John Church Hamilton
| John Church Hamilton | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
August 22, 1792 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | July 25, 1882 (aged 89) Long Branch, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Columbia College (1809) |
| Occupation | Historian, lawyer |
| Spouse(s) | Maria Eliza van den Heuvel |
| Children | 10 |
| Parent(s) |
Alexander Hamilton Elizabeth Schuyler |
| Military career | |
| Service/branch | United States Army |
| Years of service | 1814 |
| Rank | Second Lieutenant |
John Church Hamilton (August 22, 1792 − July 25, 1882) was a historian and lawyer who was the fourth son, fifth child of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton and Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
John Hamilton was born on August 22, 1792 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was one of eight children born to Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton. His maternal grandparents were Philip Schuyler, a Revolutionary War hero and United States Senator from New York, and Catherine Van Rensselaer.
He was eleven years old when his father was killed in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr. In 1809, he graduated from Columbia College.
After graduating from Columbia, he studied law until March 1812, when he began serving in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812, attaining the rank of second lieutenant. During this time he served as an aide-de-camp to Major General, and future president, William Henry Harrison. In June 1814, he resigned his position in the Army and returned to private life.
According to his obituary in the New York Times, "he did not apply himself to the practice of law, but, having strong literary tastes, devoted himself to the study of history, with a view to writing his father's life." Between 1834 and 1840, he sorted through his father's letters and other papers and published two volumes of the The Life of Alexander Hamilton. In 1851, he published seven volumes of History of the Republic of the United States of America.
John Church was prompted to write a biography about his father by his mother, Elizabeth Schuyler, after several biographers abandoned the work. Despite efforts, a seven volume history of his father's exploits was published after his mother's passing. In his biography on his father's life, it is said he censored out letters between his father and John Laurens. When Ron Chernow mentions this, he uses the word 'sanitized'. A letter dated April 1779 shows this in crossed out words and the words 'I must not publish the whole of this' scrawled at the top. Chernow mentions this is done by an early editor, likely John Church. Many letters from their conversations are missing on top of this, it is not unlikely that he destroyed these letters, even if it is possible that they were lost alongside other correspondence including some of Hamilton's letters to his fiancée and wife Eliza because of the difficult connections during the war.
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