Elizabeth Hamilton (née Schuyler ; August 9, 1757 – November 9, 1854) was an American socialite and philanthropist. She was the wife of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and was a passionate champion and defender of Hamilton's work and efforts in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States.
She was the co-founder and deputy director of Graham Windham, the first private orphanage in New York City. She is recognized as an early American philanthropist for her work with the Orphan Asylum Society.
Schuyler was born in Albany, New York, the second daughter of Philip Schuyler, who would later be an American Revolutionary War general, and his wife, Catherine Van Rensselaer. The Van Rensselaers of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck were one of the wealthiest and most politically influential families in what was then the Province of New York. She had 14 siblings, only seven of whom lived to adulthood, including Angelica Schuyler Church and Peggy Schuyler.
Her family was among the wealthy Dutch landowners who settled around present-day Albany, New York, in the mid-17th century. Both her mother and father came from wealthy and well-regarded families. Like many landowners of the time, her father was a slave owner, so Schuyler grew up around slavery. While she was growing up, there was the unrest of the French and Indian War, which her father served in and which was fought in part near her childhood home.
Like most Dutch families of the area, her family belonged to the Reformed Dutch Church of Albany, which still stands. Her upbringing instilled in her a strong and unwavering faith she would retain throughout her life.
When she was a girl, Schuyler accompanied her father to a meeting of the Six Nations, where she met Benjamin Franklin, who stayed briefly with the Schuyler family during his travels. She was said to have been something of a tomboy when she was young; throughout her life, she displayed both strong will and impulsiveness, both of which were noted by her acquaintances, James McHenry, one of George Washington's aides who worked alongside her future husband, and the son of Joanna Bethune, one of the women she worked alongside to found an orphanage later in her life. In 1779, Tench Tilghman met Schuyler and wrote the following:I was prepossessed in favor of the young Lady the moment I saw her. A Brunette with the most good natured lively dark eyes that I ever saw, which threw a beam of good temper and benevolence over her whole Countenance. Mr. Livingston informed me that I was not mistaken in my Conjecture that she was the finest tempered Girl in the World.
Marriage to Alexander Hamilton
In early 1780, Schuyler went to stay with her aunt, Gertrude Schuyler Cochran, in Morristown, New Jersey, where she met Alexander Hamilton, one of George Washington's aides-de-camp, who was stationed with Washington and his men in Morristown for the winter of 1780. Schuyler and Hamilton had met once before, but only briefly, when Hamilton dined with the Schuylers on his way back from a negotiation on Washington's behalf. Also while in Morristown, Schuyler met and became friends with Martha Washington, a friendship they maintained for the rest of their husbands' respective political careers. Schuyler later said of Martha Washington, "She was always my ideal of a true woman."
The relationship between Schuyler and Hamilton quickly grew; even after he left Morristown a month later on a short mission to negotiate a prisoners exchange. While on the prisoner exchange, Hamilton wrote to Schuyler, continuing their relationship through letters.
After completing the prisoner exchange negotiations, Hamilton returned to Morristown, where Schuyler's father had arrived in his capacity as representative of the Continental Congress. In correspondence between Hamilton and Schuyler, there had been talk of a "secret wedding". In early April 1780, they were officially engaged with her father's blessing, which was something of an anomaly for the family with Schuyler's two sisters, Angelica and Catherine, both eloping. Later on, her two other sisters eloped as well, leaving Elizabeth the exception.
Hamilton followed the Continental Army when they decamped from Morristown in June 1780. After six more months of separation punctuated by their correspondence, on December 14, 1780, Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler were married at the Schuyler Mansion.
After a short honeymoon at the Pastures, her childhood home in Albany, New York, Alexander Hamilton returned to the Continental Army and the Revolutionary War in early January 1781. Schuyler soon joined him in New Windsor, New York, where Washington's Continental Army was now stationed, and she rekindled her friendship with Martha Washington as they entertained their husbands' fellow officers. Soon, however, Washington and Alexander Hamilton had a falling out, and the newlywed couple moved, first back to Philip Schuyler's house in Albany, then to a new home across the river from the New Windsor headquarters. There, Schuyler busied herself in creating a home for them and in aiding Hamilton with his political writings, including parts of his 31-page letter to Robert Morris, in which Alexander communicated his extensive understanding of government finance, which he later employed as the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury during Washington's presidency. Parts of the letter to Morris are in Schuyler's handwriting.
Soon Schuyler moved again, this time back to her parents' house in Albany. This may have coincided with the discovery that she was pregnant with their first child, who was born the following January and named Philip, in honor of her father. While apart, Alexander wrote her numerous letters assuring her not to worry for his safety; in addition, he wrote her concerning confidential military secrets, including the lead-up to the Battle of Yorktown that autumn. Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War began raging close to her home, when a group of British soldiers stumbled upon her residence at the Pastures, seeking supplies. According to some accounts, the family was spared from any losses thanks to her sister Peggy, who told the soldiers that her father had gone to town to get help, which caused them to flee from the area.
After the siege of Yorktown, a decisive Franco-American victory which led the British to recognize their defeat in the war, Hamilton rejoined Schuyler in Albany, where they remained for almost another two years prior to relocating to New York City in late 1783. On September 25, 1784, Schuyler gave birth to her second child, Angelica, named after her older sister.
In 1787, Schuyler sat for a portrait, painted by Ralph Earl while Earl was being held in debtors' prison. Hamilton heard of Earl's predicament and asked his wife if she might be willing to sit for him, to allow him to make some money and eventually buy his way out of prison, which he subsequently did. At this time, she and Alexander had three young children; their third child, Alexander Jr., was born in May 1786, and she may have been pregnant then with their fourth child, James Alexander, who was born the following April.
The same year, in 1787, Schuyler and Hamilton took into their home Frances Antill, the two-year-old youngest child of Hamilton's friend Colonel Edward Antill, whose wife had recently died. In October that year, Angelica wrote to 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 [sic] under her protection." Two years later, Colonel Antill died in Canada, and Frances continued to live with the Hamiltons for another eight years, until an older sister was married and able to take Frances into her own home. Later, James Alexander Hamilton would write that Frances "was educated and treated in all respects as [the Hamiltons'] own daughter."
The Hamiltons had an active social life, often attending the theater and various balls and parties. "I had little of private life in those days," she would remember. At the first Inaugural Ball, Schuyler danced with George Washington; when Thomas Jefferson returned from Paris in 1790, she and Alexander hosted a dinner for him. After Alexander became Treasury Secretary in 1789, her social duties increased. "Mrs. Hamilton, Mrs. [Sarah] Jay and Mrs. [Lucy] Knox were the leaders of official society," an early historian wrote in 1897. She also managed the Hamilton household; James McHenry once noted to Hamilton that Schuyler had "as much merit as your treasurer as you have as treasurer of the United States."