Personal life

Married life
See also: Hamilton family

Elizabeth Schuyler, portrait by Ralph Earl

While Hamilton was stationed in Morristown, New Jersey, in the winter of December 1779 – March
1780, he met Elizabeth Schuyler, a daughter of General Philip Schuyler and Catherine Van
Rensselaer. They were married on December 14, 1780, at the Schuyler Mansion in Albany, New
York.[225]
Elizabeth and Alexander Hamilton had eight children, though there is often confusion because two
sons were named Philip:

 Philip (1782–1801), died in a duel, just as his father would three years later. [226]
 Angelica (1784–1857)
 Alexander Jr. (1786–1875)
 James Alexander (1788–1878)[227]
 John Church (1792–1882)
 William Stephen (1797–1850)
 Eliza (1799–1859)
 Philip, also called Little Phil (1802–1884), named after his older brother who had been killed in a
duel the previous year
After Hamilton's death in 1804, Elizabeth endeavored to preserve his legacy. She re-organized all of
Alexander's letters, papers, and writings with the help of her son, John Church Hamilton,[228] and
persevered through many setbacks in getting his biography published. She was so devoted to
Alexander's memory that she wore a small package around her neck containing the pieces of a
sonnet which Alexander wrote for her during the early days of their courtship. [229]
Hamilton was also close to Elizabeth's sisters. During his lifetime he was even rumored to have had
an affair with his wife's older sister Angelica who, three years before Hamilton's marriage to
Elizabeth had eloped with John Barker Church, an Englishman who made a fortune in North
America during the Revolution and later returned to Europe with his wife and children between 1783
and 1797. Even though the style of their correspondence during Angelica's fourteen-year residence
in Europe was flirtatious, modern historians like Chernow and Fielding agree that despite
contemporary gossip there is no conclusive evidence that Hamilton's relationship with Angelica was
ever physical or went beyond a strong affinity between in-laws.[230][231] Hamilton also maintained a
correspondence with Elizabeth's younger sister Margarita, nicknamed Peggy, who was the recipient
of his first letters praising her sister Elizabeth at the time of his courtship in early 1780. [232]

Religion
Hamilton's religious faith
As a youth in the West Indies, Hamilton was an orthodox and conventional Presbyterian of the "New
Light" evangelical type (as opposed to the "Old Light" tradition); he was taught there by a student
of John Witherspoon, a moderate of the New School. [233] He wrote two or three hymns, which were
published in the local newspaper.[234] Robert Troup, his college roommate, noted that Hamilton was
"in the habit of praying on his knees night and morning". [235]: 10 
According to Gordon Wood, Hamilton dropped his youthful religiosity during the Revolution and
became "a conventional liberal with theistic inclinations who was an irregular churchgoer at best";
however, he returned to religion in his last years. [236] Chernow wrote that Hamilton was nominally
an Episcopalian, but:
[H]e was not clearly affiliated with the denomination and did not seem to attend church regularly or
take communion. Like Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson, Hamilton had probably fallen under the sway
of deism, which sought to substitute reason for revelation and dropped the notion of an active God
who intervened in human affairs. At the same time, he never doubted God's existence, embracing
Christianity as a system of morality and cosmic justice. [237]
Stories were circulated that Hamilton had made two quips about God at the time of the Constitutional
Convention in 1787.[238] During the French Revolution, he displayed a utilitarian approach to using
religion for political ends, such as by maligning Jefferson as "the atheist", and insisting that
Christianity and Jeffersonian democracy were incompatible. [238]: 316  After 1801, Hamilton further
attested his belief in Christianity, proposing a Christian Constitutional Society in 1802 to take hold of
"some strong feeling of the mind" to elect "fit men" to office, and advocating "Christian welfare
societies" for the poor. After being shot, Hamilton spoke of his belief in God's mercy. [note 5]
On his deathbed, Hamilton asked the Episcopal Bishop of New York, Benjamin Moore, to give
him holy communion.[239] Moore initially declined to do so, on two grounds: that to participate in a duel
was a mortal sin, and that Hamilton, although undoubtedly sincere in his faith, was not a member of
the Episcopalian denomination. [240] After leaving, Moore was persuaded to return that afternoon by
the urgent pleas of Hamilton's friends, and upon receiving Hamilton's solemn assurance that he
repented for his part in the duel, Moore gave him communion. [240] Bishop Moore returned the next
morning, stayed with Hamilton for several hours until his death, and conducted the funeral service
at Trinity Church.[239]
Relationship with Jews and Judaism
Hamilton's birthplace on the island of Nevis had a large Jewish community, constituting one quarter
of Charlestown's white population by the 1720s. [1] He came into contact with Jews on a regular basis;
as a small boy, he was tutored by a Jewish schoolmistress, and had learned to recite the Ten
Commandments in the original Hebrew.[235]
Hamilton exhibited a degree of respect for Jews that was described by Chernow as "a life-long
reverence."[241] He believed that Jewish achievement was a result of divine providence:
The state and progress of the Jews, from their earliest history to the present time, has been so
entirely out of the ordinary course of human affairs, is it not then a fair conclusion, that the cause
also is an extraordinary one—in other words, that it is the effect of some great providential plan? The
man who will draw this conclusion, will look for the solution in the Bible. He who will not draw it ought
to give us another fair solution. [242]
Based on the phonetic similarity of "Lavien" to a common Jewish surname, it has often been
suggested that the first husband of Hamilton's mother, Rachel Faucette, a German or Dane
named Johann Michael Lavien,[6] was Jewish or of Jewish descent.[243] On this foundation, historian
Andrew Porwancher, a self-acknowledged "lone voice" whose "findings clash with much of the
received wisdom on Hamilton", has promoted a theory that Hamilton himself was Jewish.
[244]
 Porwancher argues that Hamilton's mother (French Huguenot on her father's side[245]) must have
converted to Judaism before marrying Lavien, and that even after her separation and bitter divorce
from Lavien, she would still have raised her children by James Hamilton as Jews. [244][246] Reflecting the
consensus of modern historians, historian Michael E. Newton wrote that "there is no evidence that
Lavien is a Jewish name, no indication that John Lavien was Jewish, and no reason to believe that
he was."[20] Newton traced the suggestions to a 1902 work of historical fiction by novelist Gertrude
Atherton.[20]