Hamilton's forbidden flame, Angelica

 

Purchase links for all Juliet Waldron's book available at 

https://bookswelove.net/waldron-juliet/

Angelica Schuyler ("Engeltke") named for her grandmother, as was Dutch custom,was born on February 22, 1756, probably at the home of her grandparents, the fine house called Rensselearwyck. Her parents, Catherine van Rensselear and Philip Schuyler, had been married during the alarms of the French & Indian War the previous year, on September 17th, 1755. Albany was, in those days, another semi-rural village in the upper Hudson Valley, hanging precariously on the edge of the wild frontier. The French and their powerful Indian allies had been on their doorstep many times before and now were menacing the English/Dutch settlements once more. 

The marriage was noted in the family Bible, just nine days after the Battle of Lake St. George where Philip Schuyler was a Captain and aide to General Bradstreet. If you do the math, you will see that  the young Captain had been summoned back from the army by his soon-to-be father-in-law. Catherine, the "Evening Star" of Albany (per the eligible bachelors of the valley) was a famous belle in her day but her flirtatious days were now over. Her first born daughter would grow up to be an even more famous coquette--on three continents.

Angelica seems to have been her father's favorite, a real sparkler right from the start. In her early teens (14) she was sent with her parents' good friends, New York British Governor Moore and his charming wife Lucy, for an extended stay. In New York, she apparently absorbed ideas about status, and for her the word "Colonial" now carried a cruel sting. I believe this was where she made up her mind to marry an English aristocrat, instead of one of her land-wealthy, but less sophisticated Hudson Valley cousins, the expected course for a Patroon's daughter. When Angelica returned home at last, she arrived in Albany with a music master and a harpsichord. She alone of the daughters was sent to what was then an  innovation among the Dutch--a boarding school to learn French, and the other courtly graces. Nothing was too good for General Schuyler's bright, pert eldest daughter. 

“Carter and my eldest daughter ran off and were married on the 23, July,” (1779) Unacquainted with his family connections and situation in life that matter was exceeding disagreeable and I signified it to them.” Phillip Schuyler to his friend, William Duer.  

This “Carter” was actually John Barker Church—after the war, when news came that the man he’d supposedly killed in a duel was still alive and well--he would resume his proper name. The cause of his flight from England was probably far less glamorous, for Church was bankrupt and a well-known gambler, an unpromising history that Philip Schuyler may have known.

Carter became commissary supplier to Admiral Rochambeau and General Jeremiah Wadsworth during the Revolution. Commissary was a fast way to accumulate a large fortune, as sub rosa skimming and was the norm. His war-profiteering accumulated a large fortune. Eventually, with plenty of money in his pocket, he would become a member of parliament and live in England in lavish style, owning a country home as well as a fashionable house in London.    

At this time, however, the family was still in America, and the Revolution raged in the Hudson Valley. 

"Mrs. Church is delivered of a fine boy. I hope her sister will give me another.” Philip Schuyler to his son-in-law, Alexander Hamilton September, 1778, soon after the Battle of Yorktown.

Angelica gave birth to her first born at The Pastures, the Schuyler home. A few months later came the famous Tory and Indian attack upon the house—Angelica & four month old Philip were present, as well as a pregnant Betsy Hamilton and the girls' new born sister, Kitty, and the rest of the children of this large family. 

                                        Angelica Church, baby and maid by John Trumbull

The Marquis de Chastelux remarked after the war: "Mrs. Carter, a handsome woman told me that going down to her husband's office (the commissary at Newport) in rather elegant undress, a farmer who was there on business asked who the young lady was. On being told that it was Mrs. Carter, he said, loud enough for her to hear, 'A wife and a mother has no business to be so well-dressed.'"  The farmer had mistaken her, because of her "immodest" dress, for some dandy's mistress. 

Angelica loved clothes, hats, and the latest fashions. She must have reveled after her marriage to John Church in freedom from the frugality of Dutch tradition, where three good dresses were "more than enough" for any respectable woman. 

These next letters were written when Angelica and Church departed from America in 1789. It would be  1797 that they would finally return.

 

November 8, 1789, Angelica Church to Alexander Hamilton:

      "I am not much disposed for gaiety- yet I endeavor to make myself tolerable to my fellow passengers…Do my dear Brother endeavor to sooth my poor Betsey, comfort her with assurances that I will certainly return to take care of her soon. Remember this also my dearest Brother and let neither politics or ambition drive your Angelica from your affections. ..Adieu my dear Brother, may God bless and protect you, prays your ever affectionate Angelica, ever ever yours.” 

And here is Hamilton's reply: 

    “After taking leave of you on board of the Packet, I hastened home to sooth and console your sister. I found her in bitter distress…After composing her with a strong infusion of hope, that she had not taken her last farewell of you…The Baron little Philip and myself with her consent, walked down to the Battery; where with aching hearts and anxious eyes we saw your vessel, in full sail, swiftly bearing our loved friend from our embraces. Imagine what we felt. We gazed, we signed, we wept…”

    “Amiable Angelica! How much you are formed to endear yourself to every good heart! How deeply you have rooted youself in the affection of your friends on this side of the Atlantic! Some of us are and must continue inconsolable for your absence.

    Betsey and myself make you the last theme of our conversation at night and the first in the morning. We dwell with peculiar interest on the little incidents that preceded your departure. Precious and never to be forgotten scenes! ...However difficult, or little natural it is to me to suppress what the fullness of my heart would utter, the sacrifice shall be made…”

From Betsey: 

“My Very Dear Beloved Angelica—I have seated myself to write to you, but my heart is so saddened by your Absence that it can scarcely dictate, my Eyes so filled with tears that I shall not be to write you much but Remember, Remember, my dear sister of the Assurances of your returning to us, and do all you can to make your Absence short. Tell Mr. Church for me of the happiness he will give me, in bringing you to me, not to me alone, but to fond parents sisters friends and to my Hamilton who has for you all the Affection of a fond own Brother. I can do no more. Adieu Adieu Heaven Protect you.”       

When she and her husband returned from their first sojourn in London, Angelica loved to shock the City with the latest novelties in style. Walter Rutherford, detailing one of her dinner parties, speaks of "a late abominable fashion from London, of Ladies like Washerwomen with their sleeves above their elbows, Mrs. Church among them."  

She and Hamilton continually played seductive word games when they wrote. It is notable that Hamilton wrote so much to Angelica about his work during the hectic time when he was America's first Secretary of the Treasury, attempting to set the wheels of public finance successfully turning. You may make of their affection what you will, although there were rumors about this glamorous pair were rampant in the circles of his political enemies--and finally in scurrilous pamphlets--for years. 

Two of Hamilton's biographers, (James Flexner and Robert Hendrickson) seem to believe Hamilton and his sister-in-law consummated their passion. How unlikely this was--betrayal between affectionate sisters, especially in the Schuyler's closely bonded family--is persuasively argued by Ron Chernow. Infidelity between those two would have been an explosive, corroding secret that it would have been nearly impossible to keep.

18th Century conventional morality ran in two very separate tracks--one for men and one for women-- even for beautiful, worldly, sophisticated women like Angelica. She may have been a kind of danger junkie, leading on so many powerful men, but, playing this game, she could wield far more power over these hopeful lovers than their wives ever could, forever promising, but never quite surrendering.  No one mentions John Church's affinity for dueling as an aspect of their reticence, but his handsome matched set of pistols were employed by many fool-hardy gentlemen. They would finally put an end to the gallant Hamilton himself. 

 Eight years after the tearful departure, Angelica would return to America, just as Hamilton resigned from his heroic stint as Secretary of the Treasury. By this time, despite all those confiding, flirtatious letters that had traveled back and forth across the ocean, she seems to have become anxious about her continuing hold upon Hamilton's affections. As the Church's attorney, Hamilton found himself responsible for purchasing their new home in New York.  In February of that year, she wrote a rather spiteful letter to him. He had enclosed "no plan of the lot and no description of the house. How can I bring out the furniture when I do not know the number of rooms my house contains...?"

She goes on: "I am sensible how much trouble I give you, but ...it proceeded from a persuasion that I was asking from one who promised me his love and attention if returned to America... for what do I exchange ease and taste, by going to the new world...?" 

To which he could only reply that he and Eliza were "strangely agitated between fear and hope, anxiously wishing for your return...We feast on your letters..The only rivalship we have is in our attachment to you and we each contend for preeminence in this particular...To whom will you give the apple?...Yours as much as you desire, A.H."

This hot and heavy signature, like so much of their correspondence, teeters on the edge of impropriety. This same tone is a constant in their letters until Hamilton took himself permanently out of the game on that ledge at Weehawken. He, however, was not the only important man to be enchanted by her.

Benjamin Franklin adored her. Thomas Jefferson seems to have had designs upon her during a time in France when he was the U.S. Minister to the French Court and she was present, sometimes without her husband. In 1788 Jefferson even invited her to come and stay with him at Monticello when they both returned to America. He further suggested that they could travel together, perhaps to Niagara Falls. 

Angelica's apparently relaxed views on "extra-marital escapades,"*(1.) invited these advances from Jefferson. She had previously acted as a go-between for the painter's wife, Mrs. Cosway, herself an artist and a particular friend of Angelica's, who was enamored of the famous author of the Declaration of Independence. Mrs. Cosway became Jefferson's mistress and so close were these three that Jefferson's own copy of The Federalist bears the "surprising dedication"*(2.) 'For Mrs. Church from her Sister, Elizabeth Hamilton.'" 

In Paris, Angelica was presented to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and invited into all the highest Enlightenment circles, as well as maintaining her own very active salon. Later, in England, Angelica once more bedazzled all who met her. Here she was presented to George IV and Queen Charlotte.  After this triumph, as in France, all the finest salons opened to her and to her wealthy husband. 

Insurance in those days was a private legal arrangement between gentlemen, although there was always a high risk of ruin for one or the other parties to the deal, especially if a ship laden with cargo went to the bottom. John Church seems to have (at least partly) shifted his love of gambling into this side of the business world, although he remained famous for his love of night-long, high-stakes card games. He certainly provided Angelica with the glamorous wider world of which she'd dreamed as a girl, as well as all the glittering parties, clothes and jewels anyone could need. When the family returned to New York in the late 1790's their parties were soon the talk of the town, as were her diamonds and the solid silver plate upon which she served dinner guests. Angelica was definitely a "material girl."

Betsy/Eliza 

Whatever Angelica and Alexander may have sometimes fantasied, I believe that Hamilton married the right sister. Elizabeth was faithful, loyal, a frugal manager, and a loving mother. She was exactly what a self-absorbed genius required in a wife, a woman who, no matter what happens, always "stands by her man."  Angelica and Hamilton, on the other hand, were too much alike. She was as high-maintenance as he. Far better suited to her was Church, who could provided the travel, the luxury, and the free rein that she craved.  She couldn't have her cake and eat it too and it was better for all concerned that it turned out that way.

At the end, though, Angelica came home to America. She is buried in Trinity Churchyard, near the graves of Alexander, Elizabeth and their oldest son, Philip. Her husband, John Church, is buried far across the sea in Westminister Abbey.

~~Juliet Waldron 

https://bookswelove.net/waldron-juliet/

*1. Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton, page 315

*2. Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton, page 315

For a colorful account of Jefferson in Paris, see the 1995 Merchant-Ivory movie of the same name.    

The Burr-Hamilton Duel ~ A few thoughts.

http://amzn.to/1YQziX0

http://www.bookswelove.com/authors/waldron-juliet-historical-romance/

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/search?Query=Juliet+Waldron

https://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Juliet+Waldron

We're approaching July 11, the anniversary date of the Burr-Hamilton duel. During the Revolution, these two men were much alike, young, brilliant, ambitious brothers in arms. It didn’t take long after 1792 for them to move to opposite sides of the playing field.

Aaron Burr was born into a leading Connecticut family. He was a descendant of Aaron Burr, Senior, a Presbyterian minister and second president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton). His mother, Esther Edwards, was the daughter of the famous theologian Jonathan Edwards. he like Hamilton was an orphan, but the young Burr was rigorously educated by his stern Connecticut relatives. He did not enter the College of New Jersey when he was 11, but passed the examination at the ripe old age of 13. 

Hamilton had a far more difficult time growing up. This “bastard brat of a Scot’s tinker” as John Adams would have it, was always jealous of his hard-won “honor” and of his status as "gentleman." Thin-skinned doesn’t begin to describe Alexander Hamilton. At eleven--the same age as young Aaron was applying for Princeton--he spent his days in a St. Croix warehouse, perched upon a high stool writing letters and balancing his master's accounts. He earned his daily bread and board in the sweat of his brow. 

About five o'clock Wednesday morning, July 11^th, 1804, Hamilton left town, probably from the area which is now Horatio Street in the Village and was rowed to the dueling ground. Weehawken is on the west bank of the Hudson directly across the river from the west end of what is now Forty-Second Street in Manhattan.  The passage across was near 3 miles. With a light breeze, and they arrived about 7. Burr and his second Van Ness were already on the ground and had cleared away some brush and branches to make “a fair opening.”  This was on the extreme southern point of the Palisades, 20 feet above the water, about 22 paces long and only 10 feet wide.

 On the way across the river, Hamilton told his second, Pendleton, that “he had made up his mind not to fire at Colonel Burr the first time, but to receive his fire and then fire into the air.” Pendleton argued with him, but Hamilton said “it is the effect of a religious scruple, and does not admit of reasoning. It is useless to say more on the subject, as my purpose is definitely fixed.”

The accounts of the seconds were at odds as to which man fired first. This is because the seconds had their backs to the duelists, in order to provide a certain level of deniability. Dueling was by this time illegal in both New York and New Jersey. If Hamilton threw away his shot by firing wide--as he'd proposed to do--he may have fired first. Logically, this would show Burr that he meant no harm, but, of course, it would also leave him at Burr's mercy. How Burr reacted would then be up to him. 

If Burr shot first, as Pendleton later declared, his shot would have hit Hamilton and caused him to spin about, clutch at his weapon, and discharge it harmlessly into a tree. The passage of a .54 caliber ball is not easily overlooked. Whoever shot first, we know the outcome.

“General Hamilton was this morning wounded by that wretch Burr, but we have every reason to hope he will recover.” Angelica Schuyler Church wrote to her brother, Phillip, In Albany.  It would be his duty to notify their father, the Old General Philip Schuyler, who was in failing health. Angelica went on to say:  “My sister bears with saintlike fortitude this affliction. The town is in consternation, and there exists only the expression of grief and indignation.”

Angelica Church with her eldest, Phillip

Oliver Wolcott, Jr., a close friend who attended  Hamilton's death bed at Bayard’s Mansion on the Hudson, also wrote to his own wife. "Hamilton suffers great pain – which he endures like a Hero.” He “has, of late years experienced his conviction of the truths of the Christian Religion and has desired to receive the Sacrament—but no one of the Clergy who have yet been consulted with administer it.” 

After the duel, Burr’s barge landed him and his second Van Ness at Canal Street, where, according to some sources, he simply went on to his law office as if nothing had happened. Others say he went instead to his home at Richmond Hill. This might have been wiser, because of the fame of both men, and because of the illegality of the morning's activities.

Richmond Hill

The Church’s dueling pistols—like many of the best in those days, contained hair-trigger mechanisms. Articles on the pistols have called these mechanisms “hidden” and “newly discovered,” although that speaks only to 20^th Century lack of understanding of the 18^th Century Code Duello and of the specialized weapons involved.   

In fact, Burr may have used these very pistols some years earlier in a duel with John Church, so he was more familiar with them than was Hamilton. On the narrow ledge at Weehawken, it would have been impossible to change a setting—the guns were always set up by the seconds “inspecting, setting triggers and loading”—without anyone noticing. Pendleton, Hamilton’s second, in fact, reports that he had asked whether Hamilton wished to have the hair trigger set. His friend had plainly answered “Not this time.”

The "hidden" hair trigger was made to seem like a big new discovery in a New York Magazine article, whose author insinuated that Hamilton had intended to secretly make use of it.  I will let Robert A. Hendrickson, one of Hamilton’s most passionate biographers (Author of The Rise and Fall of Alexander Hamilton) speak for his hero:

 

“Disenchanted as he was with himself, never able to rid himself of his sense of public accountability, if Hamilton had wished to survive (the duel) at all—a question ultimately unanswerable—the unlikeliest way he could have found to do so was by a secret trick that four men and all their friends, whatever their other differences, would agree was dishonorable. Worse than dishonorable.  Despicable. (And) "Honor was the subject of the morning’s exercise.”

Some years later, when questioned on the subject, Burr was quoted as saying that had his vision not been impaired by the morning mist, he would have "shot Hamilton in the heart." According to the account of the noted English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who met with Burr in England in 1808 (four years after the duel) Burr claimed to have been certain of his ability to kill Hamilton. Bentham concluded that Burr was "little better than a murderer."

But Burr had his reasons for rage. His career had been blighted by Hamilton, who had denounced Burr repeatedly, calling him an “embryo-Caesar” and “unprincipled both as a public and private man.”  

In the winter of 1800-01, during the disputed election between Jefferson and Burr, the Electors had deadlocked, throwing the election into the House of Representatives. Thirty House votes would be logged before this impasse was resolved. Hamilton worked tirelessly to block Burr from assuming the presidency by writing to his federalist friends in the House, saying that Burr “is bankrupt beyond redemption, except by the plunder of his country.  His public principles have no other spring or aim than his own aggrandizement.” 

 As we know, Jefferson was finally elected, after a group of Federalists elected to abstain from voting, sending in blank ballots. For Alexander Hamilton and many others, the choice between Jefferson and Burr must have been like choosing between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

Thomas Jefferson

Of course, there is always acrimonious rhetoric—the self-interest games that all politicians-- both the principled and the unprincipled—play. Politicians have to do "whatever it takes to stay in the game." But unlike today’s short-sighted hacks-in-office, Hamilton wasn’t just thinking of the here and now. He had always had a vision of a mighty future for his adopted country. A top-notch administrator, he'd seen Burr party jumping and now fanning Secessionist fires in New England which he knew must be doused--by any means possible. "Indivisible" was the keystone of his dream of American greatness, and under no circumstances would he let it go.

Because Hamilton fancied himself a rationalist above all, the letters he left to be read in the event of his death show that he understood all implications of the upcoming duel. In the end, despite the claims on his heart of his wife and of his adored children and despite the creditors to whom he had become obligated while building his new home,  he would risk everything and hazard his life in order to destroy Burr and thus preserve the Union. 

That morning by the river at Weehawken, Alexander Hamilton threw his shot away and left himself at the mercy of his enemy. I'll have to quote Trelane, the super-being in the original Star Trek Squire of Gothos episode and end it here: "...your heroic Alexander Hamilton."

The Grange - and the elegant dining room 

~~Juliet Waldron

https://www.facebook.com/jwhistfic/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

http://www.julietwaldron.com

Sources:

 Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow ISBN: 1594200092 Penguin, 2005 

The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 21 volumes, Harold C. Syrett, Ed., Columbia University, 

1987 

Founding Brothers by Joseph L. Ellis, ISBN: 9780375405440, Knopf, 2000 

The Rise & Fall of Alexander Hamilton, Vols. 1&2, by Robert A. Hendrickson, 9780884051398, Mason/Charter 1976 

The Founding Fathers, a biography of Alexander Hamilton in his own words, Vol. 1&2, ed. by Mary Jo Kline, Newsweek Publishers, 1973 

 Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, a Study in Character by Roger G. Kennedy, ISBN: 9780195140552, 2000 

Alexander Hamilton, Writings, ed. Joanne Freeman, ISBN: 9781931082044, Library of America 

The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr, by R. Kent Newmyer, ISBN: 978-1-107-60661-6. Cambridge University Press, 2012