His brightness shines for all time.

JL Timeline

The life of John Laurens (1754-1782). PDF version.

Special thanks to @my-deer-friend and @john-laurens who have been so incredibly helpful and supportive through this project, and to @ciceroprofacto, whose amazing timelines and research inspired me.

This was a long-term, ongoing project that is sadly unfinished because the project files were tragically deleted. There are definitely parts that I wish I could rework and parts that are unfinished or blank (or perhaps even inaccurate), but I am proud of how it looks so far. I wanted to create this timeline infographic to have as reference, and now here it is for everyone as well!

Le Courier de l'Europe, 4 May 1781, source

I will forever cherish you, My Dearest .

Before (the blissful days): "Send me a doz. or two hams from Monticello" - 1784

During:

"Ham. has given up his house in Market street and taken a large one in Arch. street near 6th." - 1793

"Ham. and his wife recovered" - 1793

"E.R. tells me that Ham. in conversation with him yesterday"  - 1793

"Ham’s object from the beginning was to throw them into forms which should be utterly undecypherable" - 1796

"Complains of Mr. Ham.’s irascible disposition" - 1797

After:

There's a very good chance that this letter contains Laurens' proper response to the Hamilton's June 30th letter, the one where he tells John about his engagement: The earliest response that we have from Laurens where we can reasonably assume he has knowledge of Hamilton's engagement is the infamous 'one-line hat commission' letter. I put it in quotations since I was rightfully corrected by @john-laurens when I made a post about it awhile back. They had brought to my attention that it was not a one-line letter and actually contains a snippet extra that founders doesn't have included on their website for some reason. Transcript copy-pasted below was provided by @john-laurens here (also a very big thank you to them for being the backbone of this community :))

“Mr Mitchel had put the execution of your commissions in such a brain, that he left me nothing more to do than to transport my head to Labors, and give some directions about your feather_  the whole will be committed to the care of Colonel Gimat_  I will mount a beaver and plumage in the same stile as soon as I have a prospect of joining the Corps_ Your letter tho dated the 19th did not reach me till yesterday_ as it came by the post and I am not in the habit of inquiring there for Letters_  General Cadwallader is just arrived in town, and I believe means shortly to pay you a visit at Head Quarters.  What possesses Greene [for] the General Officers?_ My Love to the Family_ Adieu_ John Laurens. 30th July 1780”

Biggest thing that sticks out to me here is the lacking mention of Eliza and the length. It really says something about Laurens when he only acknowledges the July 19th letter, and not yknow- the other very important and very much older letter he received nearly a month ago. Like even if the July 19th letter was really all that important that it needed to be responded to first, it's not like he really says anything about it anyways, just puts a petty little acknowledgment that, "Yeah I got your letter FROM THE 19TH." Also I'm like 99% sure that send off of "My Love to the Family" is nothing special but the 1% chismosa in me loves thinking it's either 1) another pointed jab at the fact Laurens did in fact receive the June 30th letter and knows about Hamiltons newly acquired family or 2) Laurens referring to the military family but choosing that send off to spite Hamilton in pretending to be ignorant of the other family it could be referring too.

This is why I believe the September 8th letter definitely has more of a proper response to Hamilton's engagement. It's the next response after that very short July 30th letter and Hamilton's response is crazy telling. Like you said the reassurance, the 'impatience to have me married' and the cure bit? Oh boy. I could talk about it for days but I still want to say one other this about the timing of this letter.

2. This is the point in their correspondence where Laurens gets dry: Now, I'll preface this by saying that there's a pretty good chance that there are other Laurens letters we don't know of. I don't want to make the assumption that the lack of evidence for correspondence means that they weren't interacting, but I will say that this is the last response we know from Laurens for a longggg time. It goes September 8th 1780 letter right to his last letter of July 1782 (sob) Granted not all that time was with them apart, with the need to send letters, but there's a really big lull on Laurens side of things after this letter. Again makes me think that September letter was either 1) very petty 2) very emotional and vulnerable or 3) all of the above.

Let's not forget that Laurens was a prisoner on parole after the capitulation of Charleston ("the greatest and most humiliating misfortune of my life"), which certainly wouldn't have improved his mental state. I have to agree that we'd get a great picture about Laurens' mental state and relationship with Hamilton from his letter, and I'm glad we at least have echoes of it in Hamilton's response.

There are a few practical things that explain parts of the Sept 1780 to July 1782 gap besides lost letters. The biggest is that from February to September 1781, Laurens is engaged in his embassy to Versailles (and barely seems to have time to think, let alone write letters and find a way to post them from another continent). After that, he and Hamilton are together in Yorktown, and then Laurens races off south to continue his battlefield service.

and then this happens

a Laurens appreciation post

some more doodles of Laurens, mostly as a study; I'm in a constant struggle of balancing the realism/historical accuracy with my own artistic style?

Wall Street, 1790, or, Wall Street, West from Hanover. Aaron Burr and Daughter, 1794. Jennie Augusta Brownscombe. 1913.

click for better quality + closeups below cut

𝘞𝘦'𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘪𝘵 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘺

𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘺 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮