Eliza Schuyler Hamilton
| Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton | |
|---|---|
Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton by Ralph Earl, 1787
|
|
| Born |
Elizabeth Schuyler August 9, 1757 Albany, Province of New York, British America |
| Died | November 9, 1854 (aged 97) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Other names | Eliza, Betsey |
| Spouse(s) | Alexander Hamilton (m. 1780; d. 1804) |
| Children |
Philip Hamilton Angelica Hamilton Alexander Hamilton Jr. James Alexander Hamilton John Church Hamilton William S. Hamilton Eliza Hamilton Holly Philip Hamilton II |
| Parent(s) |
Philip Schuyler Catherine Van Rensselaer Schuyler |
| Relatives |
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| Family | Schuyler |
Elizabeth Hamilton (née Schuyler /ˈskaɪlər/; August 9, 1757 – November 9, 1854), sometimes called "Eliza" or "Betsey," was co-founder and deputy director of the first private orphanage in New York City. She was the wife of American founding father Alexander Hamilton.
Elizabeth was born in Albany, New York, the second daughter of Philip Schuyler, a Revolutionary War general, and Catherine Van Rensselaer Schuyler. The Van Rensselaers of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck were one of the richest and most politically influential families in the state of New York. She had seven siblings who lived to adulthood, including Angelica Schuyler Church and Margarita "Peggy" Schuyler Van Rensselaer, and 14 siblings in total.
Her family was among the wealthy Dutch landowners who had settled around Albany in the mid-1600s, and both her mother and father came from wealthy and well-regarded families. Like many landowners of the time, Philip Schuyler owned slaves, and Eliza would have grown up around slavery. Despite the unrest of the French and Indian War, which her father served in and which was fought in part very near her childhood home, Eliza's childhood was spent comfortably, learning to read and sew from her mother. Like most Dutch families of the area, she would have attended the Reformed Dutch Church of Albany, which still survives today, though the actual church Elizabeth would have attended was torn down in 1806. This instilled in her a strong and unwavering faith she would retain throughout her life.
When she was a girl, Elizabeth accompanied her father to a meeting of the Six Nations and met Benjamin Franklin when he stayed briefly with the Schuyler family while traveling. She was said to have been something of a tomboy when she was young; throughout her life she retained a strong will and even an impulsiveness that her acquaintances noted. James McHenry, one of Washington's aides alongside her future husband, would say that "Hers was a strong character with its depth and warmth, whether of feeling or temper controlled, but glowing underneath, bursting through at times in some emphatic expression." Much later, the son of Joanna Bethune, one of the women she worked alongside to found an orphanage later in her life, remembered that "Both [Elizabeth and Joanna] were of determined disposition...Mrs. Bethune the more cautious, Mrs. Hamilton the more impulsive."
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