Do you have any sense how William Hamiltons personality would have been like as well as his relationship with his siblings? Thank you in advance
William was a very adventurous, energetic, but introverted, and reserved man with a love for the outdoors. He appears to have inherited his mother's childhood behavior of desiring adventure and the wilderness. Which seems to have inspired William to go West for the Gold rush. Though he was never very social, and was said to actually avoid society or people. I think due to his love for adventure and being free spirited he often did not fit into the societal standards, especially in the east. As many were appalled or shocked when seeing him at first, for the way he behaved and acted was very contradictory to first assumptions — considering he came from one of the most aristocratic families, and was the son of the country's first statesman. So he may have avoided people or the public because he never did quite fit in. He never married also, and there are theories he may have been homosexual, and kept away from society because it would have been seen as immorally wrong back in those days (Though I've always personally always just believed he was ace/aro).
According to Rough Diamond: The Life of Colonel William Stephen Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton's Forgotten Son, by A.K. Fielding, (Which is a biography about William Hamilton), William seemed to have a bit of a strain with his brothers during adulthood — nothing is said much about childhood though, due to a lack of information. Fielding's biography does not go into any precise detailing about his relationships with his individual siblings, but there does seem to have been some friction between him and his brothers. Presumably due to differing political beliefs, many of William's brothers were Jacksonian Democrats (A party that was in favor for more democracy in American government in the 1830s. Led by President Andrew Jackson, this movement championed greater rights for the common man and was opposed to any signs of aristocracy in the nation) while William was a Whig (A party in favor of limiting the presidential excesses, they favored Congress and its legislative power over presidential decrees. Whigs generally supported higher tariffs, distributing land revenues to states and passing relief legislation in response to the financial panics of 1837 and 1839).
There was also the whole issue about William taking in one of John Church Hamilton's sons. John C. disapproved of his son's marriage and political beliefs, which then drove the son to take his bride to the West, where William lived and eventually took them in. To which John C. disapproved. John's son eventually moved to the east again, but the family did always remember their time with their uncle fondly.
So while William wasn't on the best of terms with his older brother, JCH, at least he seemed to have a lasting bond with his younger sister, Eliza Hamilton Holly. When Holly was widowed after her husband, Sidney Augustus Holly, died in 1842. William offered to bring her West to live with him, but unfortunately it never happened, as Holly instead stayed in the East to continue to look after their elderly mother until her death in 1854, just four years after WSH's own death. Unfortunately, little of Holly's or Will's correspondence is found, or even survived to this day, so we don't know for sure. After Holly's death; the youngest of the Hamilton children, Philip Hamilton II, took ownership over his sister's letters and suggests she likely took inspiration from their mother and burned her correspondence to preserve her privacy.
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