Alexander Hamilton
Born:Â January 11, 1757 at Charlestown, Nevis, British West Indies
Died:Â July 12, 1804 (aged 47) at New York City, New York
Spouse: Elizabeth Schuyler (m. 1780 – 1804)
Offices held:
1st United States Secretary of the Treasury (1789 – 1795)
Senior Officer of the Army (1799 – 1800)
Delegate to the Congress of the Confederation from New York (1788 – 1789 and 1782 – 1783)
Political Party:Â Federalist
Family:
Spouse:
Children: Philip Hamilton, Angelica Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton Jr., James Alexander Hamilton, John Church Hamilton, William S. Hamilton, Eliza Hamilton, Phil Hamilton
Facts about Alexander Hamilton
In August 1772, Hamilton’s letter to his father about a hurricane that struck Nevis was reprinted in a newspaper, the Royal Danish American Gazette. The locals were so impressed that they took up a collection to send Hamilton to a college in the British North American colonies. Princeton rejected Hamilton, but King’s College (later known as Columbia) accepted him.
He was a member of the Continental Congress, an author of the Federalist Papers, a champion of the Constitution and the first secretary of the Treasury.
While serving in the Treasury, Hamilton helped found the first national bank, the U.S. Mint and the Revenue Cutter Service, a tax collection bureau that would later become the U.S. Coast Guard.
In 1784 he founded the Bank of New York, America’s oldest continuous banking organization.
Alexander Hamilton was the subject of one of America’s first highly publicized political sex scandals. In 1791 the married Hamilton met a young Philadelphia woman named Maria Reynolds, who claimed she needed cash because her husband had left her with a small daughter to support. Himself an orphan, Hamilton quickly agreed, but their financial arrangement soon morphed into a trickier entanglement as the pair embarked on an affair that would last more than three years. Maria Reynolds was no desperate housewife, however. She and her husband, James, had carefully planned the affair in an attempt to extort even larger amounts from then-Secretary Hamilton, who readily coughed up the sums.
Hamilton was a mostly self-taught lawyer.
Alexander Hamilton and his eldest son were killed under similar circumstances and in the same location. In 1801, after witnessing a speech denouncing his father, 19-year-old Philip confronted New York lawyer George Eacker and demanded a retraction. When Eacker refused, a duel was set for November 20 in Weehawken, New Jersey. Eacker escaped unscathed, but Philip died an agonizing death the following day.
Hamilton’s moves as Treasury Secretary and as a proponent of a strong central government led to the unofficial formation of the first American political party – Federalist Party by 1791.
Alexander Hamilton Childhood
Founding father Alexander Hamilton was born circa January 11, 1755 or 1757 (the exact date is unknown), on the island of Nevis in the British West Indies. Hamilton’s parents were Rachel Fawcett Lavien, who was of British and French Huguenot descent, and James Hamilton, a Scottish trader. At the time of Alexander’s birth, Rachel was married to John Lavien, a much older merchant whom she had been pressured to wed by her parents when she was a teenager. They had a son, Peter together. Lavien was abusive to Rachel and had spent nearly all the money she had inherited when her father died in 1745. During their tumultuous relationship, by Danish law, he even had her imprisoned for several months for adultery.
When she was released, instead of returning to her husband and son, the independent-minded Rachel fled the troubled marriage and moved to St. Kitts. It was there she met and moved in with James Hamilton, with whom she had another son James, Alexander’s older brother who was born in 1753. After moving back to St. Croix, James Sr. abandoned the family when Alexander was a boy, leaving Rachel and her sons impoverished. John Adams would one day come to characterize Hamilton’s rise from humble beginnings by describing the young Hamilton as “”the bastard brat of a Scottish peddler.””
Determined to improve his lot in life, Hamilton took his first job at the tender age of 11, not long after his father left. But the family was soon dealt another sad blow. After working tirelessly to make ends meet, his mother became ill and died in 1768 at the age of 38.
Working as an accounting clerk in an mercantile in St. Croix, the bright and ambitious young lad quickly impressed his employer. Through this early experience, Alexander Hamilton was first exposed to international commerce (including the importing of slaves) and learned about the business of money and trade. Hamilton’s boss, a businessman named Nicolas Cruger, so valued Hamilton’s acumen when it came to accounting that he and other businessmen pooled their resources with a minister and newspaper editor named Hugh Knox to send Hamilton to America for an education. Hamilton had impressed Knox with his writing skills after Hamilton had a letter describing a ferocious hurricane had hit the island in 1772.
In 1773, when he was around 16 years old, Hamilton arrived in New York, where he enrolled in King’s College (later renamed Columbia University). Despite his gratitude toward his generous patrons, with the American colonies on the brink of a revolution, Hamilton was drawn more to political involvement than he was to academics. In 1774, he wrote his first political article defending the Patriots’ cause against the interests of pro-British Loyalists.
A quick learner, Hamilton deemed himself quite capable of becoming a self-made man. Intent on learning through hands-on experience, he left King’s College before graduating to join forces with the Patriots in their protest of British-imposed taxes and commercial business regulations.
Where is Alexander Hamilton buried?
He was buried in the Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in Manhattan. Gouverneur Morris, a political ally of Hamilton’s, gave the eulogy at his funeral and established a private fund to support his widow and children.
How did Alexander Hamilton die?
Hamilton was fatally wounded in famous Burr – Hamilton duel on July 11, 1804. He died the following day.”