Alexander Hamilton was born on January 11, 1755 and died on July 12, 1804 in New York after being wounded in a duel with Aaron Burr. Hamilton is buried at the Trinity Churchyard in New York, NY. Hamilton was born on the West Indian island of Nevis to James Hamilton, a Scotsman, and Rachel Faucette Lavien, the daughter of a French physician. His parents were not married.
After his mother’s death in 1768, Hamilton’s friends and relatives pushed him to work as a mercantile clerk and to learn how to read and write. Hamilton was informally educated at a private Jewish school and supplemented this by reading books from his family library which included Greek and Roman classics.
In 1772, Hamilton wrote an essay which was published in the Royal Danish-American Gazette which included a full account of a hurricane that destroyed Christiansted on August 30, 1772. The essay amazed community leaders so much that they decided to start a fund to send Hamilton to the North American colonies for a formal education. Hamilton began his education at Elizabethtown Academy, a grammar school in Elizabethtown, New Jersey in the fall of 1772. He entered King’s College (now Columbia University) in New York City in late 1773 or early 1774.
Alexander Hamilton was an accomplished man. His accomplishments include: being a Founding Founder, the first United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1789-1795, helping to establish the U.S. Mint, and founding the Bank of New York in 1784. After declining invitations from Generals Nathanael Greene and Henry Knox, Hamilton became General George Washington’s aide on March 1, 1777 and held this position for four years. Hamilton resigned from Washington’s staff after the Battle of Yorktown. He was elected to the Congress of the Confederation in July of 1782 as a New York representative for the term that began in November of 1782. After resigning from Congress, Hamilton was admitted to the New York Bar in July of 1783 and studied law jointly in New York City with Richard Harison. He excelled in defending Tories and British subjects.