Juliet Waldron's Blog - Posts Tagged "alexander-hamilton"
A War Time Wedding at the Schuyler's
September is almost as popular as June for weddings these days.
Here's the story of a wedding that took place just before Christmas in a country deep in it's first civil war.
*****************************************
"....The wedding took place in the yellow parlor in front of a crackling hearth. The Dutch Reformed minister performed the ceremony and everyone who was anyone for miles around attended. The room was packed with patriot gentry, all turned out in their finest wigs and lace. The young men present were almost universally in blue and buff.
Hamilton had gone to the expense of outfitting himself anew before the trip north and today he looked resplendent in a crisp new uniform. The epaulets of Lieutenant Colonel gleamed on his shoulders; his chest was crossed by the green sash worn by the aides de camp of a commanding general. His hair had been powdered, but not quite enough to extinguish a gingery glitter. Everyone agreed; he looked overwhelmingly handsome.
“If Mama hadn’t had all these months to prepare, I’m afraid my little sister would look like a hen pheasant beside that beautiful fellow.” Angelica whispered waspishly to the only woman present she considered her peer, tall blonde Arietta van Corlear. Diamond earrings flashed against creamy necks as the belles approvingly surveyed the lithe figure of the groom.
Still, few others present would have agreed. For the ceremony, Betsy had been transformed into a perfect, fashion plate angel. She had submitted to wearing a wig (sent through enemy lines from Philadelphia), which provided her with a tumble of snowy curls. Beneath this, her olive skin, black eyes, and long dark lashes made a magnificent contrast. Mama had insisted upon applying a delicate lamb’s wool brush of rouge to her high cheekbones, which hollowed the Dutch fullness. Her dress was a cream-colored sacque trimmed with lace and white satin bows.
When she entered the room upon the arm of her father, a number of Hudson valley cousins suffered unanticipated pangs of regret. Was this radiant bride really their own sweet, plain “Little Saint Bess”?
“They make a lovely couple.” Peggy sighed and slipped an arm around the waist of her younger cousin, Eliza van Rensselaer. Peggy had earlier confided to Miss van R. that she herself was secretly “a little in love with that rascal Alexander.”
The hordes of tow-headed children were cautioned, and the fire in Mrs. Schuyler’s eyes was sufficient to convince the most rambunctious that she meant business.
At the conclusion of the ceremony, a plain gold band, an heirloom from long ago Amsterdam, was slipped onto the bride’s delicate finger. The old-fashioned lace veil that had belonged to Grandmother Angelica Livingston Van Rensselaer was turned back, and Colonel Hamilton, in his blue and buff uniform, gave his lovely blacked-eyed Betsy a worshipful kiss.
Mrs. Schuyler leaned on her husband’s arm. She, too, was radiant. Within, the baby she carried stirred restlessly, awakened by the triumphant emotion which coursed through her mother like the Hudson in full flood. To see a beloved daughter handed properly from father to husband, married in the midst of this sea of relations, was a supreme moment...."
~~ Juliet Waldron
A MASTER PASSION
Find more at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eiAe...
http://amzn.com/B00V8UT9I0
Here's the story of a wedding that took place just before Christmas in a country deep in it's first civil war.
*****************************************
"....The wedding took place in the yellow parlor in front of a crackling hearth. The Dutch Reformed minister performed the ceremony and everyone who was anyone for miles around attended. The room was packed with patriot gentry, all turned out in their finest wigs and lace. The young men present were almost universally in blue and buff.
Hamilton had gone to the expense of outfitting himself anew before the trip north and today he looked resplendent in a crisp new uniform. The epaulets of Lieutenant Colonel gleamed on his shoulders; his chest was crossed by the green sash worn by the aides de camp of a commanding general. His hair had been powdered, but not quite enough to extinguish a gingery glitter. Everyone agreed; he looked overwhelmingly handsome.
“If Mama hadn’t had all these months to prepare, I’m afraid my little sister would look like a hen pheasant beside that beautiful fellow.” Angelica whispered waspishly to the only woman present she considered her peer, tall blonde Arietta van Corlear. Diamond earrings flashed against creamy necks as the belles approvingly surveyed the lithe figure of the groom.
Still, few others present would have agreed. For the ceremony, Betsy had been transformed into a perfect, fashion plate angel. She had submitted to wearing a wig (sent through enemy lines from Philadelphia), which provided her with a tumble of snowy curls. Beneath this, her olive skin, black eyes, and long dark lashes made a magnificent contrast. Mama had insisted upon applying a delicate lamb’s wool brush of rouge to her high cheekbones, which hollowed the Dutch fullness. Her dress was a cream-colored sacque trimmed with lace and white satin bows.
When she entered the room upon the arm of her father, a number of Hudson valley cousins suffered unanticipated pangs of regret. Was this radiant bride really their own sweet, plain “Little Saint Bess”?
“They make a lovely couple.” Peggy sighed and slipped an arm around the waist of her younger cousin, Eliza van Rensselaer. Peggy had earlier confided to Miss van R. that she herself was secretly “a little in love with that rascal Alexander.”
The hordes of tow-headed children were cautioned, and the fire in Mrs. Schuyler’s eyes was sufficient to convince the most rambunctious that she meant business.
At the conclusion of the ceremony, a plain gold band, an heirloom from long ago Amsterdam, was slipped onto the bride’s delicate finger. The old-fashioned lace veil that had belonged to Grandmother Angelica Livingston Van Rensselaer was turned back, and Colonel Hamilton, in his blue and buff uniform, gave his lovely blacked-eyed Betsy a worshipful kiss.
Mrs. Schuyler leaned on her husband’s arm. She, too, was radiant. Within, the baby she carried stirred restlessly, awakened by the triumphant emotion which coursed through her mother like the Hudson in full flood. To see a beloved daughter handed properly from father to husband, married in the midst of this sea of relations, was a supreme moment...."
~~ Juliet Waldron
A MASTER PASSION
Find more at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eiAe...
http://amzn.com/B00V8UT9I0
Another Wife Speaks
Alexander Hamilton has been my hero since I was a ten year old, which means I’ve been imagining him for a long time. When I decided to finally write “his” book, I’d just finished a novel about Wolfgang A. Mozart Mozart's Wife, as told by his Constanze. It would be a familiar approach, I thought, to write the Hamilton story from the same womanly angle. Or, so I thought—until I realized I didn’t know much about Alexander’s wife, Betsy.
Was she just another Colonial Dame? Well, Not exactly. The big house in Albany where Elizabeth Schuyler had been brought up was “American with a difference.”
Historical fiction readers are familiar with the customs of the Scots, Irish and English immigrants. But New York school children—me among them—also learned about the Dutch, who had given place names all along the Hudson and founded NYC, as well as inspiring Washington Irving to write his winking ghost story: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Although Betsy’s father, Major General Philip Schuyler, successfully “English-ified” himself, she probably learned Dutch at her Daddy’s knee. (During the Revolution, she and famous family friend Baron von Steuben would find it their common language.) Hamilton’s wife, my novel’s heroine, had been born and raised folkways which retained some notable differences from those of her downstate predominantly English neighbors.
Miss Schuyler’s female Dutch ancestors enjoyed rights greater than those of any other European women. They were full legal persons, a position American women would not enjoy again until the early 20th century.
They could own property and conduct business, enter into contracts and buy and sell for their own profit. Some of the richest families in old New York could trace their fortune back to the business savvy of one of these “She Merchants.”
In Holland, and, briefly, in later New Amsterdam (now NYC) a woman could chose a unique form of marriage which kept her financial dealings and property separate from her husband’s. Although these exceptional rights withered after the English took over the colony in 1664, there remained a certain independence and self-reliance in these Dutch women.
Even the wealthiest ladies were inclined to hands-on. They were taught how to cook and garden, how to spin, to keep fowl, to weave and sew—as well as keep household accounts.
An old family friend, James McHenry, wrote tellingly to Hamilton: “Your wife…has as much merit as your Treasurer as you have as Treasurer of the wealth of the United States.” It was no secret who kept afloat the daily affairs of this often-preoccupied Founding Father.
Dutch women were also not so quick to hand their babies—messy, inconvenient creatures— to servants or slaves for nursing and day care. Despite the then commonly fatal water-borne and childhood diseases, Mrs. Hamilton bore eight children and raised every one of them to adulthood, something of a feat in that era.
The more I learned about her, the more she impressed me, this quiet, domestic woman behind the man. Betsy lived to be 97. Almost to her last breath, she performed her duties as co-founder of the first New York City orphanage, a cause dear to her heart.
She also remained determined that ‘Justice shall be done to the memory of my Hamilton.’” In this aim, she never wavered, preserving his papers and facing down important men who had been Hamilton’s political enemies with calm dignity.
~Learn more about Elizabeth’s life and the “odd destiny” of her beloved Alexander--orphan, immigrant, genius, and nation builder, in:
A Master Passion
In print and electronic format
Sources:
Jean Zimmerman’s The Women of the House, Mariner Books, 2007
David Fischer Hackett’s Albion’s Seed, Oxford University Press, 1989
Washington Irving’s Knickerbocker’s History of New York, GP Putnam & Sons, 1894
Mary Elizabeth Springer, Elizabeth Schuyler, A Story of Old New York, 1903
Was she just another Colonial Dame? Well, Not exactly. The big house in Albany where Elizabeth Schuyler had been brought up was “American with a difference.”
Historical fiction readers are familiar with the customs of the Scots, Irish and English immigrants. But New York school children—me among them—also learned about the Dutch, who had given place names all along the Hudson and founded NYC, as well as inspiring Washington Irving to write his winking ghost story: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Although Betsy’s father, Major General Philip Schuyler, successfully “English-ified” himself, she probably learned Dutch at her Daddy’s knee. (During the Revolution, she and famous family friend Baron von Steuben would find it their common language.) Hamilton’s wife, my novel’s heroine, had been born and raised folkways which retained some notable differences from those of her downstate predominantly English neighbors.
Miss Schuyler’s female Dutch ancestors enjoyed rights greater than those of any other European women. They were full legal persons, a position American women would not enjoy again until the early 20th century.
They could own property and conduct business, enter into contracts and buy and sell for their own profit. Some of the richest families in old New York could trace their fortune back to the business savvy of one of these “She Merchants.”
In Holland, and, briefly, in later New Amsterdam (now NYC) a woman could chose a unique form of marriage which kept her financial dealings and property separate from her husband’s. Although these exceptional rights withered after the English took over the colony in 1664, there remained a certain independence and self-reliance in these Dutch women.
Even the wealthiest ladies were inclined to hands-on. They were taught how to cook and garden, how to spin, to keep fowl, to weave and sew—as well as keep household accounts.
An old family friend, James McHenry, wrote tellingly to Hamilton: “Your wife…has as much merit as your Treasurer as you have as Treasurer of the wealth of the United States.” It was no secret who kept afloat the daily affairs of this often-preoccupied Founding Father.
Dutch women were also not so quick to hand their babies—messy, inconvenient creatures— to servants or slaves for nursing and day care. Despite the then commonly fatal water-borne and childhood diseases, Mrs. Hamilton bore eight children and raised every one of them to adulthood, something of a feat in that era.
The more I learned about her, the more she impressed me, this quiet, domestic woman behind the man. Betsy lived to be 97. Almost to her last breath, she performed her duties as co-founder of the first New York City orphanage, a cause dear to her heart.
She also remained determined that ‘Justice shall be done to the memory of my Hamilton.’” In this aim, she never wavered, preserving his papers and facing down important men who had been Hamilton’s political enemies with calm dignity.
~Learn more about Elizabeth’s life and the “odd destiny” of her beloved Alexander--orphan, immigrant, genius, and nation builder, in:
A Master Passion
In print and electronic format
Sources:
Jean Zimmerman’s The Women of the House, Mariner Books, 2007
David Fischer Hackett’s Albion’s Seed, Oxford University Press, 1989
Washington Irving’s Knickerbocker’s History of New York, GP Putnam & Sons, 1894
Mary Elizabeth Springer, Elizabeth Schuyler, A Story of Old New York, 1903
The work-a-day trials of a young clerk
“You goddamned puffed-up little nobody!” The planter had Alex by the shirt.
Ordinarily, he would have defended himself, but this was an important customer, so, instead, he only twisted and ducked. The ham fist struck his back, almost knocking the breath out of him as he wrenched free.
“I’ll teach you to talk back!”
It had not been because of anything, really, but simply because the fellow was in a foul mood. He’d entered the store in a rage and passed it along in the casual fashion a man might kick a cur in the street. Mr. Cruger watched from the back, but made no move to interfere.
The customer is always right. Especially this son-of-a bitch! And Cruger’s absolute indifference to right or wrong, is the best the filthy snake can do….
At quitting time, Alexander was off down the beach. He hated his life and everyone in it.
“God help me, or even the Devil.” He spoke aloud, feeling supremely daring. “When the next war comes, I shall jump ship and run straight to it.”
There was a special place to which Alexander went whenever he wanted to be alone. It was a rough trek through a forbidding grove of twisted manchineel and then up a brush-covered headland. After a slow ledge-to-ledge descent down the cliff face, he’d reach an outcrop a mere twenty feet above high tide, but hidden from anyone above.
Today, all he wanted was to stretch out, to listen to the boom of the waves. He anticipated a rare moment of fantasy, one that involved sailing away, maybe to some distant war, or maybe to America to see his friend Ned Stevens...
~~ Juliet V. Waldron
http://www.julietwaldron.com
Historical novels with grit and passion
Ordinarily, he would have defended himself, but this was an important customer, so, instead, he only twisted and ducked. The ham fist struck his back, almost knocking the breath out of him as he wrenched free.
“I’ll teach you to talk back!”
It had not been because of anything, really, but simply because the fellow was in a foul mood. He’d entered the store in a rage and passed it along in the casual fashion a man might kick a cur in the street. Mr. Cruger watched from the back, but made no move to interfere.
The customer is always right. Especially this son-of-a bitch! And Cruger’s absolute indifference to right or wrong, is the best the filthy snake can do….
At quitting time, Alexander was off down the beach. He hated his life and everyone in it.
“God help me, or even the Devil.” He spoke aloud, feeling supremely daring. “When the next war comes, I shall jump ship and run straight to it.”
There was a special place to which Alexander went whenever he wanted to be alone. It was a rough trek through a forbidding grove of twisted manchineel and then up a brush-covered headland. After a slow ledge-to-ledge descent down the cliff face, he’d reach an outcrop a mere twenty feet above high tide, but hidden from anyone above.
Today, all he wanted was to stretch out, to listen to the boom of the waves. He anticipated a rare moment of fantasy, one that involved sailing away, maybe to some distant war, or maybe to America to see his friend Ned Stevens...
~~ Juliet V. Waldron
http://www.julietwaldron.com
Historical novels with grit and passion
About A Master Passion, A Hamilton Love Story
You’d never know, at first glance, that Mrs. Hamilton was a Leo. When you first learn of a shy girl, “the best tempered girl in the world,” -- an 18th Century way to praise one who is not a great beauty – you can’t imagine any sort of classic Leo female. Such women radiate energy, flaunt their good looks and always have something clever to say.
Still, according to General Washington’s ADC, Tench Tilghman, who met Betsy Schuyler during a war time visit to Albany, she was “…A Brunette with the most good-natured dark lovely eyes that I ever saw, which threw a beam of good temper and Benevolence over her entire Countenance…” Later, during that same visit, three ladies and three gentlemen took a picnic “of Sherbet and Biscuit" to the Falls at Cohoes, north of Albany.
They went for a climb up the rocks in order to get a better view—or at least, Betsy and Tench Tilghman did—and she astonished the Marylander by climbing unaided right alongside him, for “she disdained all assistance and made herself merry at the distress of the other Ladyes.” This gives us a far more Leonine, picture of Miss Betsy—of a healthy, able-bodied creature, who was used to and thoroughly enjoyed physical activity—even if it wasn’t considered “ladylike.”
And she could fascinate in a Leonine way, too, when it suited her. Here follows a sweet story told by one of the elder children of the Ford Mansion, the stately home where Washington’s military family was housed for the winter.
In order that teen-age Timothy might go see his friends in the Village of Morristown, he was given the nightly countersign so that he could pass the sentries posted around the house after dark. One night, as he approached the sentinel, he heard the call for the countersign, but the young officer who’d been trudging ahead of him through the snow couldn’t seem to remember it. The sentry, following orders, presented his bayonet.
The absent-minded officer was Alexander Hamilton, who had been leaving headquarters almost every night to spend time with Miss Betsy, now staying with her Aunt and Uncle Cochran at a farmhouse nearby.
Timothy and the sentry both knew Lieutenant Hamilton, of course, but the sentry didn’t dare disobey orders. In the end, Hamilton took Timothy aside and asked for the password, which he then presented to the still dubious guard. This is the only story concerning absent-mindedness I’ve ever read about the sharp-as-a-tack Hamilton, and I give the Leo in Miss Betsy all the credit.
Later on in their marriage, after her husband's sordid affair with Maria Reynolds, nosy biographers and novelists like me, would love to know how Eliza reacted. (As they grew older, Hamilton's pet name for his Elizabeth changed to one more dignified.)
However, with the strong desire for privacy evidenced by many 18th Century wives of famous men, Mrs. Hamilton, like Konstanze Mozart and Martha Washington, two other notable contemporary examples, doubtless burned any and all written evidence of recrimination. To quote the astrologer, Linda Goodman, on the bravery of Leo* "...there's no one who can bear more in stoic dignity, or adjust more courageously to depressing conditions with sheer faith and optimism...".
This perfectly describes Elizabeth. She lived for more than fifty years after her "dear Hamilton" had died and never ceased to love him and defend his memory. She worked to preserve his vast, scattered written legacy, and fought to maintain his reputation in the face of his longer lived, formidable (Adams, Jefferson) but relentlessly jealous enemies.
Although she had to scrape to raise her children, Elizabeth made her mark in the world, being one of the co-founders of the first orphanage in NYC, a project dear to her heart because through this she honored her husband, who'd also been a fatherless child.
The train of disasters, financial and emotional, which beset this lady never kept her spirits down. Quoting Linda Goodman once more on Leo: "It's hard to sway them from a set path...They accumulate only so they can distribute to others...when a real emergency falls on Leo's strong shoulders..." they will "never shirk ... duty...they will help "the defenseless" and "protect the frightened."
Juliet Waldron
For information and inspiration for this blog, I am indebted to:
*Women of Colonial and Revolutionary Times by Mary Gay Humphreys
*Life of Major General Schuyler by Bayard Tuckerman
*Sun Signs by Linda Goodman
~~Juliet Waldron ~ All my historical novels : http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi
Still, according to General Washington’s ADC, Tench Tilghman, who met Betsy Schuyler during a war time visit to Albany, she was “…A Brunette with the most good-natured dark lovely eyes that I ever saw, which threw a beam of good temper and Benevolence over her entire Countenance…” Later, during that same visit, three ladies and three gentlemen took a picnic “of Sherbet and Biscuit" to the Falls at Cohoes, north of Albany.
They went for a climb up the rocks in order to get a better view—or at least, Betsy and Tench Tilghman did—and she astonished the Marylander by climbing unaided right alongside him, for “she disdained all assistance and made herself merry at the distress of the other Ladyes.” This gives us a far more Leonine, picture of Miss Betsy—of a healthy, able-bodied creature, who was used to and thoroughly enjoyed physical activity—even if it wasn’t considered “ladylike.”
And she could fascinate in a Leonine way, too, when it suited her. Here follows a sweet story told by one of the elder children of the Ford Mansion, the stately home where Washington’s military family was housed for the winter.
In order that teen-age Timothy might go see his friends in the Village of Morristown, he was given the nightly countersign so that he could pass the sentries posted around the house after dark. One night, as he approached the sentinel, he heard the call for the countersign, but the young officer who’d been trudging ahead of him through the snow couldn’t seem to remember it. The sentry, following orders, presented his bayonet.
The absent-minded officer was Alexander Hamilton, who had been leaving headquarters almost every night to spend time with Miss Betsy, now staying with her Aunt and Uncle Cochran at a farmhouse nearby.
Timothy and the sentry both knew Lieutenant Hamilton, of course, but the sentry didn’t dare disobey orders. In the end, Hamilton took Timothy aside and asked for the password, which he then presented to the still dubious guard. This is the only story concerning absent-mindedness I’ve ever read about the sharp-as-a-tack Hamilton, and I give the Leo in Miss Betsy all the credit.
Later on in their marriage, after her husband's sordid affair with Maria Reynolds, nosy biographers and novelists like me, would love to know how Eliza reacted. (As they grew older, Hamilton's pet name for his Elizabeth changed to one more dignified.)
However, with the strong desire for privacy evidenced by many 18th Century wives of famous men, Mrs. Hamilton, like Konstanze Mozart and Martha Washington, two other notable contemporary examples, doubtless burned any and all written evidence of recrimination. To quote the astrologer, Linda Goodman, on the bravery of Leo* "...there's no one who can bear more in stoic dignity, or adjust more courageously to depressing conditions with sheer faith and optimism...".
This perfectly describes Elizabeth. She lived for more than fifty years after her "dear Hamilton" had died and never ceased to love him and defend his memory. She worked to preserve his vast, scattered written legacy, and fought to maintain his reputation in the face of his longer lived, formidable (Adams, Jefferson) but relentlessly jealous enemies.
Although she had to scrape to raise her children, Elizabeth made her mark in the world, being one of the co-founders of the first orphanage in NYC, a project dear to her heart because through this she honored her husband, who'd also been a fatherless child.
The train of disasters, financial and emotional, which beset this lady never kept her spirits down. Quoting Linda Goodman once more on Leo: "It's hard to sway them from a set path...They accumulate only so they can distribute to others...when a real emergency falls on Leo's strong shoulders..." they will "never shirk ... duty...they will help "the defenseless" and "protect the frightened."
Juliet Waldron
For information and inspiration for this blog, I am indebted to:
*Women of Colonial and Revolutionary Times by Mary Gay Humphreys
*Life of Major General Schuyler by Bayard Tuckerman
*Sun Signs by Linda Goodman
~~Juliet Waldron ~ All my historical novels : http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi
