46ten

I mostly post about historic Hamilton, but also as a way of discussing 18th century life, masculinity/femininity, mores, education, and society. 

[46ten]

Hello, do you still answer questions? If so, do you know anything about how John C Hamilton made money while supposedly not “committing to the bar” and sorting his father’s papers? He did have a numerous progeny to support after all.

Thank you and I hope you’re doing well:)

I have never looked into JCH's finances and have not read an account by a historian who has, but I believe the informal consensus is that he lived off of his wife's inherited wealth. Maria Eliza van den Heuvel was the daughter of Jan Cornelis van den Heuvel and (maternal side) great-granddaughter of Charles Apthorp, both very wealthy merchants. Just the 1827 sale and division of her father's Bloomingdale property would have netted her about $100k (today's money) - and that's just the mansion and farm.

It is notable that Alex and James A., the latter especially, note having to make their way in the world without much money when starting out, so JCH's assumed financial independence through his wife may have caused some resentment, especially as it afforded him time to be the interpreter of their father's legacy. The dynamics between the oldest brothers are definitely weird.

Here's an 1851 letter for Maria to her daughter Adelaide that mentions Eliza S. Hamilton.

[46ten]

To update this answer, Amanda Vail in "Pride and Pleasure" offers this: "As part of her inheritance Maria has been given the palatial Vanden Heuvel mansion on Broadway and Barclay Street, opposite City Hall Park, but neither Maria nor John want to live in it - the neighborhood is noisy and no longer fashionable -so they've sold it, for a considerable amount, to the proprietor of the American hotel. Now they're considering building a smart new family dwelling...and while they decide...they've rented Phil Schuyler's old estate in Rhinebeck." (Pg 538; cites Marian Gouverneur, pg 36)

An aside: oh, I could write quite a bit about Vail's now Pulitzer winning book about the Schuyler sisters, but that will wait.

[46ten]

Do you know perchance how long Philip (son of John Bradstreet Schuyler) stayed with the Hamiltons after his parents’ death? I know they took him in and he wasn’t there anymore by the 1798 but I can’t find anything more.

I do not know and cannot recall coming across further details that would answer this specific question about Philip Bradstreet Schuyler (1788-1865) - two sources provide accounts that I know of: Catherine Schuyler by Mary Gay Humphreys (pg 229):

John Bradstreet, the eldest son, to whom the estate of Saratoga was given, had married Elizabeth Van Rensselaer, the sister of the Patroon Stephen, the husband of Margaret Schuyler. His married life was brief. He died a few years after, leaving a boy, Philip, to be the representative of the name. This boy was sent to the Hamiltons', and with young Cortland Schuyler and the Hamilton boys went to Bishop Moore's school for boys on Staten Island, returning to New York Friday evenings to spend Sundays with the Hamiltons.

and then this website that has alot more about his adult life:

PHILIP SCHUYLER, 2D.

Philip Schuyler, 2d, was seven years of age when his father, John Bradstreet [Schuyler], died.  His grandfather, the General, was appointed his guardian, who first placed him in a school on Staten Island, under the charge of Dr. Moore, afterwards Bishop of Virginia, and later he was sent to Columbia College.  During his collegiate course he lived in New York, and for part of the time in the family of his talented uncle, Alexander Hamilton; a rare privilege, that, for a young man in the formative period of his life.

[The Dr. Moore mentioned above was Richard, not Benjamin - the latter was the Episcopal Bishop of NY who was at AH's deathbed.]

The various P. Schuyler grandchildren, as minors, are difficult to trace, and this isn't helped by the destruction of most letters to P. Schuyler. But what does seem obvious is that they, including the Hamilton children, were often in the care of other family members and the whole family's lives were very intertwined - its not only PB Schuyler, but P Schuyler daughters Cornelia and Catherine and their brothers and brothers-in-law staying with the Hamiltons at various times.

PB Schuyler's mother, Elizabeth Van Rensselaer (1768-1841) remarried in 1798. There's a fun article on her first husband's - our John Bradstreet S's (1765-1795), expensive tastes. Honestly, it's shocking how much money the Schuylers spent on furnishings and luxury items, especially when comparing the sums they spent to the average wages at the time. There's also a fun rabbithole one can go down of AH securing the continued tenant financial system for Stephen Van Rensselaer, Elizabeth's brother and Margarita's husband. A friend of the rich, indeed!

[46ten]

Hello, do you still answer questions? If so, do you know anything about how John C Hamilton made money while supposedly not “committing to the bar” and sorting his father’s papers? He did have a numerous progeny to support after all.

Thank you and I hope you’re doing well:)

I have never looked into JCH's finances and have not read an account by a historian who has, but I believe the informal consensus is that he lived off of his wife's inherited wealth. Maria Eliza van den Heuvel was the daughter of Jan Cornelis van den Heuvel and (maternal side) great-granddaughter of Charles Apthorp, both very wealthy merchants. Just the 1827 sale and division of her father's Bloomingdale property would have netted her about $100k (today's money) - and that's just the mansion and farm.

It is notable that Alex and James A., the latter especially, note having to make their way in the world without much money when starting out, so JCH's assumed financial independence through his wife may have caused some resentment, especially as it afforded him time to be the interpreter of their father's legacy. The dynamics between the oldest brothers are definitely weird.

Here's an 1851 letter for Maria to her daughter Adelaide that mentions Eliza S. Hamilton.

[46ten]

Hi, I love your blog. you said previously that the sons of John C. Hamilton weren’t speaking to him around 1856 do you know why. Sorry if it’s incoherent.

Thanks! I was joking - although I think it's obvious that there were complicated family dynamics among the Hamilton kids that probably also played out with the grandkids.

[46ten]

Hello! Did you write: "AH and Peter Lavien connections, part 1"? Did you write a second part? Sincerely, Geurt de Wit

https://www.tumblr.com/46ten/625340962869215232/ah-and-peter-lavien-connections-part-2?source=share

[46ten]

AH’s Art of Blessed Dying

The deathbed accounts written by ministers and friends about AH are valuable because they are early attempts at crafting a narrative about Alexander Hamilton for posterity. His friends were well aware of this - most of these accounts were very quickly published*.   

But there’s another purpose to these beyond entertaining a morbidly curious public. His friends are witnessing to AH having a “Good” or “Blessed Death,” informing a worried public that he died as a pious Christian. It was probably of grave concern to members of the public, especially those opposed to dueling, that AH had died engaged in an activity in which he possibly intended to take the life of another man. These accounts address that his intent was never to harm Burr, and they confirm that AH held common Christian beliefs about the nature of death. These accounts also witness to AH as a follower of the Ars moriendi and place him more firmly in the Christian milieu of the early 19th century. 

The scarcity of priests to minister the final sacraments to the numerous dying during the era of the Black Death created a crisis that the Roman Catholic Church sought to address at the Council of Constance (1415-1418) by advocating for the creation of a text that would provide the laity with instructions for a holy death. The first Catholic Ars moriendi (The Art of Dying) devotionals were published in 1415 and 1450.  This type of literature became very popular and was widespread throughout Europe by the 17th century. In 1651, Bishop Jeremy Taylor, one of the Caroline Divines, published The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying (he published The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living the year before). This became one of the most popular Christian devotionals on death. Taylor provides meditations and prayers for a Christian to say “in their sickness.“ Taylor’s texts were inspirational to John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism, but even more so they seeped into the Christian public consciousness of a "Good Death.”  

Even if one did not read the devotional texts, familiarity with the concepts were widespread among Anglo-Protestants through the 19th century. The “art of dying” became a deeply enmeshed tradition, a ritual whereby loved ones could be convinced of the eternal salvation of their beloved dead.  Some of the concepts of the good death included the dying person demonstrating repentance, resignation to the will of God, and confidence in the mercy of God (signs of despair and impatience were seen as lack of Christian belief). One’s last words (focused on holy thoughts?) signified the eternal state of one’s soul. Even one’s countenance (at peace?) at the very moment of death could be read by loved ones and confirm in them the hope of salvation. 

As Taylor wrote: 

He is patient that calls upon God; that hopes for health or heaven; that believes God is wise and just in sending him afflictions; that confesses his sins, and accuses himself and justifies God; that expects God will turn this into good; that is civil to his physicians and his servants; that converses with the guides of souls, the ministers of religion; and in all things submits to God’s will, and would use no indirect means for his recovery; but had rather be sick and die than enter at all into God’s displeasure. Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying

AH was clearly familiar with the precepts that constituted a good death.  One of his most frequent deathbed exhortations to his wife, “Remember, my Eliza, you are a Christian,” is a paraphrase of Taylor’s text: 

Remember that thou art a man and a Christian: as the covenant of nature hath made it necessary, so the covenant of grace hath made it to be chosen by thee, to be a suffering person: either you must renounce your religion or submit to the impositions of God and thy portion of sufferings. So there here we see our advantages, and let us use them accordingly. The barbarous and warlike nations of old could fight well and willingly, but could not bear sickness manfully. The Greeks were cowardly in their fights, as most wise men are; but because they  were learned and well taught, they bore their sickness with patience and severity. The Cimrians and Celtiberians rejoice in battle, like giants; but in their diseases they weep like women. These according to their institution and designs had unequal courages and accidental fortitude. But since our religion hath made a covenant of  sufferings, and the great business of our lives is sufferings, and most of the virtues of a Christian are passive graces, and all the promises of the gospel are passed upon us through Christ’s cross, we have a necessity upon us to have an equal courage in all the variety of our sufferings; for without an universal fortitude we can do nothing of our duty. Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying, x

AH exhorted EH on several occasions to practice Christian resignation, opines that Philip’s death was the “will of heaven,” and advises a friend of the following: 

Arraign not the dispensations of Providence—they must be founded in wisdom and goodness; and when they do not suit us, it must be because there is some fault in ourselves, which deserves chastisement, or because there is a kind intent to correct in us some vice or failing, of which, perhaps, we may not be conscious; or because the general plan requires that we should suffer partial ill. In this situation it is our duty to cultivate resignation…

On both Philip’s deathbed and his own, AH’s friends and family record that he followed the precepts of Christian dying: Philip Hamilton’s death, Moore’s account of AH’s death; Hosack‘s account of AH’s death, Mason’s account of AH’s death.  They surely took comfort that he had, as they believed, performed the duties of a Christian and felt secure in their hope for his eternal salvation, and were ensuring the public of the same.  

As AH wrote to EH: “I charge you to remember that you are a Christian. God’s Will be done. The will of a merciful God must be good.”

*They also seem to have been effective. Looking through genealogy charts, there’s a definite uptick in the number of boys named “Alexander Hamilton [surname]” in 1804 and 1805, who have no relation at all to the Hamiltons or the extended family. It seems a lot of people found this a worthy name to give their sons. 

P.S. I don’t recall it mentioned that when AH states, in Hosack’s account of Philip’s death, “I despair,” he’s making a serious statement about his trust in God’s will. “Despair” was a very serious thing for a Christian, as Taylor wrote: “Despair sins against the reputation of God’s goodness, and the efficacy of all our old experience…”

P.P.S. Some more from The Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying: 

Against [despair]; hope is to be opposed; and its proper acts, as it relates to the virtue and exercises of patient are, 1. Praying to God for help and remedy; 2. Sending for the guides of souls; 3. Using all holy exercises and acts of grace proper to that state, which whoso does hath not the impatience of despair; every man that is patient hath hope in God in the day of his sorrows.  

2. Our complaints in sickness must be without murmur. Murmur sins against God’s providence and government; by it we grow rude, and, like the      falling angels, displeased at God’s supremacy; and nothing is more unreasonable      - to talks against God, for whose glory all speech was made; it is proud and fantastic,hath better opinions of a sinner than of the Divine justice, and would rather accuse God than himself.  

Against this is opposed that part of patience which resigns the man into the hands of God, saying with old Eli, ‘It is the Lord, let him do what he will;’ and, ‘Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven;’ and so by admiring God’s justice and wisdom does also dispose the sick person for receiving God’s mercy, and secures him the rather in the grace of God. The proper acts of this part of     patience are, 1. To confess our sins and our own demerits; 2. It increases and exercises humility; 3. It loves to sing praises to God, even from the lowest abyss of human misery.  

3. Our complaints in sickness must be without peevishness. This sins against civility and that necessary decency which must be used towards the ministers and assistants. By peevishness we increase our own sorrows, and are troublesome to them that stand there to ease ours. It hath in it harshness of nature and ungentleness, wilfulness and fantastic opinions, morosity and incivility.  

Against it are opposed obedience, tractability, easiness of persuasion, aptness to take counsel. The acts of this part of patience are, 1. To obey our physicians; 2. To treat our persons with respect to our present necessities; 3. Not to be ungentle and uneasy to the ministers and nurses that attend us, but to take their diligent and kind offices as sweetly as we can, and to bear their indiscretions or unhandsome accidents contentedly and without disquietness within, or evil language or angry words without; 4. Not to use unlawful means for our recovery. 

[my-deer-friend]

Homosocial – homoromantic – homoerotic – homosexual

A lot of people who talk about 18th century queerness treat these concepts as existing on a linear scale of "straight" to "gay", or as a progression of increasing queerness.

But that kind of framing isn't accurate. There's no line that we can draw here beyond which things become definitively queer. There were homosexual acts that had very little queerness to them, and homoromantic relationships that were fundamentally queer without ever (to our knowledge) straying beyond the emotional.

[46ten]

"There were homosexual acts that had very little queerness to them..."

How are you defining queer? Or rather, the various definitions of queer may be part of the issue? For example, the generation before me would not necessarily have considered a closeted homosexual married man queer, as that word was used for a political (in its most maximalist definition) identity. But since that time, some critical theorists advanced queer as not fitting within heteronormative behaviors/ structures. I'm not even sure how the person on the street is using the term now.

Absolutely agree that even within some communities that would identify as queer today, there's a strong adoption of the heteronormative framework so that the sex act/consummation is seen as the behavior identifying membership, although it's certainly not true among all groups who identify as queer. And even within the heteronormative structure, the romantic to erotic to sexual framing is there because of the importance of reproduction and the need of a larger societal framework around that, not because it's necessarily what every/most/many(?) heterosexual persons actually experience. In other words, the structure/framework exists to serve a societal purpose, and one is expected to conform to that. It's ironic that this is a concept that's challenging to understand, but my disappointment with us all knows no bounds - I wish we understood that these structures/framing are not designed to serve us, and as such, will always be oppressive.

[46ten]

Do you also study John C and Angelica? If you do can you tell me how was their relationship, because I always see people saying that they hated each other and had a terrible marriage but I've never seen proof of that or what their relationship was like in general

John and Angelica S. Church are not a couple I've looked into that much independent of what's generally out there in the public domain - the easily accessible stuff. On tumblr, I think @runawayforthesummer accumulated the most information and was one of the tumblr leaders of the Justice for John Church! group (tired of the way he'd been ignored or smeared, for what doesn't seem to be tangible reasons, by both Hamilton historians and the Hamilton musical fandom). I've mentioned Tom Cutterham's planned book featuring Angelica as a way of exploring several concepts of the Early Republic (I believe he is looking for a publisher) and the articles/podcast episode he's released. Please see his paper (“A Wife and a Mother Has No Business to Be So Well Dressed”: Gender, Class, and Dynasty in the Revolutionary Republic) published last year (2023). Cassandra Good also discusses Angelica in Founding Friendships (2016).

This may help for some general stuff about them:

Church children - almost as soon as they return to the U.S., their youngest, Richard Stephen (who also went by Richard Stephen Hamilton) was conceived - I bring this up not only for circumstantial evidence about their marriage, but because he named his own two sons Alexander and Philip Schuyler, haha. And to keep these family names really confusing, Philip Church (b 1778) ALSO names his son (b 1824) Richard Stephen Church.

Elizabeth Matilda Church Bunner and her siblings, with a link to Funicello's brief article about the Churches.

Church (very briefly) and Hamilton weddings (this has a link to some of Cutterham's work on Angelica)

Some Angelica writing to Eliza, just for fun

What I know about the Churches: they eloped*, so they were obviously pretty hot for each other at one point. They had either 7 or 8 children (depending on whether there was a stillborn/infant death Angelica around 1786-7) and 2-3 of those children (Richard Hamilton, possibly that Angelica, and Alexander Hamilton) died young, so they experienced those losses together. We have Angelica's letter to AH from 1787 where she states: "I do not write by this packet to either of my sisters, nor to my father. It is too Meloncholy an employment to day, as church is not here to be my consolation," so Angelica wrote about her husband at that time as emotionally supportive.

I don't know of any evidence that they were not happily married. Sure, Angelica was homesick 1785-97, but she also understood sensibility and sentimentality and knew how to be emotionally dramatic in the way that was expected from clever gentlewomen for this time period - one can see it in her letters to others, too. Language like "I do not know how long I can bear to be apart from you and I wish I could show you how much I love you" was a feature of correspondence - I think of it as akin to today's memes. She also knew that this kind of language helped shore up ties with her family and extended her/their influence.

My take is that the Church marriage may get a bad rap for a few reasons:

1) the issue of letters - the Churches' correspondence is harder to access - it's more scattered both in U.S. institutions and French/British ones. Even most of the letters Church must have sent Hamilton (and as Hamilton was his lawyer and agent, there had to have been a number of letters; they'd probably known each other since 1777, certainly since 1779) are missing, but Church would have had ample opportunity to go through that correspondence. Also, I'm not sure how much, if any correspondence there was between John and Angelica that survived - they were usually together, and when you consider that we know about the loving relationships of the Adams, Jays, and Hamiltons based on their correspondence (even if one-sided in the case of the Hamiltons), the lack of (surviving) letters in the public domain between them leaves a void. And of note, as homesick as Angelica expresses herself to be, she does stay with her husband - she goes more than seven and a half years without seeing her extended family!

2) I'm entirely speculating, but I also think Angelica Church's role in Amhistory was deliberately downplayed (Powel's and Bingham's certainly was) - Cutterham and Good's research reveal her to be quite canny in currying favor and helping her family's political career(s). Folks may read her performative flirtatiousness as the desperate attempts of a romantically neglected woman to get some action, instead of the clever writings of a genteel woman who knew this type of interaction was how women could advance politically. (Remember how she tries to convince AH to help her father get the British ambassadorship?) She played a role in the attempted escape of Lafayette, she knew Talleyrand and many other diplomats and politicians, she hung out in British court (JC was a member of Parliament, which would have also required her political skill to accomplish), and we certainly know she kept a correspondence with Jefferson, and possibly Washington (among many others). So the love/heartsick Angelica with a horrible husband narrative seems to be a slam on a politically astute woman of that period who knew how to play the cards that were dealt. Again, see Cutterham's article for concerns about Republican women, and the use of sexuality for dynastic pursuits.

3. J Church is a bit inscrutable two centuries on. The man went by a fake name for about 10 years! He is described as a risk-taking (yes), gambling (yes), ambitious (certainly), philandering (um) man of business (yes), the largest insurance underwriter (maybe), uninterested in his wife (um). From what I recall, and I cannot remember which historian first interpreted language in a letter from G. Morris to AH that Morris was gossiping that JChurch was fooling around with the hired help (this would have been in the early 1790s when Morris was in France). But he moves back to America for her, unless he was so concerned about his business interests there, but there's ample evidence that he was enmeshed with her life/her family's life and shared goals to believe that his support for his wife was totally sincere - somewhere there's a reference to the insane amount of money he loaned/gave the Hamiltons (over $700,000?), besides AH's assumption that his brother-in-law would help support them no matter what, anyway. (Hamilton and Church's support of each other was certainly not based on just emotional attachment - they were sharing and securing wealth and influence.) And AH describes him in positive terms: "a man of fortune & integrity—of strong mind, very exact very active & very much a man of business. He is about fifty but of uncommon strength of constitution." AH to Wolcott 2June1798

In American sources upon their return the U.S. in 1797, there are some indications that the Churches are perceived as flaunting their wealth; there are some diary entries/correspondence between a woman or two implying that Angelica is perceived as vain (see also the article I linked above by Cutterham for more about these attitudes), but the scant evidence we have does seem to indicate that they were a couple (with JChurch spending a lot of time hanging out with AHamilton, too - they show a very deep loyalty to each other). The only evidence I could use to speculate about the state of their marriage in the negative is: 1) her homesickness; 2) that she traveled by herself to America in 1789 and spent nine months there - there's some implication that Church told her she needed to come home, but I don't recall where that came from. Other than that, they seem pretty united in their goals in life, both making compromises/sacrifices for the other's happiness/goals - her for his political career (maybe - I'm not convinced she didn't play up her homesickness a bit), his for her desire to be close to her family and serve her family's interests - and J Church clearly found it a worthwhile endeavor to support the Hamiltons in numerous ways.

The good thing about the Churches is that whether through Cutterham, Good, or other researchers, there is clearly more to learn about them and more sources out there that have been underexplored.

*Angelica was incensed when her daughter Catharine eloped with Bertram Peter Cruger in 1802; she refused to speak to them. Oh, the irony!

Also, Philip Schuyler was every bit "think of me as your Father" to J Church (then John Carter) as he was to AHamilton. Except JChurch's father died shortly after he was born, so that makes a bit more sense. I don't think there's any indication of whether AH and JC bonded over feeling smothered by their father-in-law - but it's easy to imagine that played a role in how close they were, too.

[46ten]

James Hamilton, Sr (speculation)

I'm going to beat this dead horse some more.

In checking to see whether any new records have been discovered about James Hamilton, Jr (if that was his name - Peter Lavien thought it might be 'Robert,' haha), born 1751 or 1753 or some point in the 1750s, who may have been apprenticed as a carpenter (Ramsing) and who engaged in some occupation where AH thought he could be set up on a farm (AH's letter to his brother), I didn't find anything!

But I did find one fairly recent article stating James Hamilton Sr. abandoned his family shortly after AH was born, and I just wonder where folks get this stuff? It's one thing to state "unknown," and another to totally make something up. And there's reasoning, beyond just lack of evidence, that this bothers me so much.

I'd like to reflect on why it's popular for some historians to state that James Hamilton abandoned his family:

It allows them to create a narrative where AH was desperate for a father figure and this psychological motivation plays out in his relationship with GWashington. Spoiler: there's really nothing to point to in order to assert that AH was looking for a father figure/sought out approval from an older, paternal figure. From his correspondence, he was happy with the father he did have, and the person he played a son to was Philip Schuyler.

It says something about their own attitude towards financial misfortune. AH states in at least four different letters to different people (based on my recall) that his father fell into great misfortune and his affairs were wrecked, or that he tried but could not achieve great success, or something along those lines. He was "too generous, too easy of temper, too much pride, too large a portion of indolence." But it's never that his father just up and abandoned him.

(Let's limit this to just middle-class Americans) It takes very little - the loss of a job while living in a location not conducive to finding another job, a physical accident, a medical illness, a natural disaster - for someone to end up in crippling debt that they never recover from financially. According to Newton's research, James Hamilton may have spent part of his time running from debt collectors, and then may have taken any odd job he could. But being in a bad financial situation is not a moral failing, no matter how much the editor of National Review (Brookhiser) and a former WSJ writer and biographer of JP Morgan and Rockefeller (Chernow) may believe it.

Two things that can stall a financial slide and prevent destitution are 1) family wealth; 2) ability to draw on equity/credit. Rachel Faucette had both: her relatives were wealthy, and she was a slave owner who could use those enslaved persons as collateral and rent out their labor. James Hamilton apparently had neither. But that doesn't make him a horrible father who abandoned his kids.

This leads to some interesting speculation I came across - one researcher casually mentioning that given the circumstances of Rachel's divorce, James Hamilton Sr. would have had to adopt his sons to legitimize them. (This type of event - having to petition to adopt an illegitimate child that was the product of a long-term but illicit relationship, actually happened in my own family about 175 years ago - there's an official act of the state legislature of this adoption). And this made me think:

There's decent speculation that James Hamilton ran out of money/opportunities in Statia in 1765, which is what led him to St. Croix in 1765 to act as a debt collector for his employer.

Rachel and their two sons move there either that year, or certainly by 1766 (we can locate AH in St. Croix in 1766) but he cannot be counted in a census with the family, or perhaps even live with the family, because of the restrictions on Rachel (not clear that this was the case under Danish colonial law).

When Rachel dies intestate, custody of his sons likely would have gone to her nearest relatives - her son Peter Lavien, and then her Faucette relatives like the Lyttons (her sister's family).

And that James Hamilton Sr likely didn't have legal rights to his sons, but nevertheless does try to settle on another Caribbean island and have property, possibly thinking that they could join him at some point (if their affairs went to wreck, too) makes me feel a certain way. This narrative by conservative historians to paint James, living in the even harsher 18th century, as a neglectful father because he couldn't get on a solid footing financially and was in a decade plus relationship with a woman with whom - after they'd already had two kids - it was determined by a St. Croix court that they could not legitimize the union or children in anyway - is really f'ed up, and tells one a lot more about the worldview of those historians than it tells us about the relationship between James and his son(s).

Anyway, the only thing new here is the question of James Hamilton Sr's legal rights to his son, as I've written of most of the rest of this before. Posting about it in case I take up research of Danish colonial law in the future!

[46ten]

I wonder if you can help me with a dilemma I'm struggling with. Michael E Newton seems to be both a good scholar and an abhorrent person (I checked out his online presence for myself and 🤢🤢🤢). To what extent should or can we 'put up with' a researcher's personal views for the sake of benefiting from their scholarship? These views can color their research after all, but at the same time bad people can still do good research. It feels intellectually dishonest to ignore him, but morally dishonest to include him. Do you have a perspective on this?

Good question. From one perspective - the data is the data; even if Newton is horribly wrong about many things, unless he's being duplicitous in his discoveries (hello Wakefield), there's no reason to not cite him in the findings of source materials. Newton provides photos, references where his discoveries are available for others to peruse, and so forth, so if you have the access, you too could confirm what the court records from St Croix state, or that the McHenry poem is mis-dated and we don't know which of AH's friends attended his wedding, etc.

On the other hand, you can also reject Newton's interpretations, and he's such a dry writer that it's very easy to tell what the source states vs how he interprets it. Like, you can cite all his work showing how much money A. Mitchell gave her cousin AH, but not cite this as "she was probably his largest benefactor," the way Newton interprets it. For me, Newton sometimes shows such confidence in the testimony in his sources that he doesn't allow for enough speculation - like when Rachel's sister testifies to the ages of her nephews and Newton then concludes that the children were born between x and y. I'm not inclined to take so seriously someone's testimony about how old she thinks her nephews to be as to give their birthdates between x and y.

Unless Newton is up to even grosser stuff recently, I also consider his views not in the category of making him a total write-off, in the way that the old joke goes where a person states, "I've started reading Mein Kampf, and I think there are some good ideas there."

TLDR: Newton should be credited for some of the discoveries he's made, both his finding of new primary sources and his looking closely at secondary and primary sources and seeing how they've been mis-attributed and mis-interpreted. But that doesn't mean one has to use and cite his interpretations, which may be colored by other positions/biases he holds. Newton is such a dry writer that it's pretty easy to see the difference - it's trickier with someone like Chernow. (Although I don't know whether to credit Chernow's writing style or criticize education for not teaching critical thinking skills when I see his dumb speculations repeated - even cited - as facts).

[46ten]

Why might it be that Hamilton doesn't mention Fanny in his letter of 21 Aug 1794 to Eliza?

I don't know, although I don't think we have several sources confirming when Fanny left the Hamilton household that may not be referencing each other - I believe it's James A. Hamilton's Reminiscences cited in stating that after 10 years (when she was 12) she resided with her sister's family, and The Life of Arthur Tappan confirming the same.

Fanny was the youngest of (at least?) 6 siblings, and belonged to a large family with a number of acquaintances, so perhaps she was, at times, in the care of others. Her own connection to Albany (below) can lead one to conjecture that Fanny may have stayed with others when the Hamilton kids were moving back and forth between Philadelphia or NYC and Albany.

Mary (Manette (Maria)) Antill (b 1771), the sister who both sources confirm took Fanny in at some later point, married Rev War vet Col Gerrit G Lansing (b 1760) in 1786 in Albany*, so it's possible that she was in her sister's care earlier than those sources state, or at least stayed with her for periods. Gerrit Lansing also served under AH at Yorktown. The Lansings were a well-known family in Albany - Gerrit's brother, John Ten Eyck Lansing Jr, was Albany's mayor in 1786, one of the two other NY delegates, a noted anti-Federalist, and so on. How the Hamiltons' care for Fanny fit within her sister's connection to the Lansing family is something we don't know.

A letter from Philip Schuyler to EH mentioning the children in 1792 or 3 also only lists the "dear boys" and "Angelica," as I recall. Whether that's because Fanny wasn't actually with them and spent time with her sister Mary in Albany, or it was a convention to not include her, I'm not certain.

I think the only thing that becomes a bit clearer with this new information is that it becomes stronger to support the claim that Fanny's father specifically wanted her in the care of the Hamiltons, and that her mother too (given they chose EH as godmother of their youngest children) would have supported that.

One could also wonder why, if the 1797 date is correct, did she thereafter permanently reside with her sister? Does this have to do with the stability of her Lansing sister, who is now 26 (instead of 16 and newly married) or of that household? Isn't there a historian who seriously opined that it was because of Callendar's publication of the Reynolds allegations? But I don't think we have any sources for that timing.

*One source claims that Lansing, MI is named after Mary and Gerritt's son, Richard Ray Lansing, born in 1789 - read about that fun connection here, though others state it's named after John Lansing, Jr.

[publius-esquire-deactivated2018]

On Frances Antill

Blurbs I’ve been able to find on when Frances Antill stayed with the Hamiltons, from age two through twelve:

Colonel Antil of the Canadian Corps, a friend of General Hazen, retired penniless from the service—his military claims, a sole dependence, being unsatisfied. Hoping to derive subsistence from the culture of a small clearing in the forest, he retired to the wilds of Hazenburgh. His hopes were baffled, and in his distress he applied to Hamilton for relief. His calamities were soon after embittered by the loss of his wife, leaving infant children. With one of these Antil visited New York, to solicit the aid of the Cincinnati, and there sank under the weight of his sorrows. Hamilton immediately took the little orphan home, who was nurtured with his own children, and became the wife of a prosperous merchant.

- John Church Hamilton, Life of Alexander Hamilton

She was educated and treated in all respects as his own daughter, and married Mr. Tappan, an eminent philanthropist of New York.

- James Hamilton, Reminiscences of James A. Hamilton

All the graces you have been pleased to adorn me with, fade before the generous and benevolent action of My Sister in taking the orphan Antle under her protection.

- Angelica Church to Alexander Hamilton, October 2,1787

My mother’s mother, it appears, was a Romanist. She was buried in St. Paul’s churchyard, New York, and General and Mrs. Hamilton were mother’s sponsors in baptism, which looks as if she became an Episcopalian, which agrees with what my mother told me, as I remember.

- Charlotte Tappan in Lewis Tappan’s The Life of Arthur Tappan

Mother, at our request, would tell us of her early years. At the age of two, she was left an orphan. Her father, when he was dying, committed her to the care of General and Mrs. Alexander Hamilton. When Gen. Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury, and Gen. Washington, President of the United States, they lived opposite to each other in Philadelphia, and the children of the two families were together every day. Mrs. Washington took the Custis children, and Angelica Hamilton, and Fanny Antill, (my mother,) in her carriage to dancing-school twice a week. She stayed with them through the lesson and brought them home.

Mother remembered Gen. Washington once sitting on a sofa in the room where the children were playing, and laying aside his newspaper, to watch them, and smile and encourage them to continue their frolic. Once, on a reception evening, when the drawing-room in his house was filled with ladies and gentlemen, talking and laughing, and the children were amusing themselves in a corner, there was a sudden great stillness—and mother looked up with surprise and awe, and saw Gen. Washington coming through the folding doors.

- Charlotte Tappan in Lewis Tappan’s The Life of Arthur Tappan

[Fourteen] ribbons and brocade were given by Mrs. Washington to Mr. Fox’s great-great grandmother, Frances Antill Tappan, when the latter was a child, for the purpose of making a fancy pincushion, and have been cherished by the family through the years. Accompanying the gift is a card in the handwriting of Mr. Fox’s grandmother, reading: “Given to my grandmother, Frances Antill Tappan, by Martha Washington, while living with the family of Alex Hamilton - as his ward - to make a pincushion - and given to me by Aunt Sarah Tappan, my father’s youngest sister - because my name is Frances Antill Tappan Fox.

- The Milwaukee Sentinel, February 5, 1954

Frances went on to live with her sister Mary Lansing, until 1810 when she married Arthur Tappan, and together they had eight children: Charlotte, Benjamin, Frances, Sarah, Elizabeth, Mary, Arthur, Katherine. She also served as an officer for four social societies: the Female Bible Society; Female Tract Society; Association for the Relief of Respectable, Aged Indigent Females; and Asylum for Lying-In Women.

[46ten]

I'll also link here for anyone who does not know more about Frances Antill.

Turns out that primary sources suggest Fanny was Gouverneur Morris's cousin, once removed! Her grandmother was Gouverneur's aunt and godmother!

And the Hamiltons were Fanny's godparents. See part 1 and 2. from statutesandstories.com

Eliza was godmother to both the Antill girls, who were both baptized in 1785 by a minister of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey. This closeness to the Hamilton family started way before the Society of the Cincinnati meeting in July 1787, at which AH supposedly decided to take her in following her father's "breakdown."

The author at statutesandstories.com notes that it may not be coincidental that Fanny was taken into the Hamilton household around the same time that AH and Gouverneur Morris were working so closely together at the Constitutional Convention. Hamilton raising a relation of Morris' may be yet another example of their close friendship.

[alexanderhamiltonhasafatass]

Probably not a good thing to admit to this account because most of the people who follow me genuinely enjoy the Hamilton musical. I just wanted to say like...The musical genuinely annoys me.

And I understand why people like it, I'm not gonna shame anyone on their interests. I used to absolutely adore the musical. This is just my personal opinion. Some of the songs are kinda fire yeah, but they kind of just annoy me. Lin annoys me a lot, and fans tend to like...Spread misinformation? Not their faults... The musical is pretty inaccurate since it's basically a theater fanfiction? But they mischaracterize these people so much it seems. It actually blows my mind.

Nothing against the actors or anything like that, they devoured their roles. My only real real problem is how some people absolutely PRAISE Thomas Jefferson. I get the actor is hot or whatever, but😭..Please remember what the character did. You should not want to fuck him.

[18th-century-possum]

also the mischaracterization of Jefferson irritates me because now everyone thinks he was extroverted, loud, and bubbly. No guys it's quite the opposite. He also did not do confrontation. He preferred to agree with someone in the moment to stop confrontation and shit about them behind their back.

Also, I know satisfied is considered one of the best songs, but the severe historical inaccuracies and mischaracterization of Angelica Church is just so annoying. She could have stood on her own as a character without romantic involvement. Also, aham and John Church were good buddies, but I get they can't include everybody.

Also, I lowkey wish Miranda had included Tilghman instead of Mulligan. I get that Mulligan was able to highlight other parts of the war with his role, but oh my goodness everytime I see people talk about him being buddies with Lafayette, Laurens, and Hamilton. Tilghman would have fit in a lot better with the role Miranda ended up crafting for Mulligan, like being buddies and such. Hamilton lived with Mulligan as a barely adult or still a minor I think (I ain't looking that up right now. someone correct me), so they weren't besties. I doubt Mulligan and Lafayette ever met, considering the importance of Mulligan's role as a spy. I've been wanting to look into Mulligan more because I feel the musical over and under highlighted his accomplishments. But that may just be me and my opinion.

[46ten]

I apologize for taking this in a different direction, but when people point out the historical inaccuracies of Hamilton, a frequent retort I read is that "well, it's just entertainment, it was meant to be fictional."

Let's not re-write here: Chernow and LMM were very clear about how closely Hamilton aligned to the real history, with just a few dramatic flourishes.

LMM: "...I felt an enormous responsibility to be as historically accurate as possible, while still telling the most dramatic story possible. And that's why Ron Chernow is a historical consultant on the thing, and, you know, he was always sort of keeping us honest. And when I did part from the historical record or take dramatic license, I made sure I was able to defend it to Ron, because I knew that I was going to have to defend it in the real world. None of these choices are made lightly." Interviewer: "How did Ron Chernow keep you honest?" LMM: "I think the strength of his book is he approaches history novelistically. It's always historically accurate, but he is able to keep a throughline of relentlessness that I think characterizes Hamilton as a person....My only responsibility as a playwright and a storyteller is to give you the time of your life in the theatre. I just happen to think with Hamilton's story, sticking close to the facts helped me." From "How Lin-Manuel Miranda Shapes History," The Atlantic, 2015

Chernow, reflecting on being asked by LMM to serve as historical consultant:

"[LMM] said, 'I want the historians to take this seriously.'...I recognize the real Alexander Hamilton in 'Hamilton.' " Something else Chernow states in the same interview: "Our history [American history] is the saga of outsiders becoming insiders - of the marginal and dispossessed being welcomed* as citizens." Oh? Is that American history, Chernow? From "The American Revolutionary," NYT T Magazine, 2015

Historians were quickly critical of Hamilton, to which LMM avoided giving responses for a number of years and Chernow acted indignant before also not being willing to offer any more comments.

"It's a fictional re-write of Hamilton. You can't pick the history facts that you want." - Nancy Isenberg. "It's a musical about the mythology of the ruling class - that anybody can join it... It's the myth that the ruling class of the United States wants us to believe." - Lyra D. Monteiro -"Historians irked by musical 'Hamilton' escalate their duel," Kennedy for AP, 2019

And I finally found the source for the claim that the brilliant, essential, truly great Toni Morrison funded Ishmael Reed's The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda - Reed gave an interview acknowledging that she was his second biggest patron for the work. Exit West: An Interview with Ishmael Reed – Asian American Writers' Workshop (aaww.org). I guess that's the closest we'll ever get to a Morrison takedown of Hamilton from the perspective of Black literary scholarship. For a brief summary of Reed's play, see also the above linked AP article:

Reed considers “Hamilton” so problematic that even edits to it wouldn’t help. “I think the corrective would be to close the show,” he said. A horrified fictional Miranda is eventually convinced by the evidence. “I have to undo the damage that I have done,” he wails at the end. “Because of me, thousands of school children are trapped intellectually in the same lies as I was.” Perhaps the true villain of the piece is historian Ron Chernow, who wrote the award-winning biography of Hamilton that Miranda relied upon. (“You should have read books by black people,” a slave tells Miranda in Reed’s play.) At the play’s conclusion, the fictional Chernow advises the fictional Miranda to stop making a fuss and just enjoy their “good hustle.”

LMM did exactly that- hustled a lot of people.

"*being welcomed as citizens?" Is that how Chernow sees the struggle of the oppressed classes in American history? There was no struggle, they were "being welcomed?" Throw this whole man in the trash as any kind of historian.

[46ten]

Are you a historian? I know you probably don't want to dox yourself if you are but I am so impressed with your organized research and how well-read you are!

I think this is the same anon:

Are you a historian? Because you are so smart and organized in your thoughts! I know you probably don't want to dox yourself but I was just wondering!

Thank you for the compliments! No, I'm not a historian - I have never published scholarly articles in a history field under my real name. I'm a (published) scientist who has also worked in the legal field, and nosy folks I've worked with google my name (and admit it!), so I try to stay mindful of my public footprint and what contributions are "appropriate" for an association given the topics I'm professionally supposed to be discussing (not like someone couldn't dox me on here and on other blogs if they were determined enough - I'm not famous or anything, though).

I'm a strong self-critic, and I think a lot of my earlier posts were much better sourced than my last 50 or so, so I really do appreciate that it's still readable and seems organized!

I've previously admitted here that an ex-partner is a historian (not of AmRev or the early AmRepub), so I know something not only of the research methodology (and that I've done time at the U.S. National Archives!) but of the publishing pressures to be a good communicator. Particularly for public-facing literature, there's a lot of emphasis placed on being a good writer, which isn't just that you can form a sentence, but that you have a strong style. For material meant for a more general audience - my ex has authored a handful of books, one of which is a true tome - there was a strong expectation that one nevertheless follow the rules of fiction writing/drama - plot elements, characterization, etc, again with a strong writing flair/voice - even though these are non-fiction volumes on historical events (in ex's case). Whether one's pitch got accepted depended on your strengths in this other area, which doesn't necessarily align with being a strong scholar. And even though my ex was widely known as one of the subject matter experts in that niche field and had contracts to act as a consultant and so on, it wasn't until they published a (well-received) book meant for a general audience that they got invitations from the most prestigious venues and a lecture shared on C-SPAN, etc.

All that to conclude that although I'm really critical of a lot of biographies, I'm not unaware of these other pressures historians face in trying to get work published for a popular audience, and that for most people, that is the only place where they encounter historical work (outside of required school studies or visual entertainment). But then I think we need to be most honest about the gimmicks and bad claims that are then made to make the narrative interesting.

[46ten]

Hogeland's "The Hamilton Scheme," new book for May 2024

[Here's a search for all my posts with Hogeland in them.]

Ohh, The Hamilton Scheme: An Epic Tale of Money and Power in the American Founding is finally coming out at the end of this month (May 2024) - I've been following Hogeland discussing it for several years!

Hogeland is not at all interested in Alexander Hamilton as a persona (most AmRev and early American historians aren't), but as a policy maker and creator of the federal govt and financial system. And he's sharply critical.

Hogeland and Robert Sullivan (author of the 2016 Harper's magazine cover article "The Hamilton Cult: Has the celebrated musical eclipsed the main himself?", which also quotes Hogeland, will be discussing the book at the National Archives on May 16th, 1-2 pm EDT.

I think this quote from Hogeland in the above linked article is key to his approach:

" 'But it’s just the icing on the cake of this industry that’s existed for decades now, trying to promote Hamilton as something other than what he actually was.” The duel with Burr, his relationship with his wife and his mistress — these are rich material for a narrative biography, Hogeland concedes, but in terms of Hamilton’s impact on the formation and the very nature of the United States, they are little more than footnotes. “Accidents,” he calls them. They lead us to overlook what Hamilton thought was his own purpose in life. "

Blurb: "William Hogeland is the best guide I have found to understanding how we today are, for good and evil, children of Alexander.” ―J. Bradford DeLong, professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Kirkus review:

A lively if overlong history of the origins of federal power.

A reader of a QAnon-ish bent might come away from this book convinced that Alexander Hamilton founded the so-called deep state. That person would have a point. As Revolutionary War–era historian Hogeland writes, Hamilton was committed to founding a strong, even imperial national government; to achieve it, he crafted instruments of a national economy. One of them was public debt, the “driving wheel” for a great nation. Without debt, the fledgling nation could not have funded any number of endeavors, not least the first foreign war against the pirates of the Barbary Coast. Much as Thomas Jefferson disliked the specter of a federal power stronger than that of the states, without that debt, the Louisiana Purchase could never have been completed. As Hogeland shows, the struggle between Hamilton and his states’ rights–minded opponents was an existential one “over the fundamental meaning of American government,” and in many respects, it continues today. Hamilton had a talent for making enemies, though friends such as Declaration of Independence signer Robert Morris, wealthy and powerful, helped him survive politically. Morris’ great lesson was one of “commercial domination,” to which Hamilton aspired more as a national than a personal accomplishment. Hogeland’s story is lengthy and circumstantial, but marked by plenty of drama: Hamilton’s stepping out from under George Washington’s shadow to become the foremost “Continentalist” politician of his day; his pitched battles with Albert Gallatin, “treasury secretary to two presidents,” over the structure of the national economy; and Thomas Jefferson’s eventual dismantling of “the Hamilton scheme” and subsequent returns to it until the hybrid called “Jeffersonian ends by Hamiltonian means” took root. A well-wrought tale of how the American empire came to be born on the balance sheet as much as by the gun.

[46ten]

I saw your post on how you think historians often create narratives and don't properly consider 18th century social codes in their arguments. I also saw your posts on Hamilton and how you think treating his actions as irrational or shocking doesn't really make sense.

Do you have some historians that you think do a good job? I noticed that even Joanne Freeman who I think is a relatively nonbiased, good historian, also sometimes talks about Hamilton's childhood and actions in similar ways. Self destructive, flying off the handle, etc.

For AH biographers, I still consider Broadus Mitchell the gold standard.

I don't want to trash Freeman - I think a lot of her work is outstanding, but she also has a historian public persona that I don't think leads her to well-reasoned takes in public discussions. (Annette Gordon-Reed, in contrast, is more sober.)

More often than not, the saying that you learn more about the biographer than you do about the subject heavily applies in AH biographies. I think folks could get a lot more from historians who are not interested in Hamilton as a persona/personal figure and who are instead engaged in political, financial, and/or legal aspects. They're the ones who often come through with a lot of citations and more context - the work is altogether more scholarly, in a way that Hamilton biographies aren't. These works sometimes get some personal facts about AH wrong, too, but as what AH left us with is his work, that's where one needs to continue to go, IMO, then branch out to more of the works covering the Anglo-American world in the late 18th century. From 2021-23, I read 13 new books that discussed AH's policy in some way, and it was great just seeing the expansiveness of how people discuss AH as part of what may be their scholarly study/approach into another area. That's also, IMO, how one can really start to self-correct from just accepting agenda-driven AH biographies.

Empire of Liberty by Gordon S. Wood (2009) - just reading the back and forth about Wood's take vs others' is really useful for seeing the narratives surrounding the way the history of the early republic is written.

Alexander Hamilton’s Public Administration by Richard T. Green (2020)

Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher became an Icon of American Capitalism by Glory M. Liu (2021)

William Hogeland is coming out with a new book at the end of this month that I'll put in a separate post, but he's also a good read for a different approach to understanding the Hamilton project, let's call it. (One can read his 2007 article Inventing Hamilton).

[icarusbetide]

i got my hands on the jewish world of alexander hamilton after listening to its episode of ben franklin's world.

for now i've only skimmed and don't have a solid stance on hamilton's potential jewish childhood, but i do think that the author brings up a noteworthy point about the discussions of ham's economic plan as farmers vs. elite money men. Porwancher argues that the marketplace "was more of a meritocracy than the courtroom, statehouse, or college", as many american jews were indeed barred from higher education, legal or governmental positions, etc. and thus gravitated towards trade and banking. it definitely adds some nuance to the idea that one economic sector is decidedly elite and/or corrupt in consideration of institutional and social bias against a prominent portion of its members.

i haven't thought much about this aspect, so the book's interesting to me. does anyone have any thoughts? maybe someone more well-versed in jewish history or economics would have more context.

[46ten]

Oh, do I have thoughts on that book. (I have read it.)

But to narrowly address the question (maybe?), there's good scholarly work on the American colonists allowing for the movement of the merchant class into the elite (the American version of the British aristocracy), particularly through - you guessed it - the gentleman code that established how one was supposed to behave as a member of this elite. Really, all non-Christians would have been excluded from that, though, as would all non-white men.

Where this is more complex is because of persons like Haym Saloman, who pretty much financed the American Revolution and purchased so much Continental debt he was left penniless - but when did you learn about him in a standard AmHist course? (Or other Jewish financiers of the AmRev? - Jews in finance is a separate discussion, I think.) So I think Porwancher's work has a place in correcting/balancing the record on some things (he just picked a very popular person to hook people in, as some of his other claims trying to tie into AH are so speculative, or really taken out of context).

Reading over this, I don't think I really answered your question. I can give it another go if you want to share more ideas about it.