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Chapter IV
Elizabeth Hamilton
Very little is known about the early life of Elizabeth Hamilton, and we are dependent for information chiefly upon the writings of those Frenchmen who were entertained at General Schuyler's house at Albany, and the diary of Tench Tilghman. She was the second daughter of Philip Schuyler, and was born August 9, 1757, within a year of her husband. Her mother was Catherine van Rensselaer, daughter of Colonel John R. van Rensselaer, who was the son of Hendrik, the grandson of Kiliaen, the first Patroon, and Engeltke (Angelica) Livingston.
Tench Tilghman thus gives his impressions of the girl, who then must have been sixteen or eighteen years of age: " In the afternoon, having taken leave of my host, I called at the General Schuyler's to pay my compliments to the General, his Lady and Daughters. I found none of them at home except Miss Betsey Schuyler, the General's second daughter, to whom I was introduced by Mr. Commissary Livingston, who accompanied me. I was prepossessed in favor of this young lady the moment I saw her. A Brunette with the most good natured, dark, lovely eyes that I ever saw, which threw a beam of good temper and benevolence over her Entire Countenance. Mr. Livingston informed me that I was not mistaken in my Conjecture for she was the finest tempered Girl in the World." Unlike her eldest sister, Angelica, who had gone to New Rochelle to the best school available at the time, Elizabeth had but few educational advantages and all her later correspondence shows deficiency of early training, though it was nothing unusual to find misspelling in most of the letters of the young women of the period, even those of Martha Washington being conspicuous in this respect, and perhaps worse than many of the others. Though lacking the superficial grace and accomplishments of many of her more sprightly and dashing friends, she must have possessed a quiet charm of her own. From all accounts she was gentle and retiring, yet full of gayety and courage, fond of domestic affairs, and probably her mother's chief assistant in the management of the house and slaves. From early childhood she should have been accustomed to the sight of weapons, and have early learned the necessity for prompt alertness, for the Indians, at times, terrorized the district, and a sleepy existence was unknown. One of her sisters, Mrs. Cochran, made the thrilling rescue of a younger child when the Schuyler place was raided by the savages, and even to-day the banister rail of the old house bears the scar of the tomahawk hurled at her as she dashed up the stairs, with her baby sister in her arms. Her father's military career undoubtedly brought stirring accounts of heroic duties, of long-suffering, and privation into the busy home, and to these vivid, childish impressions may have been due the unquenchable spirit she afterward exhibited under agonizing tests. As is well known, the Schuyler home, at Albany, was practically an open house during the Revolution, and the younger daughters must have been incessantly occupied, supervising the arrangements for their many military guests, and providing gayety immeasurable in those days of haste and stress. English, French, and Americans alike seem to have carried away pleasant impressions of Betsey's intelligence and bright dark eyes, which never lost their lustre, even when she was an old woman.
Hamilton's enthusiastic estimate of the charms of Elizabeth Schuyler as early as 1780 is conveyed to one of her sisters—probably Angelica Church—at a time when he was evidently absorbed in his devotion to his sweetheart, and sought a chance to unbosom himself.
Alexander Hamilton to Angelica Church
In obedience to Miss Schuyler's command, I do myself the pleasure to inclose you a letter which she has been so obliging as to commit to my care, and I beg your permission to assure you that many motives conspire to render this commission peculiarly agreeable.
Besides the general one of being in the service of the ladies which alone would be sufficient even to a man of less zeal than myself, I have others of a more particular nature.
I venture to tell you in confidence, that by some odd contrivance or other your sister has found out the secret of interesting me in everything that concerns her; and though I have not the happiness of a personal acquaintance with you, I have had the good fortune to see several very pretty pictures of your person and mind which have inspired me with a more than common partiality for both. Among others, your sister carries a beautiful copy constantly about her elegantly drawn by herself, of which she has two or three times favoured me with a sight. You will no doubt admit it as a full proof of my frankness and good opinion of you, that I with so little ceremony introduce myself to your acquaintance and at the first step make you my confident. But I hope I run no risk of its being thought an impeachment of my discretion. Phlegmatists may say I take too great a license at first setting out, and witlings may sneer and wonder how a man the least acquainted with the world should show so great facility in his confidence—to a lady. But the idea I have formed of your character places it in my estimation above the insipid maxims of the former or the ill-natured jibes of the latter.
I have already confessed the influence your sister has gained over me—yet notwithstanding this, I have some things of a very serious and heinous nature to lay to her charge.—She is most unmercifully handsome and so perverse that she has none of those pretty affectations which are the prerogatives of beauty. Her good sense is destitute of that happy mixture of vanity and ostentation which would make it conspicuous to the whole tribe of fools and foplings as well as to men of understanding so that as the matter now stands it is little known beyond the circle of these—She has good nature affability and vivacity unimbellished with that charming frivolousness which is justly deemed one of the principal accomplishments of a belle. In short she is so strange a creature, that she possesses all the beauties virtues and graces of her sex without any of those amiable defects, which from their general prevalence are esteemed by connoisseurs necessary shades in the character of a fine woman. The most determined adversaries of Hymen can find in her no pretext for their hostility, and there are several of my friends, philosophers who railed at love as a weakness, men of the world who laughed at it as a phantasie whom she has presumptuously and daringly compelled to acknowledge its power and surrender at discretion. I can the better assert the truth of this, as I am myself of the number. She has had the address to overset all the wise resolutions I had been framing for more than four years past, and from a rational sort of being and a professed contemner of Cupid has in a trice metamorphosed me into the veriest inamorato your perhaps [several words illegible.]
These are a few specimens of the mischief and enormities she has committed the little time she has made her appearance among us—I should never have done, were I to attempt to give you a catalogue of the whole—of all the hearts she has vanquished—of all the heads she has turned—of all the philosophers she has unmade, or of all the standards she has fixed to the great prejudice of the general service of the female world. It is essential to the safety of the state and to the tranquility of the army—that one of two things take place, either that she be immediately removed from our neighborhood, or that some other nymph qualified to maintain an equal sway come into it. By dividing her empire it will be weakened and she will be much less dangerous when she has a rival equal in charms to dispute the prize with her. I solicit your aid.
The girl friends of Elizabeth Schuyler, among others, included Kitty Livingston, the youngest daughter of Governor William Livingston of New Jersey, and Gertrude, the daughter of Robert R. Livingston. The latter married General Morgan Lewis, who afterward became a distinguished jurist. The letters that passed between these friends in some measure indicate the relations that existed between them at a time when letter writing was more in vogue than it is to-day. The first two were probably written when Elizabeth Schuyler was at her father's head-quarters at Morristown in 1780.
Kitty Livingston to Elizabeth Schuyler
My dear Girl: I wrote you a long thoughtless letter some days since; did you receive it? My happy Brother was this day, eight days, the Father of a little Cherib, who bears every appearance of Health and good humor. Apropos Cushion, Dash, and Bear, are in the possession of Mrs. Duncan of Philadelphia. I will be much obliged to you to buy me thread of such sorts as are most useful to yourself. As you have