The 47-year life of Alexander Hamilton started in 1755 in the West Indies where he lived till he was 17. He was then sponsored to come to America by two men who recognized his brilliance at a young age. His life in America lived itself out within the story of the founding of our nation and was entwined with the greatest events of the Revolutionary War, the Constitutional Era and the Washington Administration. He walked the halls of Philadelphia, the streets of New York City, and the battlegrounds of the Revolution. He crossed the Deleware with Washington, wintered at Valley Forge and Morristown, was present at the revelation of Benedict Arnold's treason, and at Yorktown he personally led a valliant bayonet charge against a British cannon position that turned the tide of battle that day. Many of his political enemies such as Jefferson, who sat the war out in comfort, hypocritically called Hamilton a coward.
Hamilton built his relatively modest family home, The Grange, in what is now Harlem, on a hill that overlooked both rivers, for his wife Eliza and their eight children. He was mortally wounded at Weehawken by Thomas Jefferson's then current Vice President, Aaron Burr, on the west shore of the Hudson River and died in Manhattan near Greenwich Village - in a house near Jane Street. He was laid to rest, fittingly, at the intersection of finance and commerce (Broadway and Wall Street) in downtown Manhattan, at Trinity Church. Fans of Hamilton's can find several unobtrusive sites dedicated to him throughout New Jersey and Manhattan.
