The general ignorance that exists regarding Hamilton's origin and intimate life has prompted me to publish fully all I know about him, and in doing this I must express my indebtedness to Gertrude Atherton, who has made a conscientious hunt for material, with remarkable success. The conclusions are that Alexander Hamilton was the son of James Hamilton, who was the fourth son of Alexander Hamilton, Laird of the Grange, in the Parish of Stevenston, Ayrshire, Scotland, and his wife, Elizabeth (eldest daughter of Sir Robert Pollock), who were married in the year 1730. The Hamiltons of Grange belonged to the Cambuskeith branch of the house of Hamilton, and the founder of this branch, in the fourteenth century, was Walter de Hamilton, who was the common ancestor of the Dukes of Hamilton, the Dukes of Abercom, Earls of Haddington, Viscounts Boyne, Barons Belhaven, several extinct peerages, and of all the Scotch and Irish Hamilton families. He was fifth in descent from Robert, Earl of Mellent, created by Henry I of France and His Queen, who was a daughter of Jeroslaus, Czar of Russia.
His mother, Rachel Fawcett, was born in the island of Nevis, and when a girl of barely sixteen was forced into marriage with a rich Danish Jew, one John Michael Levine (or Lawein), who treated her cruelly. The marriage was evidently one of very great unhappiness from the beginning, so that she was forced to leave him and return to her mother's roof.
This was in 1755 or 1756. Her mother, from all accounts, although a woman of great loveliness and charm, was ambitious and masterful, and had very decided ideas of her own regarding her daughter's future. She herself had had matrimonial troubles, and had separated from her husband late in life, after having had several children, but the mother of Hamilton came a long time after the others, and was brought up in unrestful surroundings, later witnessing the family quarrels. Doubtless the influence of much of this, coupled with the persuasion of her mother, led to the alliance with a man much older than herself, who finally made life insupportable. She appears to have been a brilliant and clever girl, who had been given every educational advantage and accomplishment, and had profited by her opportunities. By Levine she had had one son, who was taken from her by his father, and for a time lived with him, first at St. Croix, and afterward in Denmark, and it was not until several years afterward that she met James Hamilton, an attractive Scotchman, of much charm of manner, in the West Indies, with whom she quickly fell in love. Although, as has been said, her mother had parted from her own husband, it was impossible, owing to the disorderly condition of legal affairs in the provinces, for the daughter to formally get her freedom from the person who had so ruined her life, and although every attempt was apparently made, both by Hamilton and herself, they seemed unable to obtain any relief from the local courts, and lived together until her death, which occurred February 25, 1768, when she was thirty-two years old. It is quite true that the courts of St. Croix were available, but this was a Danish island, and Levine was a Dane, and a man of great local influence, which was used against them, so that their efforts were thwarted.
The social life of England and the colonies during the eighteenth century was, to say the least, unsettled, and this is especially true so far as the morals of the better class were concerned. According to Lodge, "divorce was extremely rare in any of the colonies, and even in England, and in the crown provinces it involved long, difficult, and expensive proceedings of the greatest publicity." In fact, if we may be guided by the existing reports, annulment was resorted to much pore often than divorce, and it is impossible to find any account of the existence of divorce laws on the islands of St. Kitts or Nevis; according to well-informed persons, there was even no act providing for separate maintenance.
Marriage rites were informal and elopements common, both in Great Britain and her dependencies; in fact, it was not until the passage of Lord Hardwick's marriage bill, and the energetic labors of Wilberforce, that the solemn nature of the marriage rite was established. Even then Hardwick's bill was opposed by Heniy Fox, who had married a daughter of the Duke of Richmond, and with the subsequent ascendancy of the gay Walpoles and Pelhams there was more tolerance with irregular marriages than ever.
Lecky and, later. Sir George Russell,' referred to the casual nature of the marriage customs, and the easy manner in which unions were made and broken, and at this time the pilgrimages to Gretna Green of those who were impatient of the law's delays or the objections of discriminating parents, were frequent.
In referring to the easily solemnized marriages which did not endure. Swift said: "The art of making nets is very different from the art of making cages," and very litde, if any, odium was attached to those who took matters into their own hands. In this country elopement was so common as to be a popular proceeding among the higher classes, and many of our forefathers chose this romantic and unconventional, but in those times perfectly innocent manner of mating. Four of General Philip Schuyler's daughters "arranged and took charge of their own marriages," that of his daughter who married Hamilton being an exception. Her beautiful sister, Angelica Church, ran off with an Englishman who came to the colonies, it is said, after a duel, and who changed his name to Carter, but subsequently resumed his own cognomen of John Barker Church, and was afterward the Commissary for Rochambeau.
Many other young women did the same thing, among them a daughter of Heniy Cruger, who eloped with Peter van Schaak, and "Peggy" White, who ran away with Peter Jay. Other young women of romantic inclinations were Susannah Reid and Harriet Van Rensselaer.
Hamilton's father and mother had much in extenuation of the bold step they took, and their subsequent mode of life does not appear to have been followed by any loss of caste; possibly because of the local sympathy, and the knowledge of the true facts of their unconventional relationship; and again, because there was no doubt of the sincerity and depth of their love for each other. From perfectly reliable sources it appears, and may be believed, that his mother's first husband was a coarse man of repulsive personality, many years older than herself. After Rachel left her mother's house and went to James Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton was born a year later. Levine then divorced her. In the records of the Ember Court of St. Croix it appears that "John Michael Levine (Lawein) was granted a divorce for abandonment and Levine was permitted to many again ; but she, being the defendant, was not."
It is said that Levine was not above depriving his wife's children by her union with Hamilton of the inheritance from their mother. At her death in 1768 she possessed several slaves which she left to her sons, Alexander and James Hamilton. John Michael Levine subsequently made application for these in "behalf of her lawfully begotten heir, Peter Levine." It is here distinctly stated that the grounds for divorce were that she had "absented herself." Mrs. Atherton who, in her collection of letters, refers to these facts, has made painstaking and careful examination of the records of the courts, not only in the West Indies but in Copenhagen, and states positively that there was no evidence that she deserted her husband to live with Hamilton, but was living with her mother in St. Kitts in 1756, when the latter appeared upon the scene. In a letter written by Alexander Hamilton the fact of his mother's unhappy marriage, which was brought about by her mother, is mentioned, and there seems to be no reason to doubt its truth. Whether Levine's failure to apply for a divorce on more serious grounds was due to a belief in his wife's innocence, or to the realization that he had driven her, by his cruel, to the arms of another man whom she truly loved, or whether the local court refused to take a severe view of her action because of its own knowledge of Levine, and the marriage itself, is a matter of speculation. Possibly he may have felt some of the magnanimity which, in more recent years, actuated Ruskin and Wagner. Certainly the best proof that no prejudice existed in after life in regard to Hamilton because of his birth are the facts, not only that General Washington invited him to become a member of his military family, but that General Schuyler heartily approved of the marriage with his daughter.
Hamilton's father does not appear to have been successful in any pursuit, but in many ways was a great deal of a dreamer, and something of a student, whose chief happiness seemed to be in the society of his beautiful and talented wife, who was in every way intellectually his superior. After her death he apparently lost all incentive he had before