#brookhiser

“[Hamilton] could not conciliate: it was not for him to hold a party together by bridging differences between divergent groups or sections.” 

“Hamilton’s failure stemmed from the fact that he associated the national government with no great moral issue capable of capturing the popular imagination.” 

“He had nothing of the common touch. He spoke to, not for, the people of America.”  John C. Miller, Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox. 

”Hamilton’s first reaction when confronted with a failure to convince was puzzlement. He had ‘information on all points,’ wrote the Duc de Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, a French nobleman, but ‘he often wondered why others did not think and act as he did, the righteous necessities of the case seemingly being so apparent.’ The key word is wondered. Some of us want to annihilate our enemies; some (perhaps even more aggressive) want to pray for them. Hamilton drew a blank. He had the answer; he would explain it, in 100,000 words if necessary; what was the problem?” Brookhiser, Alexander Hamilton, American.

[For this post, I'm heavily indebted to Newton's Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years. Newton writes for over 12 pages and offers 109 glorious footnotes discussing the controversy over AH's birth year. I’m detailing this because it’s important to appreciate how many St. Croix ties AH had when I get into his friendships, that never-ending post.]

Until 1939, nearly everyone thought AH's birth date was January 11, 1757. 1757 is the birth year that AH used consistently throughout his life; it's the birth year his family and friends attested to. The few writers who objected to this year did so on the grounds that he was so small and delicate he likely appeared younger than he actually was, or that he could not have been employed so young.

In 1939, H.U. Ramsing published an essay on Hamilton's birth with extracts from the probate record for the estate of AH's mother. This document, completed in February 1768 by a clerk and signed by James Lytton, Sr, uncle of AH, in place of Peter Lytton, AH's cousin, states that she had "two sons, namely James Hamilton and Alexander Hamilton, one 15 and the other one 13 years old.*

This causes a flurry of re-evaluation of AH's birth year. Now I will note that 1939 is in a period of decline in AH's popularity. He gets hammered for his seeming love of banking, capitalism, aristocracy, protection of the rich, etc. That he seems to have spent his entire adult life lying about his age is just gravy.

Some historians accept the 1755 birth year, making the following Arguments: 

The probate record must be correct;

AH's youthful poetry endeavors support a 1755 birth year;

AH was witnessing legal documents as early as 1766 for Beekman and Cruger, and there's no way a 9-year-old would have this responsibility or even have a job;

AH is a liar and schemer, so it makes sense that he would lie about his age for his entire adult life.  Or (Chernow!) AH is so desperate to fit in he's even shaving two years off of his age, because he's such an insecure outcast in his own mind.

[Now there remains the possibility that AH may have thought he was born in 1757, when he was actually born in 1755. My grandmother did not know if she was born in 1908 or 1910. But she also knew that she didn't know - she wasn't declaring a birth year for herself the way AH did. As a contemporary of AH's, Newton offers up James McHenry as someone whose birth year is also unclear.]

Argument 1, the probate record must be the correct claim:

Records from the West Indies are highly unreliable. To quote Newton (pg 20): 'Dates and ages were recorded incorrectly, names were spelled and misspelled in every possible variation, and records were poorly kept, inaccurately transcribed, lost, damaged, or destroyed." One example of this is AH's mother. How many different ways are there to spell Rachel Fawcette Levine? Her burial registry is also incorrect on several details. [Newton produces several other examples of the inaccuracy of West Indian records.]

Refutation 1A: the clerk made an error, or the information was transcribed incorrectly. 

James Lytton, Sr. was signing this document in place of his son, Peter Lytton. "Present for the two minor children and heirs was Mr. James Lytton on behalf of Peter Lytton." It's not clear why Peter was not present, only that he was designated as the person to complete the document and did not do so. Therefore, it's possible that his father, James, having to rush to finalize this document in Peter's place, simply did not know or mis-stated the ages of his nephews to the clerk. It also seems possible from the record that neither James nor Alexander were present to correct any misinformation. Flexner states that James Lytton may have deliberately lied about the ages of his nephews in order to increase their likelihood of employment, and then AH returned to his real age (the 1757 birth date) when he arrived in America. Though I don't really care what Flexner thinks because that speculation would be impossible to substantiate, Flexner's wrong about employment ages anyway, and Flexner makes stuff up all the time in The Young Hamilton.

Refutation 1B: James Lytton, Sr. made an error

In both A&B, the probate record is simply wrong.

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Argument 2, AH's poetry points to a 1755 birthdate:

In April 1771, "A.H." submitted poetry for publication in The Royal Danish American Gazette, stating "I am a youth about seventeen." Hamilton's authorship of these poems can't be demonstrated.  Even so, with a 1755 birth date, he would have  recently turned 16, not 17. Of course, it's also possible Hamilton is the author, and lied about his age at the time of sending in the poems anonymously for publication to make himself appear older.  [There's also lots of stuff in some biographies about AH's sexual precocity and what age it's more likely he would have written such poems, but those poems don't guarantee that "A.H." is sexually active - actually, they read as the opposite - a fantasy.]

In October 1772, The Royal Danish American Gazette published "The Soul Ascending into Bliss." Elizabeth Hamilton was very proud of this poem, sent stanzas of it to a friend, and stated that AH wrote it when he was 18. J.C. Hamilton wrote that AH wrote it when he was at King's College. It's likely that EH was JCH's source, so all that establishes is that EH believed her husband to have been born in 1757 and to have written this poem when he was at King's.

Refutation 2: The identity of "A.H." is unclear; EH likely mis-attributed the date of AH's poem.

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Argument 3, AH was witnessing legal documents in 1766, so he was more likely 11, and anyway would have just been too young for employment if he were born in 1757:

There's zero evidence that 9 vs 11 was considered a substantial difference in maturity in young boys in the West Indies, so that an 11-year-old can serve as a witness, but a 9-year-old can't. A two-year difference in age is not that drastic.

Additionally, boys were often working by the time they were 7 in the colonies. Newton also provides the examples of Henry Knox, who started working at a bookstore at the age of 9; and Benjamin Franklin, who worked for his father at the age of 10 and by 16 was managing a paper. Also, as AH himself notes, he was still a 'lowly clerk’ in 1769, at the age of 12.  He wouldn't become the de facto business manager of the firm for another couple of years, and he is without question a prodigy. The fact that it's unclear what happened to James Hamilton, Jr after his mother's death also points to both boys having to seek employment at early ages, likely at the time that James Hamilton, Sr. left.

Refutation to 3: There’s no evidence that the witnessing of a document by an 11-year-old carried more weight than that of a 9-year-old. Boys frequently worked at young ages in the colonies. It does not seem a two-year difference in age would account for such a drastic difference in responsibilities, including the ability to witness to legal documents.

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Argument 4, AH lied about his age:

I could get into the number of contemporaries, even his enemies, who attest to AH's honesty and frankness throughout his life as Newton does, but I won't here. Instead, let's assume for a moment that AH did lie about his age.

Question 1: Why would AH want to make himself appear younger? According to some, because he wanted to more closely match the ages of his classmates at King's College. Students at King's College were between 12 and 19, with the average age of entrance as 15. If born in 1755, AH would have been 18 upon beginning his studies. Newton points out that one of AH's classmates, David Clarkson (enrolled in 1774), was born in 1751, so AH would not have even been the oldest person there. 

Question 2: So if AH wanted to lie about his age to appear younger at King’s, when exactly did he start lying about his age? On that, historians who push the 1755 birth date can't agree, strangely. It seems obvious that because of the intertwining of people in AH's life, he really would have had to decide that he was shaving two years off of his age from the very time he enrolls at Elizabethtown Academy (the people he knows there carry through to King's), if not at the moment he arrives in America.

But wait, plenty of people who knew AH or knew of him in St Croix, also lived in NYC or traveled through there often!** His employers are based in NYC! Let's run down the people who would have had to go along with this lie:

Edward Stevens - AH's childhood St. Croix friend, who studied at King's College from 1770 to 1774. Their time at King's likely briefly overlapped, and they shared some of the same friends.

James Yard - brother-in-law of Edward Stevens and knowledgeable enough about AH and life in St. Croix to provide details of AH's background to Timothy Pickering (for Pickering's attempted biography of AH where he entertains the notion of Thomas Stevens as AH's real father).

Hugh Knox - possibly knew AH as early as fall 1771, definitely knew him spring 1772, travels to NYC intermittently also.

Ann Lytton Mitchell - AH's cousin who traveled back and forth between St. Croix and NYC and discussed AH's parentage with EH.

Nicholas Cruger and family- AH's St. Croix employer - originally from NYC and based there; Cruger's son marries the eldest John & Angelica Church daughter.

Cornelius Kortright and family - AH's St Croix employer - originally from NYC and based there; Kortright & Co handle AH's financial account when he first moves to NYC.  Cornelius is the brother of Lawrence Kortright, Elizabeth Monroe's father - I think AH lying about his age would have been a fun detail to share with James Monroe, if true.

David Beekman and family - AH's St. Croix employer - originally from NYC.

Ship captains and merchants who traveled between NY and St Croix - not going to list them, except for George Codwise, NYC ship captain for Cruger who dealt with AH on St. Croix and years later hires AH as his attorney; he names his son Alexander Hamilton Codwise. 

Note: AH would be employed as a lawyer for no fewer than 15 cases involving a Cruger, Kortright, or Beekman, and worked on cases dealing with merchants based in St. Croix. AH didn't cut ties to St. Croix as some may think.

AH lied about his age for 30+ years, and not one of the people above ever said anything? Maybe they didn't know that he was born in 1755? It seems highly unlikely that Stevens, Yard, Mitchell, Knox, Cruger, and Kortright would not have known AH's actual age in St. Croix. 

And it's not like NO ONE knew that AH claimed to be born in 1757 until funeral orations were being delivered and his tombstone went up. For example:

Nicholas Fish wrote to EH that AH was "about eighteen" when he wrote his political pieces, and he's "certain" of this because they "compared and knew each other's ages, he being one year older than me.”

Benjamin Rush notes AH as "a young man of 21 years of age" in Oct 1777.

The Pennsylvania Gazette reports in 1781 that AH was 23 years of age in the previous year. 

In AH's letter to his uncle William Hamilton (1797), he states that he was "about sixteen" (three months shy of 16) when he arrived in America (Oct 1772) and "by the age of nineteen" could earn a college degree and became an artillery captain (1776). Both point to him believing he was born in 1757.

James Kent wrote to EH in 1832 that AH died when he had not yet reached his 48th year.

So we have to believe that AH confidently went around telling people that he was an age consistent with having been born in 1757, and never gets called out on it even though there are several people around who could have done so and caught him in this lie. 

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So let’s look at these options again: 

The probate record is incorrect (either the clerk or Lytton made an error, or the probate record was later mis-transcribed);

The poetry authorship or dating is mis-attributed;

Historians don't know exactly how old one had to be in St. Croix in the 1760s to act as a witness on a property record;

AH and a number of co-conspirators lied about his age for to prevent him from being an older student at King’s College, and got away with it for over 150+ years, with no hint of this ever making its way into any record or correspondence, until the discovery of a 1768 probate record that has to be accurate.

As Brookhiser states, "[B]elieving that a man is more likely to know his own birthday than a clerk in a probate court, I will accept 1757." pg 16, Alexander Hamilton, American

*The date of James Hamilton, Jr.'s birth, whether he is older or younger than AH, whether he's really AH's brother, or whether he even existed at all(??!!) is also up for debate in Hamilton biographies. 

I realized I have to start keeping a log of crazy things I’ve read in Hamilton biographies and histories. Snark, wild speculation, a fundamental lack of basic research, it gives hope to all that even with this kind of nonsense, you too can get a biography of Hamilton published. 

Twenty-five years older than Hamilton, Steuben never married, but was something of a ladies’ man...Hamilton and his friends in their free time made merry with the local females. That Martha Washington, who had a lighter side than her husband, named her tomcat “Hamilton” may testify to his off-base activities. Steuben, who had similar proclivities, may have been an accomplice. pg 46 and 57 Rogow, A Fatal Friendship  

If [Angelica Schuyler] appeared in a Jane Austen novel, it would be as one of those minor characters who amuse by their capacity to annoy. ...Even apart from the double prohibition of incestuous adultery, it is hard to imagine Hamilton seriously involved with such a woman.  pg 46, Brookhiser, Alexander Hamilton, American.

Writing Angelica on January 7, 1790, [Hamilton] incorrectly dated the letter 1789. One does not have to be a Freudian to suspect that the slip may have owed something to Hamilton's wish that the year 1789 with its lengthy visit from Angelica could be relived. pg 73 Rogow, A Fatal Friendship

[Hamilton] told [Maria Reynolds] that he had no money on hand, but he would call at her lodgings that night and give her a bank bill.  When he came, he gave her more than the bank bill.  pg 98, Brookhiser, Alexander Hamilton, American. 

In which historians insult AH’s parents. These are terrible.  Part 1 here. I’m working on a post about Rachel Faucette and James Hamilton that I hope does them more justice than this stuff. 

[Allan McLane Hamilton] describes [Rachel] as “a brilliant and clever girl, who had been given every educational advantage and accomplishment, and has profited by her opportunities.” Presumably, this is not a sly, tongue-in-cheek reference to activities alleged by Levine when he sued her for divorce.  pg 12, Rogow, A Fatal Friendship 

Rachel was now, as a church record reveals, considered to be in her late twenties, some seven years younger than she actually was. This implies that she had not withdrawn her hat from the sexual ring. It is, indeed, hard to imagine that a woman with Rachel’s history would completely alter her proclivities merely because there was not a resident male in the house. Strange males surely invaded Alexander’s childhood. pg 26, Flexner, The Young Hamilton

[Referencing George Washington] For the first time in his life - also for the last - Alexander Hamilton was meeting a man who was greater than himself. His father had been a hurtful cipher. Rev. Hugh Knox and Nicholas Cruger were helpful patrons, like good animals in a fairy tale. pg 31, Brookhiser, Alexander Hamilton, American

“One is nevertheless confronted by so many shortcomings than an essay-length review would be required to discuss and to provide illustrations of them. In a comparatively brief notice, such as this, it is only possible to cryptically point to a few representative flaws: (1) the repeated use of excessively long quotations (running sometimes to many paragraphs) where paraphrases would have been far preferable; (2) footnote citations that have no discernible relationship to the text or that are actually misleading; (3) the uncritical use and occasional distortion of documentary evidence; and (4) assertions and interpretations for which - so far as one can tell - there is not a shred of factual evidence, and, relatedly, repeated exaggerations. All this inexorably leads the academic historian to the question: Where does history end and historical fiction begin?” [my emphasis]

-  Jacob E. Cooke, Lafayette College, Book review of James T. Flexner’s The Young Hamilton: A Biography, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, January 1979. 

2-4 are really important points, and they’re depressingly common in biographies. 

Flexner gave Hamilton the psychobiography treatment, and the effects of that still reverberate in the world of Hamilton studies. Cooke, though critical of Flexner above, would also attempt this same treatment in his own Alexander Hamilton (1982). And that’s how we get analysis like this: 

In the only flash of self-knowledge in his long backward look at the affair, [Hamilton] admitted that perhaps...vanity drew him on. But it was vanity of a particular kind. Sheer pride in his power and prestige could have lured him into beginning the affair. But elementary self-interest should have made him cautious when Mr. Reynolds appeared, and driven him away altogether after he was actually blackmailed. But Hamilton was being driven, not by the pride of a man, but by the pride of a boy. The pretty woman in distress, who had already reappeared as Mrs. Arnold at West Point, was originally Rachel Faucett in the West India. He could be his father, saving her from John Lavien. He could be himself, consoling her after his ne’er-do-well father had vanished - only this time, his consolations could be effectual, because he was no longer a helpless boy, but secretary of the treasury, calling into activity the whole vigor of a nation.  - Brookhiser, Alexander Hamilton, American

As a discipline, psychobiography is rather controversial. It attempts to uncover and understand the motivations of historic actors using psychological methods. In studies of the Founding Fathers, Fawn Brodie famously wrote Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History. In Hamilton’s case, historians have seen his childhood in the Caribbean as a fertile ground to imagine all sorts of things that drive the adult Hamilton and explain his behavior. These books are somehow praised for giving us the “flesh-and-blood” person, though please think about how preposterous that sounds. 

As I see it, there are two main problems with psychobiography and Hamilton: 1) we simply do not have enough of the facts of Hamilton’s childhood with which to work (even better is when biographers don’t utilize Hamilton’s own words on the subject); 2) almost all of these biographers (Flexner, Cooke, Chernow among them) are not trained in psychoanalysis or really any psychological methods, instead employing armchair psychology to somehow draw connections between likely disparate events and painting a portrait of Hamilton’s personality and actions based on some sort of tormented childhood that they’ve imagined. It makes for exciting reading, but it’s not based on fact, and often not based even in decent speculation. Worse, it sometimes stands in the way of actual research, and we instead have a highly speculative, under-researched account of Hamilton’s life. And we arrive at the mess that is Flexner’s The Young Hamilton. 

For some criticisms by other bloggers of Flexner and his methods (and his strong misogyny) specifically, please see the following:

@schuylering on Flexner’s treatment of Elizabeth Hamilton