January 11th 1755/57: Alexander Hamilton born
On this day in 1755 or 1757, future Founding Father Alexander Hamilton was born in the British West Indies. Hamilton’s early life was troubled, and he was left parentless at a young age after his father left and his mother died. He found work as an accounting clerk, and his employer, impressed by Alexander’s abilities, paid for him to move to America for an education. However, as the American colonies teetered on the brink of revolution, Hamilton found himself drawn to the Patriot cause. Soon into the Revolutionary War, in which he served in the army, Hamilton became the assistant and adviser to General George Washington. It was during this time that he met and married Elizabeth Schuyler, who came from a prominent New York family. After the Revolution, Hamilton was a fierce advocate of a strong central government, penning the majority of the Federalist Papers which supported the ratification of the Constitution, and served as the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury from 1789 to 1795. In 1801, Hamilton and Elizabeth’s nineteen-year-old son Philip was killed in a duel defending his father’s honour. Just three years later, Alexander himself was killed in a duel by his long-time rival Vice President Aaron Burr.
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