Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton
"Best of wives, best of women."
Elizabeth Hamilton (née Schuyler 1757
– 1854), aka Eliza was a philanthropist more commonly known
for being the wife of American founding father Alexander Hamilton. However, she
was an important lady in her own right.
Elizabeth was born in New York,
daughter of a Revolutionary War General. Her mother’s family were one of the
richest and most politically influential families in the state. As well as her
two sisters of Hamilton fame, she had 14 siblings in total. Her family was among the wealthy Dutch
landowners who had settled around Albany in the mid-1600s, and both her mother
and father came from wealthy and well-regarded families.]It’s worth noting that they were also
a slaveowning family and that much of the comfort Eliza grew up in was built on
the labour of slaves, as was true of most elite classes at the time. Eliza was well-educated
and brought up with a strong Christian faith that would remain with her throughout
her life.
When she was a girl, Elizabeth
accompanied her father to a meeting of the Six Nations and
met Benjamin Franklin.
It was said that she was somewhat “tom-boyish” as a child, and was noted for
her impulsiveness and strong will (the horror! a woman with a will of her own!)
She was descriebd by an acquaintance as: ‘a strong character with its
depth and warmth, whether of feeling or temper controlled, but glowing
underneath, bursting through at times in some emphatic expression."
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In early 1780, while staying with an
aunt in New Jersey she met Alexander Hamilton, one of George Washington’s aides.
However, they had actually briefly met two years before when Hamilton dined
with the Schuylers on returning from a negotiation. While in New Jersey, Eliza
also met and became friends with Martha Washington, a friendship they would
maintain throughout their husbands' political careers. Eliza later said of Mrs.
Washington, "She was always my ideal of a true woman."
After meeting Eliza, it is said that Hamilton
was so infatuated he forgot the password to enter army headquarters. Their
relationship quickly blossomed, continuing through letters when Hamilton was
deployed elsewhere. Their father gave them his blessing (unlike her two sisters
who eloped). Eliza wrote to Hamilton asking him to save the life of her
childhood crush, who had been captured by the army. Hamilton tried and failed. After
two more months apart, Alexander and Eliza were married on December 14 1780.
After a short honeymoon at the
Pastures, Eliza's childhood home, Hamilton returned to military service in
early January 1781. Eliza soon joined him, rekindling her friendship with
Martha with whom she entertained other officers. However, Washington and
Hamilton fell out, and the couple moved back to New York. As well as running
their house, Eliza helped Alexander with his political writings—parts of his
31-page letter to Robert Morris,
laying out much of the financial knowledge that was to aid him later in his
career, are in her handwriting. I’m reminded of one of the songs in Hamilton,
where Burr questions how Alexander wrote so much so quickly – it seems, with
the aid of his devoted wife.
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On discovering she was pregnant with
their first child, Philip, Eliza moved back to her parents’ home. While apart,
Alexander wrote her numerous letters reassuring her of his safety and, crucially,
discussing confidential military secrets showing her importance to him
personally and politically. Meanwhile,
the war came close to home, when British soldiers attempted to raid the
Pastures. (According to some accounts, the family was spared from harm thanks
to her sister Peggy's quick thinking: she told the raiders that her father had
gone to town to get help, causing them to flee – another inversion of the damsel/white
knight paradigm.)
After the Battle of Yorktown, Alexander
was reunited with Eliza in Albany, where they would remain for almost another
two years, before moving to New York City in late 1783. In 1787, Eliza agreed
to sit for a portrait by the painter Ralph Earl so that he could some money
and eventually buy his way out of.prison. At this time, she now had three young
children and may have been pregnant with her fourth.In addition to their own
children, in 1787, Eliza and Alexander adopted Frances Antill, the two-year-old
youngest child of Hamilton's friend Colonel Edward Antill.
She was “educated and treated in all respects as [the Hamiltons'] own daughter.
The Hamiltons had an active social
life, often attending the theatre as well as various balls and parties, for
which she complained that: "I had little of private life in those days." This
brought her into contact with some of the most important political players of
the day. After Alexander became Treasury Secretary in 1789, her social duties
only increased, as ‘the leaders of official society.’ Their friend later told
Alexander that Eliza had "as much merit as your treasurer as you have as
treasurer of the United States."
Eliza also continued to aid Alexander
throughout his political career, serving as an intermediary between him and his
publisher, copying out portions of his defence of the Bank of the
United States, and sitting up with him so he could read Washington's
Farewell Address out loud to her as he wrote it. At the same
time she had to raise her many children and run the household (an arduous task
given their many moves). While in Philadelphia, around November 1794, Eliza
suffered a miscarriage possibly triggered by the grave
illness of her youngest child ad the absence of her husband during his armed
suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion. Consequently, Hamilton
resigned from public office immediately afterwards and returned to his
law practice in New York so that he could be closer to his wife’s side.
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However, this bliss was shattered
when in 1797, an affair came to light that had taken place several years
earlier between Hamilton and Maria Reynolds. Eliza at first dismissed the
rumours as slanderous gossip. However, after returning home to Eliza, in August
25, 1797, Hamilton published a pamphlet, later known as the Reynolds Pamphlet, admitting to his one-year
adulterous affair. He did so in order to refute the charges that he had been
involved in public misconduct with his lover’s husband. However, in saving his
reputation, he humiliated his wife and destroyed her own.
At the time of this scandal, Eliza
was pregnant with their sixth child. Nonetheless, she left her husband and
returned to her parent’s house to give birth to her son. She only returned to
her marital home to nurse her eldest son who had contracted typhus. Eventually,
she reconciled with Alexander and bore him two more children. In 1801, their
eldest son was killed in a duel, with his parents by his side. This marked the second
child that Eliza had lost. It seems the rest of their marriage was a happy one,
as letters between them attest. However, just two years after moving into a new
home, her husband was killed in an infamous duel with Aaron Burr in 1804.
Before the duel, he wrote to his wife:
“The consolations of Religion, my beloved, can alone support you; and these you have a right to enjoy. Fly to the bosom of your God and be comforted. With my last idea; I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world. Adieu best of wives and best of Women. Embrace all my darling Children for me.”
Alexander Hamilton died on July 12,
1804, with Eliza and his surviving children by his side.
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The newly widowed Eliza was left to
pay Hamilton's debts. She was forced to sell her own (although was later able
to re-buy it for half the price as executors of the will decided that it was
illegal to evict her). Eliza was also able to collect Alexander's pension
from his service in the army from congress in 1836 for money and land. In 1848,
she left New York for Washington, D.C., where she lived with her widowed
daughter Eliza until 1854.
Despite his earlier betrayal, Eliza
defended Alexander against his critics in a variety of ways following his death.
She supported his claim of authorship of George
Washington's Farewell Address and by requested that James Monroe formally apologise for his
accusations of financial improprieties. She also petitioned Congress to publish
her husband Alexander Hamilton's writings (1846).
Knowing the importance of legacy to
her husband, she dedicated her life to preserving it. She re-organized all of
Alexander's letters, papers, and writings (no mean feat!) with the help of her
son and persevered through many setbacks in getting his biography published.
This work formed the basis of her son’s biography of his father which became
the foundation for numerous subsequent biographies of Alexander Hamilton. Her
eternal devotion to her husband is clear from the fact that she wore a small
package around her neck containing the pieces of a sonnet that Alexander wrote
for her during the early days of their courtship. The writings that historians
have today by Alexander Hamilton can be attributed to efforts from Eliza. As
late as 1848 when Eliza was in her 90s, she petitioned Congress to buy and
publish her late husband's works. In August, her request was granted and
Congress bought and published Alexander's works, adding them to the Library of
Congress.
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In 1798, Eliza accepted her
friend Isabella Graham's
invitation to join Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children.
In 1806, she founded the Orphan Asylum Society with several other women. Eliza
was appointed vice-president. In 1821, she was named president,
a role she held for 27 years until she left New York in 1848. In this role, she
raised funds, collected needed goods, and oversaw the care and education of
over 700 children. By the time she left she had been with the organization
continuously since its founding, a total of 42 years. The New York Orphan Asylum
Society still exists as a social service agency for children. She is now honoured
as one of America’s earliest philanthropists in the National Museum of American
History.
Until her death, she remained
dedicated to charity work, and became an outspoken abolitionist. She also
helped raise funds for the Washington Monument.
By 1846, Eliza was suffering from
short-term memory loss but was still vividly recalling her husband. Eliza died aged
97, fifty years after the death of her husband, outliving all but one of her
siblings. She was buried in a private vault near her husband.
It is impossible not to feel admiration
and a little bit of sadness for Eliza who dedicated so much of her life to a
husband who could not return her faithful devotion. However, it is clear that
he cared deeply for his family, and her ability to forgive his public
transgressions and remain the perfect wife to him until her death shows the
strength of her character and her inspirational mercy and forgiveness. Without
her efforts, it is likely that Hamilton would have been forgotten in the
shadows of the founding fathers who outlived him. He certainly wouldn’t have
become the star of one of the most successful theatre shows ever! Yet again, the
old adage “behind every strong man is a strong woman” never seemed more apt –
even if she does get little credit for it! I tried so hard to find quotes from
Eliza that weren’t from the stage show but failed, which is really frustrating
given what a prolific writer and activist she was. I have a sneaking suspicion
that they have been wrongly attributed to her husband, but that’s not for me to
say, so alas I only have quotes from the show hahaha. However, her philanthropic
efforts are admirable in their own right, and show that she had principles,
dreams, and ambition beyond her marriage, and that her maternal passion and efficiency
did not stop in her role as a biological mother. Alexander’s story is of course
important and admirable, but it would not be half the story it is without the
work and support of his loving wife, Eliza.
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