i've seen mention of hamilton being adopted by a thomas stevens during his years in nevis and i was wondering if you had anything to expand with relating to that??
Hello! Hope you’re doing well!
I do! Recent developments in this area have been an interest of mine, so I’m more than happy to talk about it.
The classic tale you’ll hear—and read in many books published over the last century—is that after the deaths of his mother, cousin, and uncle (the latter pair of whom were designated his legal guardians afterward), Alexander Hamilton went to live with Thomas Stevens and his family until leaving for the American mainland.
While Hamilton is believed to have been born on Nevis, by the time he came to know the Stevens’, he was living further west on the island of St. Croix. In fact, recent discoveries in the last several years by researchers have indicated that Alexander Hamilton spent most of his youth not on Nevis, but rather the neighboring island of St. Eustatius—and later St. Croix
For more here specifically, see Newton, Michael E. Discovering Hamilton: New Discoveries in the Lives of Alexander Hamilton, His Family, Friends, and Colleagues, from Various Archives Around the World (Eleftheria Publishing, 2019), pp. 4-24; Stelten, Rudd, Hinton, Alexandre. “Alexander Hamilton’s Missing Years: New Discoveries and Insights into the Little Lion’s Caribbean Childhood,” Journal of the American Revolution (October, 2020), https://allthingsliberty.com/2020/10/alexander-hamiltons-missing-years-new-discoveries-and-insights-into-the-little-lions-caribbean-childhood/.
While living in Christiansted, St. Croix, Hamilton’s mother, Rachel Faucett, ran a store on the first floor of the family’s home which sold produce and other items often needed by the merchant community. Thomas Stevens was himself a merchant, and Alexander Hamilton would begin working as a clerk at Christiansted’s major import and export firm not long after moving there. It is entirely plausible (but not confirmed in any way) that Stevens and the Hamilton family could have come into contact with one another through their lines of work prior to Rachel’s death, or potentially have mutual connections. Stevens’ son, Edward, befriend Alexander Hamilton, and stayed in contact with him for several years—but when and how exactly they met is not clear.
A fairly recent examination of St. Croix’s matrikels [census records] by Michael E. Newton to try and determine where Hamilton lived after his mother’s passing revealed that the probability of that classic tale having been reality is probably slim. Of course, when looking at census data, it is important to acknowledge that we do not know who recorded that data—nor do we know if the census takers made any mistakes in their writing. There are other gaps to keep in mind as well, but these records are quite interesting to look at nonetheless.
Rachel Faucett passed on February 19, 1768, and examining the census record for that year as regards the Stevens, Newton explained thus:
In the 1768 matrikel, compiled in January 1769, the Stevens household again [from the previous year—where Newton concludes that only the family occupied the home] has one man, one woman, three male children, two female children, and no white servants. Assuming that the children are the Stevens children—and there is no evidence that any of the Stevens children had left St. Croix before this date as it appears that Edward Stevens left in the summer of 1769, as mentioned earlier—then the Hamiltons were not living in the Stevens household at this time.
However, Thomas Stevens Jr. was older than Edward Stevens, so perhaps he had left St. Croix to pursue his education. If so, one of the three sons could have been Alexander Hamilton. But there is no evidence to support this.
Newton goes on to note that the records for 1769 through 1772 (when Hamilton left the island) show that “[r]ather than seeing an increase in the number of people in the household, which would have been the case if one or both of the Hamilton boys had moved in, there is instead a decrease.” Thus, the records at least indicate that any long-term stay by Hamilton, or adoption by the Stevens family of him, perhaps did not happen. It is possible that Hamilton lived with the Stevens family in the months between one or more of the census’ being taken—but any precise details beyond this are not known.
The origin of this story comes down to us from Hamilton and Edward Stevens’ mutual friend, Timothy Pickering, who stated that in 1822 (notably several years after Hamilton’s death) that “To-day, Mr. Yard informed me” that “when young children, they lived together in the family of the father of Stevens, and were sent together to New York for their education.” Human memory is fallible, and Pickering was incorrect about Hamilton and Stevens leaving for college at the same time (Stevens likely leaving in the summer of 1769), but his other idea shouldn’t necessarily be thrown out completely due to the gaps surviving in the records.
The actual story of where Hamilton went after his mother’s death is, at the very least, more complicated. But it’s the complexity which I find so interesting—and I hope you do, too.
