When people think of our most prominent founding fathers, who comes to mind? George Washington? Benjamin Franklin? How about Alexander Hamilton? Often an overlooked founding father, Hamilton was a very important person in our country's history. He expertly juggled his time-consuming position in the newly-independent country with having a wife and children. He had a very rich, interesting childhood, an interesting education, and made many great achievements for a man who died at the young age of 49.
Nevis of the British West Indies was his birthplace, the second of two boys. The west Indies’s distance from everything else made it the ideal dumping place for those not bad enough to be executed, yet not good enough to live with civilized people. …show more content…
An illegitimate child, he was often plagued by the circumstances of his birth far into his life and even long after he died. This is the reason he spoke little about his childhood. His mother, Rachel Faucette, and her husband, Johann Lavien, had a nasty divorce, leaving Rachel unable to marry legally again. Rachel had Alexander and his brother in an illegal marriage with James Hamilton, who left when Alexander was 10 and James Jr. was 12. Alexander loved reading, especially poetry, as a child. His mother taught him French, which helped George Washington later in the Revolutionary War. In addition to his father’s leaving, more tragedy came his family's way when Alexander and Rachel were struck by the yellow fever, killing Rachel. Alexander and James Jr. then went to live with their cousin, Peter Lytton, who …show more content…
Traders and smugglers sparked his belief that a stable currency would work better for merchants. Slave traffic commanded a large part of the business. He had to take inventory of all stock, which included slaves to be sold to traders. Hamilton self-taught himself about most things, though. He always knew he was born to be great. He wrote poetry and sent it to the Royal Danish American Gazette, which was the newspaper of the island. Henry Knox, a missionary to the island, who also worked as a journalist at the Gazette, befriended Hamilton and encouraged his writing. The turning point in Hamilton’s life was when the biggest hurricane the small island has seen struck. Alexander wrote a letter to his father describing the hurricane. He was encouraged to publish it in the Gazette. The letter was so well-written that a collection was taken up to send him to America to be educated. In 1772 at 16 years old, Alexander Hamilton left the island of St. Croix, never looking back. He started going to school in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. By 1773, he was accepted into King’s College. By then, he had a working knowledge of the American and British government, as well as prominent political issues. He showed this knowledge by composing a series of anonymous pamphlets that were so educated and well read, they were attributed to John Jay. Hamilton was only 17 at this