I, Eliza Hamilton by Susan Holloway Scott

Author:Susan Holloway Scott [Scott, Susan Holloway]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2017-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

New York City, New York

June 1784

Alexander prided himself on being a gentleman of his word, and as soon as he was done with Congress, he made arrangements for us to move from Albany to New York City. The last of the British troops sailed from the harbor on November 25, 1783, and the wagons with our belongings had rumbled up before our new home soon after, during the first week of December.

Alexander had even kept his long-ago promise to me of a house on Wall Street. Ours was number fifty-seven, an agreeable brick house of three stories with a small balcony, and far more pleasant and commodious than any other place we’d yet lived. Beside it was number fifty-six, which Alexander used as his office. Wall Street was wide and comparatively untouched by the war, unlike so much of the rest of the city. We weren’t quite at the most fashionable end of the street (where Colonel and Mrs. Burr lived), but the other houses, offices, and shops around us were all well kept and neat. There were even a few buildings that retained the stepped roofs preferred by the Dutch, a familiar sight to me from Albany, and one that made me smile as if seeing old friends.

So handsome was our new house, in fact, that when we first arrived I suspected its rent was more than Alexander could comfortably afford. He had just completed a year earning very little as a delegate to Congress, and a year before that in recovering from the war and in studying for the bar, as well as his negligible position of tax-receiver. To be sure, his prospects were excellent. Because by law no lawyers with Tory sympathies were now permitted to practice their profession, there were fewer than fifty attorneys in the entirety of the state. Any lawyer with ability, education, and a modicum of luck was bound to prosper, and Alexander possessed all of those qualities in abundance, plus an invaluable reputation as a patriotic hero from the war.

But prospects did not pay the grocer or the butcher, nor satisfy the hairdresser who came each morning to tend to Alexander’s hair, nor even the laundrywomen who washed our stockings and linens. Like most wives, I was not privy to the details of my husband’s financial affairs, but I suspected our humble resources were stretched as far as they could be and perhaps beyond. Finally one morning while he was dressing for court I dared to ask if this were the case, and whether I should be making any extra economies in our household.

“My dearest wife,” he said, clearly startled I’d broach such a subject, and a bit wounded that I had as well. “How has this concern arisen? Have you wanted for anything? Have I not provided for you and our son as I should?”

“No, no, Alexander, not at all,” I said quickly. “But if there is a need to be frugal whilst we establish ourselves here in this place, I shall happily oblige.

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