In 1848, Angelica's sister, Eliza Hamilton Holly, moved their 91-year-old mother, Elizabeth, from New York to Washington, D.C., where she died in 1854 at age 97. To the end she played the same old-fashioned songs and minuets upon the venerable piano that had been bought for her, many years before. Her music, that her father used to oversee and encourage, stayed by her all these years. Of this period, her nephew wrote:ĭuring her later life she constantly referred to the dear brother so nearly her own age as if alive. MacDonald of Flushing, Queens, where she remained for the rest of her life. Angelica was eventually placed in the care of a Dr. Years after Alexander Hamilton's death in July 1804, Angelica's aging mother could no longer care for her. After visiting the Hamilton home, James Kent tactfully described Angelica as having "a very uncommon simplicity and modesty of deportment". Her father had written his friend Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and asked him to send Angelica watermelons and three parakeets, as she was "very fond of birds". ĭespite her parents' best efforts to reach her, Angelica's condition only seemed to worsen. Other modern authors have described the mental health problem, which lasted for the rest of Angelica's life, without discussion of causation.
Though the details of what occurred are not clear from a modern medical perspective, historian Ron Chernow similarly attributed the sudden and extreme deterioration of Angelica's mental health to her reaction to the death of Philip, with whom she had been very close. Hamilton wrote, "Upon receipt of the news of her brother's death in the Eacker duel, she suffered so great a shock that her mind became permanently impaired, and although taken care of by her devoted mother for a long time there was no amelioration in her condition." Īngelica's nephew, psychiatrist Allan McLane Hamilton, described his aunt as an "invalid" and her condition as a type of "insanity". The news of Philip's death precipitated a mental breakdown that left Angelica in a state described as "eternal childhood", and often unable even to recognize family members.
In November 1801, when Angelica was 17 years old, her oldest brother Philip Hamilton died of injuries resulting from a duel with George I. Philip Hamilton, whose death in a duel in 1801 was believed to have precipitated Angelica's mental breakdown But the best way is to act with so much politeness, good manners, and circumspection, as never to have occasion to make any apology. If you happen to displease any of them, be always ready to make a frank apology. We hope you will in every respect behave in such a manner as will secure to you the good-will and regard of all those with whom you are.
I was very glad to learn, my dear daughter, that you were going to begin the study of the French language. In a letter to the nine-year-old Angelica Hamilton, who was then staying with her grandparents in Albany, Alexander Hamilton wrote: Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow, New YorkĪngelica Hamilton (Septem– February 6, 1857) was the second child and eldest daughter of Elizabeth Schuyler and Alexander Hamilton, who was the first U.S.
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