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The American Revolution was to succeed because it was undertaken by skeptical men who knew that the same passions that toppled tyrannies could be applied to destructive ends.
1780, hard on the heels of Cornelia and Polly, Elizabeth Schuyler arrived in Morristown,
Hamilton must have been struck by the coincidence that his paternal grandfather, Alexander Hamilton, had also married an Elizabeth who was the daughter of a rich, illustrious man.
When he wrote to John Laurens on March 30, 1780, Hamilton neglected to mention either Schuyler or his abrupt decision to marry her—a curious lack of candor.
I entreat you, my charmer, not to neglect the charges I gave you, particularly that of taking care of yourself and that of employing all your leisure in reading. Nature has been very kind to you. Do not neglect to cultivate her gifts and to enable yourself to make the distinguished figure in all respects to which you are entitled to aspire.
Do you soberly relish the pleasure of being a poor man’s wife?
I RELISH BEING YOUR WIFE (Hamilton lyrics)
At noon on December 14, 1780, Alexander Hamilton, twenty-five, wed Elizabeth Schuyler, twenty-three, in the southeast parlor of the Schuyler mansion.
Hamilton lifted his pistol, as did Burr. Both guns were discharged with explosive flashes, separated by a split second or perhaps several seconds. Pendleton was adamant that Burr had fired first and that Hamilton’s shot was merely “the effect of an involuntary exertion of the muscles produced by a mortal wound,”
Once Hamilton had been shot, Pendleton propped him up on a reddish-brown boulder that is still preserved at Weehawken, the sole relic of the duel to survive other than the pistols.
Then, at 2:00 P.M. on Thursday, July 12, 1804, thirty-one hours after the duel, forty-nine-year-old Alexander Hamilton died gently, quietly, almost noiselessly.
Adieu best of wives and best of women. Embrace all my darling children for me. Ever yours A H
“Had I read Sterne more and Voltaire less, I should have known the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me.”
the Society of the Cincinnati would erect a monument to Hamilton in Trinity Church.
In fact, she was a woman of towering strength and integrity who consecrated much of her extended widowhood to serving widows, orphans, and poor children. On March 16, 1806, less than two years after the duel, Eliza and other evangelical women cofounded the New York Orphan Asylum Society, the first private orphanage in New York.
Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton died at age ninety-seven. Her widowhood had lasted fifty years, or slightly longer than her life before the duel. She was buried where she had always longed to be: right beside her Hamilton in the Trinity Churchyard.
