After a long day of travel yesterday (Karina’s flight was almost 5 hours long and mine was diverted to Rochester, NY for about an hour) we settled into our Washington Heights apartment with some burgers and Netflix. The plan was to start today early with a trip to the Hamilton Grange, continue to an event put on by the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society (AHA Society) at Trinity Church then visit the Fraunces Tavern Museum nearby.

But that itinerary just about went out the window this morning when we arrived at the Hamilton Grange and saw signs stating that the house is only open Wednesday to Sunday…

Change of plans:

We walked a few blocks north and caught an express train to lower Manhattan. After buying a couple of bagels we headed to the 9/11 memorial.

One World Trade Center building

One World Trade Center building

Although the street and nearby train station was teeming with people, the memorial grounds were fairly empty. We stood in awe of the newly erected One World Trade Center building towering 1,776 feet above us.

North Tower reflecting pool

North Tower reflecting pool

 

 

 

 

The memorial reflecting pools were beautiful in their simplicity and we took a moment to let the magnitude of what happened here sink in.

 

 

 

 

As we were leaving the memorial grounds we were stopped by a security guard who wanted to see who wanted to judge who was taller between myself and him. We conversed for a few minutes about Karina’s Broncos hat and their potential to win it all *eye roll* and after he tried convincing us to move to New York after college (I’m  sold, Karina is not) we moved along down Broadway street.

About 5 minutes into our walk we came upon Trinity church and although we weren’t supposed to be there until early afternoon we decided to head inside anyway. The Hamilton family practiced their faith at Trinity and Alexander, his wife Elizabeth and her sister Angelica Church are all interred in the cemetery.

IMG_5704 IMG_5706

The church is simple and elegant with a high chapel ceiling and blue stained glass windows. Only a few people were scattered in the pews. We then headed into the graveyard on the north side and meandered through the rows of centuries-old tombstones. The most prominent people buried there have additional signs denoting who the were and what they did. We couldn’t find Alexander Hamilton’s tomb so we headed around to the other side and immediately laid eyes on his marble memorial.

IMG_5710

The grave placed right in front of his deserves just as much recognition. It is the grave of Elizabeth Hamilton (nee Schuyler), the wife of Alexander Hamilton and the woman who worked for 50 years after his death to insure his legacy was not forgotten as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and others would have preferred.

IMG_5709

Reads: “Eliza
Daughter of Philip Schuyler
Widow of Alexander Hamilton
Born at Albany Aug. 9th 1757
Died at Washington Nov. 9th 1854
Interred Here

Historian Ron Chernow, in his book Alexander Hamilton, wrote the following: “They demonized him as a slavish pawn of the British Crown, a closet monarchist, a Machiavellian intriguer, a would-be Caesar.”(Chernow, 3) Without giving too much away “Hamilton” pays serious attention to the role Elizabeth Hamilton (portrayed by Phillipa Soo) played in securing her husband’s place in history. But the show also brings to light the projects she undertook independent of her husband. She founded the first private orphanage in New York City-and it still exists today as the Graham Windham. And she helped raise funds to build the Washington Monument in DC.

 

So when the song asks “Who lives, who dies,  who tells your story?”  without a doubt Elizabeth Hamilton is the answer. There were a few older women also checking out the gravesite and keeping in mind that we would return in a few hours for an event sponsored by the AHA Society we decided to exit the graveyard and continue down Broadway.

At the end of the street is the National Museum of the American Indian.
The museum (a part of the Smithsonian Institute) is housed in the Alexander Hamilton US Custom House that held the duty collections operations for New York port from 1907 to the mid-1970’s. As the wind began to pick up we quickly headed up the stairs to escape the bitter January cold for an hour or so.

Doug Hamilton, a 5th generation grandson of Alexander's was also in attendance

Doug Hamilton, a 5th generation grandson of Alexander’s was also in attendance

Around 1pm we went back to Trinity Church and joined the 20-30 people already gathered in the cemetery. The graveside memorial featured an introduction by the Society’s founder Rand Scholet, a presentation by the United States Coast Guard (Which Hamilton founded), a brief word from the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Aviation of St. Kitts & Nevis (Where Hamilton was born), and finally a prayer from two church ministers. This remembrance ceremony was immediately followed by a short talk by historian Dr. Stephen Knott, a professor of National Security Affairs at the United States Naval War College.

trinity church

Inside Trinity

 

He was energetic and engaging in his interpretation of Hamilton and the historiography of Hamilton. It was a short talk but Dr. Knott’s main point is that Alexander Hamilton gets a bad reputation because (progressive) historians have continued to perpetuate Thomas Jefferson’s conclusions about Hamilton’s character and political competence. Knott asserted that Jefferson resented the fact that Hamilton, an immigrant of illegitimate birth and no social standing, became George Washington’s closet confidant. And he worked very hard to convince people that Hamilton was not American enough nor worthy enough for the same praise received by the other Founding Fathers (Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Franklin, Jay, Madison.) John Adams and his wife Abigail were also responsible for spreading a rumor that Hamilton was a “licentious, insatiable, womanizer and adulterer”. Hamilton, of course, did not help himself in this regard as he had an three-year long extramarital affair then exposed intimate details about the affair in a 95-page pamphlet…yeah…that was probably not the best decision as it publicly humiliated his loving wife and ruined his own political career…but I digress.

 We capped the day off with a trip to The Met, some $2 pizza, and long train ride home.

It was a very eventful day but we are more than ready to get some sleep and start again tomorrow.

IMG_5749

For a more personal take on today’s happenings check:

 https://hamiltonwordpresscom.wordpress.com/