From Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton, [13 March 1803]
To Elizabeth Hamilton1
Grange [New York] Sunday [March 13, 1803]
Captain Church,2 My Dear Betsy, has just arrived & brings me favourable accounts of your journey hitherto and prospects. It is a great comfort to me and I hope will not be marred by bad weather; so that you may all speedily arrive and without too much fatigue to sooth and console your affected Father. Now you are all gone and I have no effort to make to keep up your spirits, my distress on his account and for the loss we have all sustained is very poignant. God grant that no new disaster may befal us; entreat your father to take care of himself for our sakes, and do you take care of yourself for mine.
Love to your sisters & much love for yourself
A H
I write your father by this opportunity & press him to accompany you back with Kitty.3 This appears to me a sine qua non. Your Sister & you must not be refused.
Adieu
ALS, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress.
1. Elizabeth Hamilton was on her way to Albany to be with her father, Philip Schuyler, after the death of her mother, Catherine Van Rensselaer Schuyler on March 7, 1803. For the notice of Mrs. Schuyler’s death, see The Albany Centinel, March 15, 1803.
2. Philip Church, the son of John B. and Angelica Schuyler Church, was Elizabeth Hamilton’s nephew. He attended Eton for six years and studied law at the Middle Temple in London. After the Church family returned to the United States in 1797, Philip Church entered the law office of Nathaniel Pendleton. On January 8, 1799, he was commissioned a captain in the Twelfth Regiment of Infantry (, 299, 303), and on January 12, 1799, he became an aide-de-camp to H (H to Church, January 12, 1799). In 1800, at a sale ordered by Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, he purchased for his father the Genesee tract that Robert Morris had mortgaged to John B. Church as security for a debt. He agreed to manage the land for his father and named the first town in the tract Angelica for his mother (see the introductory note to Morris to H, June 7, 1795).
3. Catherine Van Rensselaer Schuyler was Elizabeth Hamilton’s youngest sister.