the subject”: Pickering and Upham, 343.
CHAPTER 19
“I can make it agreeable to you as we have an excellent clergyman near us”: Elizabeth Hamilton to Catherine Malcolm, 8 November 1818, Schuyler-Malcom Family Papers.
“[Come] with them and live with me”: Elizabeth Hamilton to Catherine [Malcolm] Cochrane, 1819, Alexander Hamilton Papers Publication Project, AH Papers Box 280.
“domestic anecdotes . . . style of conversation—and indeed everything”: Elizabeth Hamilton to Catherine [Malcolm] Cochrane, 25 October 1819, Alexander Hamilton Papers Publication Project, AH Papers Box 280.
“Sir: Please to meet me with the weapon you choose, on the 15th May”: Hamilton, Reminiscences, 55.
“It was done . . . in the hope that I might be disgraced or destroyed”: Hamilton, Reminiscences, 56.
“Whole familys have been unbaptised some persons in their neighborhood”: Elizabeth Hamilton to unknown correspondent, 4 March 1819, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton Papers, New-York Historical Society.
Eliza Hamilton Page 36
