[…] By the time of Hamilton’s death, Elizabeth “Eliza” Schuyler (Betsy to Hamilton) had been bereaved six times in three years: her eldest son, Philip, died in a duel in 1801, then her husband was shot in the same spot in 1804. In between, the Hamiltons’ fifth child, John Church, died aged 10, while her mother, brother John and Peggy, her sister had passed away before Hamilton did. A few months later, her father died.
[…]
She was left with Hamilton’s debts – most of the revolutionaries, it transpires, were big spenders. Despite such grief, she really did channel her energies into good causes, namely, New York’s first public orphanage, which she founded in 1806, and continued to work at, including as director, for 42 years.
Eliza was also the one who told Hamilton’s story. She defended his name, forcing James Monroe to apologise for accusing Hamilton of financial impropriety. She also organised his letters, papers and writings (“You really do write like you’re running out of [time]”), even keeping the sonnet he sent to her in the early days of their courtship in a package around her neck.
She retired from the orphanage in her nineties, but continued do charitable work, raising money to build the Washington Monument.
Eliza died in 1854, aged 97, and had spent the past eight years struggling with memory loss, but managed to reminisce clearly about Hamilton. Despite outliving him by 50 years, she never re-married, and was buried near Hamilton in Trinity Church. […]
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