Hamilton Born: Architect of American Finance

Alexander Hamilton was born illegitimate on the island of Nevis in the British West Indies, around January 11, 1755. His father James abandoned the family when Hamilton was a child. His mother Rachel died when he was 11, and the probate court seized her estate because Hamilton and his brother were born out of wedlock. He went to work as a clerk for the import-export firm Beekman and Cruger on St. Croix, teaching himself finance, trade, and business correspondence. When a devastating hurricane struck the island in 1772, Hamilton wrote an account of the destruction so vivid that his employer and a local minister collected money to send him to college in New York. He enrolled at King's College, now Columbia University, and completed his studies in roughly two years. The Revolution found him immediately. He formed an artillery company, caught Washington's eye at the Battle of Trenton, and became Washington's chief aide-de-camp at 22. He commanded troops at Yorktown at 24. After the war, he studied law, co-wrote the Federalist Papers with Madison and Jay, and was appointed the first Secretary of the Treasury at 34. He designed the American financial system from scratch: a national bank, assumption of state debts, a customs service, a mint. He built the institutional infrastructure that allowed the United States to borrow money, pay its debts, and function as a credible nation-state. His personal life was marked by a sex scandal that he publicized himself to avoid accusations of financial corruption, choosing to ruin his reputation rather than his honor. Aaron Burr killed him in a duel on July 11, 1804, in Weehawken, New Jersey, over a paragraph in a letter. Hamilton was 47 or 49, depending on which birth year is correct.