Eliza Schuyler Hamilton

Eliza Hamilton, born 9th August 1757, died at the age of ninety seven in November 1854.



General Phillip Schuyler married Catherine Van Rensselaer and they had fifteen children together;

• Angelica, who survived to adulthood.
• Elizabeth, who survived to adulthood. (Eliza)
• Margarita, who survived to adulthood. (Peggy)
• Cornelia, who died as an infant.
• Cordelia's unnamed twin, who died as an infant.
• John Bradstreet, who died as an infant.
• John Bradstreet, who survived to adulthood.
• Philip Jeremiah, who survived to adulthood.
• Unnamed triplets, who died as infants.
• Rensselaer, who survived to adulthood.
• Cornelia, who survived to adulthood.
• Cortlandt, who died as an infant.
• Catherine Van Rensselaer, who survived to adulthood.

As a child, Eliza was a tomboy, who loved walking and climbing. Once, when her father attended a Six Nations meeting, she visited alongside him. She was also taught how to play backgammon by Benjamin Franklin, who visited the Schuyler Mansion while travelling. She attended the Dutch Reformed Church of Albany, which instilled in er a strong lifelong religious belief that she would later depend upon after the death of her husband. Each of the Schuyler siblings learnt a musical instrument, and they would entertain and amuse visitors and guests to the Schuyler Mansion.

At the age of 20, Eliza first met her future husband, Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton dined at her father's Albany mansion in November 1777, but it wasn't until they met again when Eliza moved to Morristown to live with relatives in February 1780. They decided to marry only a month later, with Hamilton being fully accepted into the Schuyler family, especially Angelica. their marriage has often been described as a menage-a-trois between Eliza, Angelica and Alexander, as all three adored each other. 
While at Morristown, Eliza developed a friendship with Martha Washington, which was to continue until Washington's death, with Washington later describing her as "she was always my ideal of a true woman." This would later be shown when George and Martha Washington sent Eliza a silver cooler after Hamilton revealed his affair with Maria Reynolds.

Eliza and Alexander married in December 1780, at the Schuyler Mansion in Albany. After a honeymoon, and Alexander fought with George Washington, they moved back to Albany, where Eliza made a home around them and supported Alexander in his political writings. Soon after, Alexander was given a military commission and Eliza returned to her parent's Mansion, pregnant with their first child. In August, the Mansion was invaded and harm averted as a result of Peggy (Margarita).
They would later have eight children together;

• Philip, who would die at nineteen in a duel.
• Angelica, who would have a mental breakdown over Philip's death which resulted in a continued childlike state.
• Alexander Junior, who became a lawyer and soldier.
• James Alexander, who became a soldier, a lawyer and the acting Secretary of State.
• John Church, named after his aunt Angelica's husband, he would be responsible for his father's biography, published three years after Eliza's death.
• William Stephen, who would become a politician and miner, living in Illinois.
• Elizabeth Holly.
• Philip, named after his eldest brother.

It is during this time that Angelica and her husband moved to Great Britain, where her husband became a Member of Parliament. Eliza also took in an orphan, named Franny Antill, who stayed with the Hamilton's from the age of two until twelve, when she moved to live with her married older sister. This foreshadowed Eliza's future endeavors after Alexander's death. She also sat for a painter imprisoned in debtors prison, so that he would be able to buy his way out of prison. They had an incredibly busy social life, attending the theater, balls and parties. When her youngest child at the time (John Church Hamilton) fell severely ill, Eliza suffered a miscarriage.

While pregnant with their sixth child, the affair between Alexander Hamilton and Maria Reynolds was revealed. At the beginning, Eliza did not believe the rumours, believing the men purporting them to be scoundrels. At the end of the month, Alexander published the Reynolds Pamphlet, revealing it to be true to Eliza. Despite his betrayal and adultery, the Hamiltons remained together and even had two more children.

Philip, the eldest child of the couple, would become involved in a duel of honour with George Eacker, after Eacker's 4th July speech where he insulted Alexander Hamilton. Eacker was a Jeffersonian, which explained his dislike of Hamilton and the other Federalists as the Federalists were opposed by the Republicans, led by Jefferson and Madison. This duel resulted in the death of Philip, three years before Alexander's death.

Alexander Hamilton died after a duel with Aaron Burr in 1804, in Weehawken, New Jersey. 

Following his death, Eliza raised their seven children, surrounded by the debt that Alexander had left them in. Eliza struggled to cope with this large sum, even losing their home, The Grange. However, she was later able to buy it back at a reduced price. Around the same time as her husband's death, both of her parents and two of her siblings had died. Eliza would eventually outlive all but her youngest siblings, who outlived Eliza by three years despite being twenty-four years younger.

Eliza spent the rest of her life defending Hamilton's legacy, smeared and attacked by the rest of the founding Fathers who outlived him by an average of thirty years. She did this by supporting his claim for authorship of George Washington's Farewell Address, which was also claimed by James Madison. She also requested an apology from James Munroe over his accusations of financial impropriety and refused his apology in regards to his involvement in the Reynolds Affair, as he spread the knowledge of Hamilton's affair to Jefferson, Hamilton's political rival and personal enemy.

In 1805, Eliza joined the Society for for the Relief of Poor Women with Small Children, and even formed the Orphan Asylum Society as vice-president. This was the first private orphanage in New York City, and she continued as President of the Society from 1821 to 1848, when she retired and moved to Washington D.C. to live with her youngest daughter, Elizabeth Hamilton Holly, who has recently been widowed. The Society is now called Graham Windham and continues in New York today. She also contributed funds to build the Washington Memorial and fought against slavery. She also shamed Congress into taking care of Hamilton's seven children after his death, petitioning for her husband's writings to be published.

She re-organised all of Hamilton's papers and writings with the help of her son, John Church Hamilton, and persevered in order to get his biography written, despite many setbacks, such as the deaths of the biographers and some biographers backing out. John Church Hamilton would later finish the mammoth biography three years after Eliza's death. 

At the age of ninety-seven in 1854, Eliza Schuyler Hamilton died in Washington D.C. fifty years after the death of her beloved husband, having carried his special letters and notes around in a pouch around her neck since his death. She would then be buried next to her husband and near to her sister in Trinity Church graveyard in New York City.