USA > New York > Famous families of New York; historical and biographical sketches of families which in successive generations have been identified with the development of the nation, Vol. I > Part 11
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In the ninth generation, David Johnson 11., son of Samuel Buell, was the eleventh proprietor. His brother, John Lyon, the twelfth proprietor, married Coralie Livingston David J. Jones of New York, by whom he has had five chil- Eleventh Lord dren: Coralie Livingston, Adele Griswold, Lyon, John, John L.
and Winthrop. Mrs. John Lyon is the President of Twelfth Lord the Colonial Dames of America, representing through marriage and descent no less than seventeen of the founders of the re- public. Their daughter, Adele Griswold, won national fame by
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her services to the nation during the late war with Spain. She was one of the first to volunteer when the Government made Adele Gris- a call for nurses, and served through the conflict, under wold, Patriot the Red Cross, without compensation. She not only paid her own expenses, but gave largely of her means to the sick and wounded of both American and Spanish armies. Her hero- ism should be long remembered. A delicate and refined woman, she not only served unfalteringly upon the the field, but labored in the yellow-fever hospitals gladly and without fear.
The Gardiners are more like the English landed gentry than any other American family. For more than two hundred and fifty years they have owned and lived upon the family estate. They are the only family which has been bound by the feudal law of primogeniture and entail for eight generations. They have been identified with the soil and have won success in agriculture, horticulture, stock-raising, sheep-farming, and the other ancient industries of husbandry. They have been prominent socially from the days of Governor Winthrop to the present time, and have dispensed hospitality with the same generous hand as they have charity to those less fortunate. Where they have entered profes- sional life, they have made capable lawyers, admirable physicians, and eloquent and devout divines. In their leisure they have been students, historians, and scholars. In every war they have come bravely forward on behalf of their land, and in peace have busied themselves in increasing the welfare of their neighborhood.
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Alexander Hamilton From the painting by Trumbull
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HE great romances of the world are not those of the novelist, but of actual life. What can be more picturesque than the story of a poor boy who comes to a strange land, and there, through a marvellous combination of ........... bravery, courtesy, tact, and intellect- a uality, rises to be one of its immortals, and who, at the very zenith of his course, is cut down by the bullet of a jealous rival? This was the career of Alexander Hamilton, one of the fathers of the Republic. He was born [1757] on the island of Nevis, Leeward Isles, British West Indies. His father was James Hamilton, the fourth son of Alexander Hamilton, Laird of Grange and Kambus-Keith, one of the oldest of the James cadet branches of the Scotch family of Hamilton. James was a proprietor at Nevis, where he was engaged in commerce. He seems to have been a dreamer and a poet, rather than a business man. His enterprise was unavailing, and nearly all of his life he was involved in commercial and legal troubles. On his mother's side, Alexander was descended from a distinguished Huguenot family named Faucette.
The Leeward Islands have often been compared to the Land of the Lotus-eaters. They are conducive to calm and even to
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indolence. Only the strongest wills are able to overcome the sensuous charms of the place. In a community where educa- Alexander tion was backward and where ambition was looked at the Statesman with pity, Alexander soon attracted attention by his desire to rise in life. The people of the place helped him in many ways. He received a fair English training, and a course in French so thorough that before he was twenty he was able to write and speak that tongue with the fluency of a native. Oddest of all, he attended for some time the school of a poor Jewess, who taught him the Decalogue and many prayers in Hebrew, which he was wont to recite when but a child to the astonishment of his towns- people. At seven he had become a devotee of books, almost a bookworm.
When twelve, he secured employment with Nicholas Cruger, a wealthy St. Croix merchant. From this period a letter is pre- served which shows the precocity of the lad.
"ST. CROIX, NOV. 11, 1769.
" DEAR EDWARD :
"This serves to acknowledge the receipt of yours per Capt. Lowndes, which was delivered me yesterday. The truth of Capt. Lightbowen and Lowndes's information is now verified by the presence of your father and sister, for whose safe arrival I pray, and that they may convey that satisfaction to your soul, that must naturally flow from the sight of absent friends in health; and shall for news this way refer you to them. As to what you say, respecting your soon having the happiness of seeing us all, I wish for an accomplishment of your hopes, provided they are concomi- tant with your welfare, otherwise not ; though doubt whether I shall be present or not, for, to confess my weakness, Ned, my ambition is prevalent so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk, or the like, to which my fortune condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station. I am confident, Ned, that my youth excludes me from any hopes of immediate preferment, nor do I desire it ; but I mean to prepare the way for futurity. I'm no philosopher, you
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see, and may be justly said to build castles in the air ; my folly makes me ashamed, and beg you 'll conceal it; yet, Neddy, we have seen such schemes successful, when the projector is constant. I shall conclude by saying I wish there was a war .- I am, dear Edward, yours,
ALEX. HAMILTON."
(Addressed to Edward Stevens in New York.)
This from a stripling of twelve, living in the lazy atmosphere of the Antilles! It was almost a miracle. In that letter the man can be discerned in embryo, resolute but discreet, ambitious but conscientious, adventurous but upright, hopeful and faithful, affec- tionate and tactful, brilliant but patient.
These qualities must have exerted a profound influence upon all those around him. Three years afterwards his employer and some other friends sent him to the colonies to perfect his educa- tion. According to family tradition, he could have been sent to England, but, with a wisdom beyond his years, preferred America as possessing greater opportunities for his youthful ambitions. He entered a school at Elizabethtown, where he fitted himself for college within a year, and in 1774 was matriculated at King's College, now Columbia University. Here he proved himself a brilliant student, standing in the front rank in all his classes. Even now the storm was brewing which was to culminate in the Revo- lution. From the first he espoused the cause of the colonies. The very year he entered college he began to speak and write against the Crown, and to advocate armed resistance to oppres- sion. With a sincerity as rare in those days as it is at the present time, he practised what he preached. Advising others to learn the arts of war, he himself took up fencing, the use of firearms, and the clumsy manual of tactics of that period. In March, 1776, he volunteered, and, although but nineteen years of age, so strongly had he impressed himself upon the authorities that he was appointed captain of a New York company of artillery. Even before his commission had been issued he was in the field.
In that year and the following he took part in the battles of
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Long Island, White Plains, Trenton, Princeton, and the crossing of the Raritan River. In battle and camp he showed himself to be a soldier of the Chevalier Bayard type, brave as a lion before his enemies, gentle and kind as a woman to his own troops. The love which he won from his men soon extended to the other commands of the American forces, so that no surprise was created when, in March, 1777, he was made lieutenant-colonel and aide- de-camp to George Washington. He resigned this honorable position in 1781, but it was to secure greater liberty of action, and not to obtain rest after four strenuous years of service. Immedi- ately after his resignation was accepted, he started new projects on his own account, and soon was at the head of an infantry regi- ment. Here he must have been in his element, because his men were mainly veterans, and his next in command was Major Nicholas Fish, a soldier as brilliant as himself. They took part at the siege of Yorktown, and in October of that year carried one of the strongest British redoubts at the point of the bayonet.
The surrender of Cornwallis was the practical end of the war. Unlike many other soldiers, Hamilton did not wait for a military or civil commission as a reward for his services in the field. He dropped the sword and took up the practice of the law. He cared for war only as a means to an end. He never was confused by false glory. Neither, on the other side, did he have that shrinking and fear of the military power which have marked so many able lawyers and diplomats. This was noticeable during the imbroglio of the United States with France (1798), when Hamilton was ap- pointed Washington's Inspector-General and second in command. The following year, when Washington died, he was made Com- mander-in-Chief of the American armies. Here, fortunately for the cause of humanity, his services were not required, the army was disbanded, and its leader retired to civil life. He was an able lawyer, an eloquent speaker, and a brilliant writer. His essays on political science, embodied in The Federalist are masterpieces.
In 1789 he was made Secretary of the Treasury, a position at that time fraught with onerous duties. He formulated and carried through his funding and banking systems, and won the reputation
Mrs. Alexander Hamilton From the painting by Inman
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of being the greatest American financier of his age. The man's activities were boundless. He served four years in the Continental Congress and one year in the New York State Assembly. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention, and the author of several hundred essays upon political, legal, financial, and mili- tary topics. He was a tremendous personality, who blocked or barred the ambitions of scores of smaller men. So long as he lived there was but little opportunity for them to realize their aspirations. For years the air was filled with rumors of impending duels between Hamilton and various politicians of that period. Of the many who desired his end, Burr seems to have been the only one with enough courage to attempt the deed.
Hamilton was as successful in love as in war and civil life. Just after the battle of Saratoga he met Elizabeth Schuyler, daughter of General Philip Schuyler, one of the most beautiful and accomplished women of that period, whom he married in 1780.
Hamilton had six sons, who seem to have inherited the virtues of both their parents. Philip [1782], the oldest, named after his grandfather Philip Schuyler, was graduated with high honors from Columbia in 1800, but was killed in a duel the following year, on the very spot where his father was to die three years afterwards.
Alexander [1786], the second son, was graduated from Columbia in 1804, and was admitted to the bar, but went abroad and was with the Duke of Wellington's army in Captain Portugal, where he learned military tactics and Alexander II. strategy. On hearing rumors of an impending conflict between Great Britain and the United States, he returned home, volun- teered, and was made a captain of infantry. He served as aide- de-camp to General Morgan Lewis, making an excellent record. In 1822 he was appointed United States District Attorney for Florida, and in 1823 Florida Land Commissioner. He was active in developing that State, and when his work was over returned to the North, where during the remainder of his life he was busy in the development of real estate on Manhattan Island.
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James Alexander [1788], the third son, was graduated from Columbia in 1805. He served in the War of 1812 as major and
James inspector. President Jackson made him Secretary of
Alexander State ad interim in 1829. The next month he was the Lawyer appointed United States District Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He led a long and eventful life, being prominent in legal, political, literary, and social circles.
John Church [1792], the fourth son, was graduated from Columbia in 1809, and became a successful lawyer. During the John Church War of 1812 he was a lieutenant and afterwards an
the Author aide-de-camp to General Harrison. He is perhaps best known as an author, his chief work being the Memoirs of his father. whose writings he also edited. William Steven [1797], the fifth son, was a student in the United States Military Acad- emy, served as a colonel in the Black Hawk War, and held many offices of honor and trust in Illinois, Wisconsin, and California, where he closed his life. The youngest son, Philip [1802] was an Assistant District Attorney in New York City, and a
Judge Philip Judge Advocate of the Naval Retiring Board. The generation was notable for the high attainments of all its members.
The third generation, of which many members are still alive, has ably sustained the reputation of its predecessors. Of the children of James Alexander, Alexander Ill. was a distinguished lawyer and diplomat who served as Secretary of Legation at Madrid under Washington Irving, Minister ; Eliza, who married George L. Schuyler, the philanthropist ; and Mary Morris, who married her brother-in-law after the death of her sister. Of the children of John Church Hamilton, who married Maria Eliza Van den Heuval, daughter of Baron Van den Heuval, the most distin- Major-General guished in military circles is Major-General Schuyler Schuyler Hamilton [1822]. He was graduated at West Point in 1841, and served with honor in the Mexican war. From 1847 to 1854 he was aide-de-camp to Gen. Winfield Scott. At the out- break of the civil conflict he volunteered as a private in the Seventh Regiment, rose to be an officer on the staff of Gen. Benjamin F.
John Church Hamilton From a photograph
Monument to Alexander Hamilton, at Weehawken, N. J.
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Butler, and thereafter military secretary to General Scott. He next was assistant chief of staff to General Halleck, with the rank of colonel. Made brigadier-general in November, 1861, he took part in the operations of the Armies of the Tennessee and the Cumberland, and displayed such ability that he was made major- general in 1862. In February, 1863, he broke down from ill-health due to exposure, which kept him an invalid for several years. Since 1871 he has devoted himself to hydrographic engineering and authorship.
Charles Apthorp, another son of John Church, inherited his father's legal ability, and after a successful career at the bar rose to be Supreme Court Judge of Wisconsin. William Judge Charles Gaston [1832], fourth son of John Church, is a civil Apthorp and mechanical engineer, inventor, and scientist. He was presi- dent and engineer of the Jersey City Locomotive Works, presi- dent of the Hamilton Steeled-Wheel Company, William consulting mechanical engineer to the Pennsylvania Gaston,
Railroad, and a director of the Mexican, Central Ameri- Engineer can, and South American Telegraph Company. He is prominent in New York philanthropies, being an officer in many charita- ble associations, hospitals, and other institutions. He married Charlotte Pierson.
Alexander, of Tarrytown, is another son of John Church, who is prominent in patriotic and church circles.
The daughters of John Church were Charlotte Augusta, Maria Eliza (Peabody), Adelaide, Elizabeth (Cullum), and Alice, all of whom were distinguished in the philanthropic world.
Of Philip, the leading representative is Dr. Allen McLane [1848]. He was graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons (Columbia University) in 1870, and is a Dr. Allen
medical practitioner in New York City. As an alienist McLane and specialist in nervous diseases he is one of the most eminent of living physicians. At the trial of Guiteau, the assassin of President Garfield, he was an expert witness for the Government. He is also an author and editor, and has written much upon his special subjects.
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Of the fourth generation, a notable member is Schuyler Hamil- ton, Jr., a son of the Major-General. Like nearly all of his ances- Schuyler, Jr., tors, he is a Columbia man, having been graduated Architect in arts in 1872, and in science in 1876. He is an archi- tect of marked skill and originality.
William Pierson, son of William Gaston, is a prominent New
William York banker and a member of the firm of J. P. Morgan Pierson & Co. He married Juliet P. Morgan, by whom he has had issue.
The keynote of the Hamilton family is intellectuality. They do not tend toward trade or commerce, and in whatever calling they engage they seem to be inspired by love for the industry and not for its emoluments. In war they are brilliant soldiers, but their attitude is that of the strategist, not the butcher. In law they are jurists rather than practitioners. They have a talent for organization and administration, and wherever they have been called upon to employ executive ability they have invariably succeeded. On the social side they have been marked by urbanity and tact. This would seem to be derived from their Huguenot forbears, just as their martial and mental virtues come from their Scotch ancestry. They are fiercely patriotic, and never hesitate to drop all private concerns the moment they feel that their services are required by the nation. Probably no other American family has been characterized by so large a proportion of soldiers to civilians in its own ranks. While their literary talent never runs to poetry, in their private lives they manifest a strong poetic temperament. It breathes out here and there in their literary composition. There is scarcely a volume by a Hamilton in which there are not touches of sentiment. This was notably the case with the head of the race. Throughout Alexander's correspondence are veins of delicacy and grace which make de- lightful reading. No finer example of this phase of his mentality can be found than one of his love letters to the beautiful woman about to become his wife. The original is in the possession of member of the family.
"I would not have you imagine, Miss, that I write to you
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so often either to gratify your wishes or to please your vanity; but merely to indulge myself, and to comply with that restless propensity of my mind which will not allow me to be happy when I am not doing something in which you are concerned. This may seem a very idle disposition in a philosopher and a soldier ; but I can plead illustrious examples in my justification. Achilles had like to have sacrificed Greece and his glory to his passion for a female captive; and Anthony lost the world for a woman. I am sorry the times have so changed as to oblige me to summon antiquity for my apology, but I confess, to the dis- grace of the present age, that I have not been able to find many who are as far gone as myself in such laudable zeal for the fair sex. I suspect, however, if others knew the charms of my sweetheart as well as I do, I should have a great number of competitors. I wish I could give you an idea of her-you have no conception how sweet a girl she is-it is only in my heart that her image is truly drawn. She has a lovely form and a mind still more lovely; she is all goodness, the gentlest, the dearest, the tenderest of her sex. Ah, Betsey, how I love her Well, my love, here is the middle of October ; a few weeks more and you are mine; a sweet reflection to me- is it so to my charmer? Do you find yourself more or less anxious for the moment to arrive as it approaches ? This is a good criterion to determine the degree of your affection by. You have had an age for consideration, time enough for even a woman to know her mind in. Do you begin to repent or not ? Remember you are going to do a very serious thing. For though our sex has generously given up a part of its prerogatives, and husbands have no longer the power of life and death, as the wiser husbands of former days had, yet we still retain the power of happiness and misery; and, if you are prudent, you will not trust the felicity of your future life to one in whom you have not good reason for implicit confidence. I give you warning-don't blame me if you make an injudicious choice-and if you should be disposed to retract, don't give me the trouble of a journey to Albany, and then do as did a certain
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lady I have mentioned to you, find out the day before we are to be married that 'you can't like the man'; but of all things, I pray you don't make the discovery afterwards-for this would be worse than all. But I do not apprehend its being the case. I think we know each other well enough to understand each other's feelings, and to be sure our affection will not only last, but be progressive. I stopped to read over my letter-it is a mot- ley mixture of fond extravagance and sprightly dulness; the truth is, I am too much in love to be either reasonable or witty. I feel in the extreme; and when I attempt to speak of my feelings I rave. I have remarked to you before that real tenderness has always a tincture of sadness, and when I affect the lively my melting heart rebels. It is separated from you and it cannot be cheerful. Love is a sort of insanity, and everything I write savors strongly of it; that you return it is the best proof of your madness also. I tell you, my Betsey, you are negligent; you do not write me often enough. Take more care of my happiness, for there is nothing your Hamilton would not do to promote yours."
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Murray Hoffman From a painting
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MONG the commanding races of Europe the Norseman stood out pre-eminent. His superb physical strength, his curi- ous nature in which ferocious valor was tempered and even balanced by his love of the pleasures of life, his grim contempt for nature's ugly moods, his love of travel and of home, all combined to make him a memora- ble personality in European annals from the fourth to the seventeenth century. Scandinavia is but a small and sterile country, with a sparse population, and yet for a thou- sand years it exerted as wide an influence upon the destinies of Christendom as many richer, stronger, and more populous lands.
In the settlement of the New World it contributed its share of pioneers and explorers. One of the first colonies sent out from Europe was that of New Christiania on the Delaware, which was conquered and added to the Dutch possessions by Governor Stuyvesant. The fate of this colony did not deter the men of the North from following in the footsteps of their unsuccessful prede- cessors. Nor was there any reason, excepting insignificant political ones, for their being deterred. They were Protestants, as were the Dutch and English; they were lovers of liberty and believers
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in the home rule of that period. They were accustomed to rough living and to the perils of the sea. Thus from almost the beginning of the seventeenth century until the present time, there has been a steady movement of Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and Finns from northern Europe to the shores of America.
The first family of distinction in this migration was the one founded by Martin Hermanzen Hoffman [1625], who was born at Martin the Revel in Esthonia, on the Gulf of Finland. He is said Founder to have been Rittmaster in the army of King Gustavus Adolphus. Prior to his departure for America, he lived a short time in Holland. He came to New Netherlands in 1657, and settled first in Esopus (1658), and two years afterwards in New Amster- dam. Life was not altogether uneventful to the sturdy Norseman. Over the settlements along the Hudson hung the vague fear of an Indian outbreak, and every man held himself in readiness to give battle to the redskins. In 1658, at Esopus, there was every indica- tion of an onslaught by the savages, and both the garrison and the farmers were under arms. The former was under command of Ensign Smith, who was in favor of a peace policy. In pursuance of this plan he gave orders that no one should resort to arms until there was an attack by the Indians. The latter, misunder- standing the policy, became more threatening, and began depre- dations. Martin and the other farmers promptly seized their weapons and without the aid of the garrison fell upon the savages and drove them away. He incurred the enmity of the officials, but won the respect and love of all the people. It was probably this popularity at Kingston which induced him to go back there from Fort Orange twenty years afterwards.
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