Michael E. Newton's Blog, page 6

Rand Scholet, President & Founder of the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society, reviews Michael E. Newton���s Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years

Rand Scholet, President & Founder of the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society, has written the following review ofAlexander Hamilton: The Formative Years:

Michael E. Newtons Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years represents a significant scholarly contribution to the literature regarding the first half of Alexander Hamiltons remarkable life story and to our understanding of the American Revolution. This extensively researched, incredibly well-documented, theme-based biography reveals new dis...

Alexander Hamilton���s Militia Service: New Discoveries and Uncertainty Removed

It is well known that Alexander Hamilton joined the New York state militia while still attending college. However, many of the details given by Hamiltons friends and biographers have been questioned and, indeed, many eyewitness statements appear contradictory. The following excerpt from Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years firmly establishes when Hamilton joined the militia, which company he belonged to, and reveals some interesting newly discovered details about his militia service:

Accor...

Alexander Hamilton helps the Whigs win an important political contest on March 6, 1775

On March 6, 1775, New York Whigs and Tories competed for power at a political meeting. At the October 1780 trial of Joshua Hett Smith for his alleged involvement in Benedict Arnolds treason, Alexander Hamilton was asked by Smith, Do you recollect my conduct in New York on the sixth of March, 1775? Hamilton replied, Not precisely on that day, but on the preceding evening I do recollect it. You then appeared active to promote the interest of the Whig Party; and I believe at that time you were s...

Richard Sylla���s review of Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years

“Covering Hamiltons background, birth, and youth in the West Indies and his first decade in the United States, Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years details Hamiltons emergence as a revolutionary pamphleteer, military leader, General Washingtons principal, ablest, and most trusted aide-de-camp, and hero of the decisive Yorktown campaign. With encyclopedic knowledge of Hamiltons life and career and all that has been written about it, including the many contradictions, Michael E. Newton judic...

The Extensive Influence of Alexander Hamilton���s ���A Full Vindication��� and ���The Farmer Refuted���

As a 17-year-old, Alexander Hamilton wrote A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress. A few months later, he penned The Farmer Refuted. While these essays have been widely praised, some have questioned their��influence. One Hamilton biographer asserted, ���Probably few people in turbulent New York at that time heard of Hamilton���s pamphlets. They were known and admired in a restricted circle, but that circle included men of leadership and influence, whose good opinion was valuable.��� Another argued that the ���significance��� of these essays ���has been overstated.��.��.��. Had not Hamilton become famous, his essays��.��.��.��would merit only cursory attention.���

While it is true that more attention has been given to these essays due to Hamilton���s later fame, they certainly attracted more than just ���cursory attention��� when they were published. In New York City, James Rivington advertised Hamilton���s essays in eleven issues of Rivington���s New-York Gazetteer over a three-month period. Rivington also offered to supply ���gentlemen��� living outside of New York City with a number of pamphlets he had published, including those written by Seabury and Hamilton. Rivington even encouraged his customers to ���purchase by the dozen��� in order to ���distribute��� copies ���amongst their Friends��� or ���amongst those who cannot afford to purchase them.��� Over in Philadelphia, John Airey advertised copies of A Full Vindication in a December 1774 issue of Dunlap���s Pennsylvania Packet. And in Boston, bookseller Henry Knox, the future major general and secretary of war, advertised copies of The Farmer Refuted in one March 1775 issue of The Boston-Gazette and two issues of The Boston Evening-Post.

Hamilton���s essays were not just advertised outside of New York, but were also purchased, read, and even quoted. In The Pennsylvania Gazette of January 25, 1775, ���A Philadelphian��� writing about ���the iniquity of the Slave-trade��� quoted ���the Friend to America��� who had asserted that ���all men have one common original, they participate in one common nature, and consequently have one common right. No reason can be assigned why one man should exercise any power over his fellow creatures more than another, unless they voluntarily vested him with it.��� Hamilton had written A Full Vindication under the name ���A Friend to America��� and the quote in the Philadelphia newspaper came straight out of Hamilton���s essay.

Clearly, Hamilton���s essays were circulated throughout the colonies and their influence was widespread.

(Knox���s advertising of The Farmer Refuted has previously been noted in a handful of books but never in a Hamilton bio. John Airey���s advertising Hamilton���s��A Full Vindication��and Hamilton���s essay being quoted in The Pennsylvania Gazette on January 25 are new��discoveries.)

Supporting evidence and citations will��be found in Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years.��Please��support the publication of this important work��by��pre-ordering your copy today.

Timeline of Alexander Hamilton���s Attendance at Elizabethtown Academy and King���s College

Alexander Hamilton enrolled at Elizabethtown Academy in the fall of 1772 where, according to John C. Hamilton, he spent a winter ���accustomed to labour until midnight��� and a summer when ���it was his habit to retire at dawn to the quiet of a neighbouring cemetery . . . preparing his lessons for the day.��� In the fall of 1773, Hamilton applied for admission into the College of New Jersey, whose commencement each year took place on the last Wednesday of September. When the school denied��his request��to advance at an accelerate pace, it was too late to be admitted into King���s College for the 1773���74 school year because its commencement had already taken place in May. Hamilton, therefore, entered King���s College in the autumn of 1773 ���as a private student��� and was officially admitted in May 1774 at the next commencement. He studied��at King���s College until�����the American Revolution supervened��� but ���never graduated;��the College having been broken up before his course of Studies was completed.���

Supporting evidence and citations will��be found in Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years.��Please��support the publication of this important work��by��pre-ordering your copy today.

Alexander Hamilton’s arrival in New York City in October 1772

After arriving in Boston in October 1772, Alexander Hamilton had to make his way to New York City. Hamilton probably travelled to New York City on ��the stagecoach operated by Nicholas Brown, which advertised itself as the ���first Stage Coach which has ever been improved on this road��� and promised to ���always put up at Houses on the road where the best Entertainment is provided.��� One coach left Boston every other Monday and, ���after staying a week��� in Hartford, arrived in New York on Saturday twelve days after it set out. The stagecoach charged ���4d New York or 3d lawful Money per Mile,��� a total of about ��3 15s New York money or ��2 16s lawful money for the entire journey, plus the cost for ���Baggage at a reasonable Rate.��� If Hamilton arrived in Boston with Hammet on October 18 or if he sailed with Waters and arrived on that same day or earlier, Hamilton could have taken the October 19 stagecoach and would have arrived in New York on October 31.

(Some of this information had previously been reported, but those accounts were full of errors and��most��of the facts above are indeed new discoveries by the author.)

Citations and additional information��will be found in Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years.��Please��support publication of this important work��by pre-ordering your copy today.

What ship did Alexander Hamilton take from St. Croix to the Boston in October 1772?

According to Hercules Mulligan and John C. Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton sailed from St. Croix and reached Boston in October 1772. Newspapers list only two ships sailing from St. Croix to Boston at this time: ���Waters from St. Croix��� arrived sometime before October 22 (previously identified by Broadus Mitchell) and ���Capt. Hammett, from St. Croix��� arrived on October 18 (new discovery). Hamilton likely was on one of these two ships.

Full details of this information, including citations, will be found in Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years.��Please��support publication of this important work��by pre-ordering your copy today.

Some of the New Discoveries to be Found In Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years

Over the next several weeks, as��Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years is prepped for publication and its Kickstarter campaign raises funds for publication, I’ll be��compiling a list of some of the new discoveries that are to be found in the book. Today, I present to you ��two discoveries regarding Alexander Hamilton that have never before been revealed to the public.

As a fourteen-year-old working for Nicholas Cruger in St. Croix, Alexander Hamilton��wrote to John Wendell, the mercantile partner of John Hancock (the future President of Congress and Governor of Massachusetts), regarding money ���Mr. Hancock has not sent us.���


Alexander Hamilton���s famous account of the West Indian hurricane of 1772, which was originally published in St. Croix���s The Royal Danish American Gazette,��was reprinted in a Boston newspaper in December 1772. Alexander Hamilton apparently never knew this. Neither did his family. Neither has any historian or biographer prior to now.

Remember to support publication of��Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years by pre-ordering your copy today.

Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years is now available for pre-order and your further support on Kickstarter

Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years is a fresh and fascinating account of Alexander Hamilton’s origins, youth, and indispensable services during the American Revolution. Leonard Zax, President of the Hamilton Partnership for Paterson, calls it "a painstakingly researched and carefully documented biography of the most remarkable of our Founding Fathers" (more reviews are coming).

You can pre-order copies today or support the book project (to fund a print run) at
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...