Hamilton and Eliza came of age on the eve of a Revolution In 1772, after writing a powerful essay describing the devastation inflicted on Nevis by a recent hurricane, a group of local businessmen took up a collection to send young Hamilton to America to continue his education. A lifelong reader who was largely self-educated, he soon set his sights far beyond his tiny island home. He found work at a local import-export firm, where he quickly impressed his bosses. A single mother, Rachel struggled to provide for Alexander and his brother before she died in 1768, leaving him an orphan.īut while Hamilton came from an impoverished background, he had two key traits that would help propel him to the top - intelligence and ambition. Because his mother had never divorced her first husband, Hamilton’s father, James, abandoned the family, likely to prevent Rachel from being charged with bigamy. He was born out of wedlock, a status that his political opponents would later seize on. His mother, Rachel Faucette, had been born there to British and French Huguenot parents. 1755 on the island of Nevis, in the British West Indies. Hamilton’s prospects were far less promising. Eliza had pedigree, money and status while Hamilton had none senator from New York from 1789 to 1791 - losing his seat to none other than Aaron Burr (who would eventually kill his future son-in-law Alexander in a duel). After the war he was active in both local and national politics, even serving as a U.S. He served several stints in the Continental Congress and was involved in planning a number of notable Revolutionary War battles, including the surprising Colonial victory at Saratoga in 1777, the first widespread British defeat and a turning point of the war. He eventually became a prominent landowner, with tens of thousands of acres in the Albany area. Philip also hailed from a prominent family and he commanded a militia during the French and Indian War of the 1750s. A noted beauty, she was a bright star on the social scene of Albany before and after her marriage. Catherine, also known as Kitty, was the daughter of one of New York State’s oldest, richest and most prominent Dutch families. Eliza descended from some of America’s most prominent early familiesīorn in August 1757, she was one of eight surviving children of Philip Schuyler and Catherine Van Rensselaer. But despite these differences, the pair formed a lasting bond that has been the subject of numerous books and the award-winning musical, Hamilton. She came from a well-established, highly-regarded family, he was an orphaned immigrant. When Elizabeth “Eliza” Schuyler married Alexander Hamilton in December 1780, the pair would have seemed like a great mismatch on paper.
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