January 11th 1755 or 1757 – Alexander Hamilton, who would prove indispensable to George Washington in the Revolutionary War and beyond, is born this day.
A powerful Atlantic hurricane descended on the small Caribbean island. Buildings and houses were smashed into oblivion; people were washed out to sea, gone forever. The tropical trees bent and bowed, then snapped in the savage storm.
One of the survivors, a fourteen-year-old boy full of ardor and courage, penned the account below, describing the devastation. It was a story that would bring the young man to the attention of influential people and ultimately change the course of history.
Honored Sir,
I take up my pen, just to give you an imperfect account of one of the most dreadful hurricanes that memory or any records whatever can trace, which happened here on the 31st ultimo at night. It began about dusk, at north, and raged very violently till ten o’clock. Then ensued a sudden and unexpected interval which lasted about an hour. Meanwhile the wind was shifting round to the southwest point, from whence it returned with redoubled fury and continued till nearly three in the morning. Good God! what horror and destruction – it’s impossible for me to describe – or you to form any idea of it. It seemed as if a total dissolution of nature was taking place. The roaring of the sea and wind – fiery meteors flying about in the air – the prodigious glare of almost perpetual lightning – the crash of falling houses – and the ear-piercing shrieks of the distressed were sufficient to strike astonishment into Angels. A great part of the buildings throughout the island are leveled to the ground – almost all the rest very much shattered – several persons killed and numbers utterly ruined – whole families wandering about the streets, unknowing where to find a place of shelter – the sick exposed to the keenness of water and air – without a bed to lie upon – or a dry covering to their bodies – and our harbors entirely bare. In a word, misery, in its most hideous shapes, spread over the whole face of the country ….
While America’s history is rich in stories, many of the history-makers were not rich in material goods. One of those great stories concerns a boy of Scottish parents born on the island of Nevis in the West Indies around 1755. His father abandoned the family when he was about ten years of age, and so it was that his mother was forced to keep a small store to hold her little clan together.
Three years later, she died, and a child by a previous marriage claimed all her property and possessions. Her youngest son, left out in the cold, was adopted by a cousin who soon died, and the orphan became the ward of a merchant. He was put to service as a clerk in an import/export business.
From his earliest years, he loved to read and taught himself history and philosophy, honing a keenly observant eye and a descriptive writing style. When the merchant, one Thomas Stevens, left the islands to expand his business, he appointed the self-motivated and competent teenager as business manager for an extended period.
The business prospered under the orphan’s steady hand. Just when it seemed that his life would lead to a prosperous business career in the West Indies, an “act of God” intervened.
In a moment of providential significance, the enterprising young clerk wrote a vivid account of the devastation visited on the island and submitted it for publication in the local newspaper, The Royal Danish American Gazette.
The governor and others read his account and determined that such an articulate and apparently brilliant young man should receive further education. They subsidized his move to New York and entry into college.
The year was 1774, and the student became a convinced supporter of the movement toward independence from England. He wrote political pamphlets and joined the agitators for the American cause.
As a man of action, he joined the army to fight for liberty. The orphan from the islands became a hero in the war as a member of General Washington’s staff. After winning independence, he defended the Constitution of the new United States, was appointed the first Secretary of the Treasury, and later became the Inspector General.
His outspoken views on America’s financial state and his opposition to Thomas Jefferson’s views on the nature of Constitutional government earned him the enmity of many other politicians and newspapers.
A political rival, believing that this great defender of his country had slandered him and sullied his honor, insisted on a pistol duel. They faced off and drew their weapons; the General fired into the air, but his rival shot him through the body.
The orphaned boy of the Caribbean, now lying in a field in Weehawken, New Jersey, was an author of The Federalist Papers, Secretary of the Treasury, close friend of George Washington, and a Founding Father himself. His name was Alexander Hamilton.
A man could hardly begin life at greater disadvantage than Alexander Hamilton. Abandoned by his father in a culture that offered no succor to unsupported women with children, Hamilton made the most of his circumstances through self-education, hard work, and self-denying service in the cause of independence.
Providentially appointed to General George Washington’s staff, he made the most of his opportunities, including personally leading the attack that secured American victory and ultimately independence at the Battle of Yorktown.
As a man of great native intelligence, he served faithfully in President Washington’s cabinet and later as Inspector General of the Army.
Hamilton was a lightning rod of controversy throughout his political career, constantly embroiled in political intrigues and insults, which eventually led to the ill-advised duel and his death. Tragically, Hamilton’s oldest son, nineteen-year-old Philip, had been killed in a duel over his father’s honor just three years earlier, not far from where his father would meet his end.
