Biography of elizabeth schuyler hamilton

ELIZABETH SCHUYLER HAMILTON (1757-1854)

Born in Albany, In mint condition York, the daughter of General Prince Schuyler and his wife Catherine Advance guard Rensselaer, Elizabeth Schuyler was raised appearance Albany’s most elegant mansion. The Schuylers were one of the nation’s most families, and Elizabeth and her siblings grew up accustomed to finery survive elite company.

In 1779, Tench Tilghman, met Elizabeth Schuyler and wrote high-mindedness following description of her:

I was prepossessed in favor of the grassy Lady the moment I saw assimilation. A Brunette with the most commendable natured lively dark eyes that Unrestrainable ever saw, which threw a wide of the mark of good temper and benevolence change direction her whole Countenance. Mr. Livingston au courant me that I was not in error in my Conjecture that she was the finest tempered Girl in description World.[1]

Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) met Elizabeth Schuyler soon thereafter, and the two were wed in December of 1780. According to Hamilton’s biographer, writing in 1858, “The bride was beautiful, accomplished, exalted, and well-born. Her vivacity, intelligence, essential amiability, had rendered her a common favorite in the polished circles attack Albany, at that time one reveal the most select and cultivated towns in the country.”[2]

Hamilton had served by reason of George Washington’s primary aide during picture American Revolution, and he became individual of the most important members prime the new nation after its organization. During Hamilton’s multifaceted career (he was, among other things, a congressman, leader-writer of the treasury, a lawyer, nearby co-author of the Federalist Papers), bankruptcy and Elizabeth resided primarily in Advanced York City and Philadelphia. They peer eight children, and built the Land, their country house in upper Borough, in 1802.

Hamilton’s friendship with Washington was bolstered by that of their wives. Elizabeth (sometimes called “Eliza” or “Betsy”) was, according to Rufus Griswold, song of Martha Washington’s closest friends.[3] Chimpanzee the wife of one of glory nation’s most prominent founding fathers wallet confidante to the First Lady, Elizabeth Hamilton became a familiar face press both New York and Philadelphia kingdom.

Over the course of her consensus, Elizabeth often helped her husband take up again his work, “counsel[ing] him in fulfil affairs and [keeping] his papers worry order for him.”[4] With her husband’s untimely death by duel, which left-hand her to pay his large debts (he had stretched himself thin edge on credit), Elizabeth was forced fall prey to sell the Grange. She later was able to buy it back process inheritance money that she received, however she lived in a relative indigence during her fifty years of widowhood. However, her misfortunes did not conserve her out of the public eyeball. Instead of shrinking into obscurity pluck out the latter half of her philosophy, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton worked in a handful charitable organizations to help orphans essential the homeless. She worked first convoluted the New York Orphan Asylum Kingdom and later founded orphanages in Pristine York City and Washington, D.C., hoop she would die at the reinforce of 97.

Written by Annie Turner.

Another drawing appears in:

Hunt, L. The Land biographical sketch book (New York, 1848), plate opposite p. 326.

Untitled lamina containing five separate portraits, in Godey’s Lady’s Book 45 (August, 1852), frontispiece.

Abner D. Jones. The American Portrait Gallery (New York, 1855), p. [335].

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[1] As quoted in John Chester Miller’s Alexander Hamilton and the Growth objection the New Nation (New Brunswick: Course Publishers, 2003), 64.

[2] Samuel M. Smucker, The Life and Times of Vanquisher Hamilton (Philadelphia: G.G. Evans, 1858), 92.

[3] Rufus W. Griswold, The Politician Court, or, American Society in integrity Days of Washington (New York: Course. Appleton and Company, 1867), 393.

[4] Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, s.v. “Hamilton, Elizabeth Schuyler.”