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September 26, 2004

It's been 200 years since Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury, was killed by fellow duelist Aaron Burr, a vice-president of the United States. The 200th anniversary of Hamilton's death has given rise to widespread interest in his life — a new biography, historical re-enactments of the duel, and memorial services, among them one held at Trinity Church, in whose churchyard Hamilton is buried. Below, Melissa Haley of Trinity Archives outlines the Hamilton and Burr links with Trinity as illustrated by the new exhibit in Trinity's museum, which will run through the end of the year.

Records in the Trinity archives show that Alexander Hamilton was a member of Trinity Church, but whether he attended services with any regularity is not known. Hamilton’s wife, Elizabeth Schuyler, was extremely pious, and is listed as a communicant in the Rev. Benjamin Moore’s record book, which is on display. The Hamilton family rented pew 92 in the second Trinity Church building beginning in 1790, and pew books in the exhibit show that the family retained the pew long after Hamilton’s death in 1804.

Several of the Hamilton children were baptized at Trinity, and the exhibit includes the original baptismal registers. In October 1788, three of the Hamilton children were baptized. The children’s sponsors listed in these records came from many prominent New York families, including the Schuylers, the Churches, and the Van Rensselaers. Also listed is Hamilton’s friend Baron von Steuben, the Prussian army officer who served with George Washington during the Revolutionary War.

Hamilton was born in Nevis and raised in St. Croix, yet before arriving in the American colonies, he came into contact with the world of influential New Yorkers he would later inhabit. As a boy, he was employed as a clerk in the St. Croix trading firm of Beekman & Cruger. The Crugers were members of Trinity Church. John Cruger served briefly as vestryman, and was later elected mayor of New York, as was his son.

Soon after arriving in New York, Hamilton matriculated at King’s College (founded with help from a Trinity land grant) in 1774, where he befriended a number of men with Trinity connections, including future vestryman Robert Troup. It was while he was a student at King’s College that Hamilton cut his teeth as a political writer, anonymously penning a number of pro-patriot pamphlets. He left school in 1776 to join a New York artillery company and would later serve as an officer under George Washington. After the war, Hamilton was as trustee for the school, which became Columbia University, until his death.

Hamilton was a founder of the New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, an organization that included many Trinity vestrymen, including Troup, John Jay, Hercules Mulligan, James Duane, and William Duer. The Manumission Society appealed to Trinity for assistance with opening a school for free blacks, and the African Free School was founded in 1794.

Hamilton also provided the parish with legal advice. A document dealing with Trinity's charter (on display in the exhibit) is signed by Hamilton, Robert Troup, and Richard Harison. Harison was the first Attorney General for the state of New York, a Trinity vestryman, and the first Trinity comptroller. Hamilton also provided legal counsel regarding the independent incorporation of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, a complex issue that arose in the late 1790s.

Aaron Burr
Aaron Burr’s relationship with Trinity Church was economic rather than spiritual, as he leased and purchased property from the parish.

Trinity’s real estate holdings, granted in 1705 from Queen Anne, consisted of a portion of land later known as the Church Farm. This land lay on the west side of Manhattan, stretching from present-day Fulton Street to around Christopher Street. One Church Farm property bought by Burr was located at the corner of Church and Partition (now Fulton) Streets, at what became the site of the World Trade Center.

The bulk of Burr’s dealings with Trinity involved the estate known as Richmond Hill. This elegant mansion, which stood on approximately 26 acres within the Church Farm, was occupied by George Washington during the war, and was home to Vice-President John Adams when New York was the federal capital. The property, whose contemporary boundaries are approximately Spring, Greenwich, West Houston, and Varick Streets, was leased to Abraham Mortier, British deputy paymaster, by Trinity in 1767 for a term of 99 years. Burr first leased the property from the Mortier estate in 1794, taking over the lease for Richmond Hill in 1797, as real estate records on display in the exhibit demonstrate.

Suffering from financial difficulties exacerbated by his role in the fatal 1804 duel, Burr was forced finally to relinquish the Richmond Hill property, a prospect that had loomed for years. Documents in the archives show that he turned his lease over to John Jacob Astor, who subdivided the property. Around 1820, the Richmond Hill mansion was moved 55 feet in order to raze the hill on which it stood; it later housed a succession of theaters until its demolition in 1849.

The Duel
As Hamilton lay dying in a house on Jane Street, he requested communion from the Rt. Rev. Benjamin Moore, Trinity’s rector.

Moore initially refused, due to the church’s opposition to dueling. However, after Hamilton renounced dueling on his deathbed, saying that he held no “ill will” against Burr and forgiving him, Moore relented and administered communion.

In a letter regarding Hamilton’s final hours, Moore encouraged believers to “hold fast that precious faith,” which is the exhibit’s title. Hamilton’s burial was in the Trinity churchyard on July 14. The Common Council temporarily lifted the city’s ban on the tolling of bells at funerals, and a large procession followed the body from Jane Street. Hamilton’s friend Gouverneur Morris gave the emotional funeral oration.

Hamilton’s eldest son Philip, killed in a duel in 1801, was already laid to rest at Trinity and his wife Elizabeth joined him there in 1854. An obituary notice in the exhibit laments the death of Hamilton in the infamous duel, that "melancholy event" of July 11, 1804.

Posted on Trinity News, July 9, 2004