#lawrence kortright

[eakenvs3000f23]

Want to get involved with the Guelph Nature Community?

Hey Friends! 🍂

With the leaves officially changing colors and the fall spirit in full force, it's the perfect time to savor the comforting embrace of the great outdoors. When was the last time you took a moment to connect with nature and marvel in its beauty? If you're feeling the call of the natural world and looking for some exciting events to get involved in, I'd be thrilled to share what I've discovered. 

On October 21st, mark your calendar for a remarkable opportunity to connect with nature and your community. Trees for Guelph, a non-profit organization committed to enhancing Guelph's urban environment, is hosting an incredible nature event at Kortright Hills Natural Area from 9:00 am to 12:30 pm. This event is more than just planting trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants; it's about ecosystem restoration the city, mimicking natural processes, and creating a sustainable, vibrant urban environment. Here you’ll get to plant native species  local to the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Forest Region. The best part? You can join in and be part of this positive change. Community planting days are more than just a way to give back; They are a fantastic opportunity to learn while doing so, great for hands-on learners like me! However, lots of support can make this a worthwhile experience for any learner, strengthening your connection with the environment, and building lasting relationships with fellow nature enthusiasts. You don't even need to worry about equipment – They've got you covered. Just bring your enthusiasm, sturdy footwear, and comfortable clothing, and you're all set to have a fantastic time while supporting environmental sustainability. In a city like Guelph, there are plenty of opportunities to get involved and make a real impact. This is your chance to be a part of something extraordinary, so don't miss it! Learn more about Trees for Guelph and this event on their website at Trees for Guelph, and let's make Guelph greener together!

You can also look forward to Monday, October 16 at 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm and get ready to embark on a magical Fall Colour Walk at the University of Guelph Arboretum with Dan the Nature Man! This is your chance to discover the incredible transformation of our trees as they get ready for autumn. And Saturday, October 21, 2:30 – 3:30 at the Guelph Public Library as Dan hosts an adventure into the realm of "Creepy Crawly Creatures” where you can expect to uncover the secrets of fascinating species. Dan is an amazing nature interpreter, offering engaging and interactive nature experiences that are both educational and exceptionally enjoyable. Dan's programs are inclusive of all ages and are crafted to transform learning about nature into a riveting adventure. For more information on upcoming and past events visit Dan the Nature Man's website. 

As the season paints the world with its vibrant hues, don't miss your chance to experience the lovely scenery, where you can destress and forge heartwarming connections with your community.  

Cheers Emily

[sonofhistory]

...Genl Mifflin’s, McDougall’s, Heard’s, Wadworth’s, and Fellow’s Brigades, and the Brigades under the Command of Cols. Silliman & Douglass, are to have each a regiment in the Field this evening, by Mr Kortright’s house.

General Orders, 18 September 1776 [x]

General Joseph Spencer’s headquarters was at a house rented by Lawrence Kortright in the area east of present-day Amsterdam Avenue near 148th Street. The grand parade ground of the army was in an adjoining field. Elizabeth Monroe was only eight at this time when her father housed American soldiers in their family home that would burn to the ground in 1778. The home was near Harlem Heights, New York and it had served as a headquarters for American officers in the autumn of 1776.

[widvile-blog]

Elizabeth Monroe, First Lady of the United States (30 June 1768 - 23 September 1830)

[shannendoherty-fans]

Shannen Doherty Is Not Signing Off Just Yet

Fighting Stage IV breast cancer has forced some self-reflection, but the ’90s icon and so-called diva refuses to slow down.

By Kate Pickert Sep 29, 2020. Photos by Kurt Iswarienko. Elle USA October 2020 issue

On a cool evening in February 2019, Shannen Doherty invited some friends to a Venice, California, rental house for a dinner party. Doherty’s actual home was in Malibu, 20 miles north, but she and her husband, photographer Kurt Iswarienko, had fled the property a few months earlier, when a wildfire that started inland burned nearly 100,000 acres on its way to the Pacific Ocean. The couple’s house survived the blaze, but Doherty says the property sustained significant damage that made it uninhabitable.

The guest list for the dinner included only people Doherty trusted: her husband and the friends who knew the real Shannen—not the 1990s tabloid caricature, the loudmouthed bad girl with a temper. Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar was there, along with model Anne Marie Kortright, Malibu real estate agent Chris Cortazzo, and a Los Angeles doctor named Lawrence Piro.

Doherty had compiled the guest list, but it was Piro, her oncologist, who drove the conversation. Less than two years earlier, the actress had finished treatment for breast cancer, and Piro was at the dinner to explain that Doherty’s disease was back. The cancer, Piro said, was now metastatic (also known as Stage IV), meaning it had spread beyond Doherty’s breast and lymph nodes. “The way he presented everything to everyone was matter-of-fact,” Doherty, 49, tells me when we speak in June. The news was devastating, of course, and Doherty had invited Piro so her friends could get answers to the questions she knew they would have. Would she die of this? Probably. Would she die soon? Probably not. Why did this happen? It was impossible to know. Could this be treated? Yes, to a point. “Everybody got to ask questions and know what we were looking at as a group, as a team,” Doherty says.

About 300,000 American women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. In the majority of cases, initial treatment for the disease is effective, curing the patient. But in a significant share of cases, the breast cancer returns, either to the breast or nearby lymph nodes or to other parts of the body. In Doherty’s case, despite the surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation she had undergone after her first diagnosis, it seemed that some cancer cells had survived the assault and made their way to her spine. Eventually, the disease will most likely spread further, to Doherty’s brain, lungs, liver, or some combination thereof.

Still, there was reason for hope, Piro told the group. Treatment for metastatic breast cancer, which was once an automatic death sentence, has advanced in recent years, with patients living longer and having a better quality of life. Some survive for a decade or more. Doherty’s treatment would include hormone therapy to block the estrogen fueling her cancer, plus a second targeted drug that is often effective at stabilizing metastatic disease. If this didn’t work, there were other drug combinations to try, but the bottom line was that Doherty would be in treatment for the rest of her life. As Piro explained all this, his patient sat at the table, listening.

Nearly 30 years after she played Brenda Walsh on Beverly Hills, 90210, Doherty is still striking, with high cheekbones and shiny, jet-black hair. “I think people have a mental picture of Stage IV cancer as someone sitting in a gray hospital gown, looking out a window on their deathbed,” Iswarienko, tells me. “I don’t see a cancer patient when I look at Shannen. I see the same woman I fell in love with. She looks healthy and vital.”

As if a massive wildfire and a metastatic cancer diagnosis weren’t enough, there was more bad news to come. Weeks after the Venice dinner, Doherty’s 90210 costar Luke Perry died suddenly of a massive stroke. After the show, they had grown apart, but they’d reconnected in recent years. They were even talking about working together, developing a new television project.

At a memorial service for Perry in March 2019, Doherty saw Brian Austin Green, the only other 90210 castmate she could call a close friend. Green had known Doherty even before they were onscreen together, and she shared the news of her metastatic diagnosis with him, even though she was keeping it under wraps publicly. Doherty and Green chatted at the memorial, and the conversation eventually shifted to the latest reboot of the show, called BH90210, a scripted-reality version of the old nighttime drama set in the present day. Castmates Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth had helped come up with the idea for the series, which had been green-lighted at Fox, and all the principals of the original had signed on—except Doherty.

Even before her cancer diagnosis, Doherty was dead set against doing the show. “I had already done two 90210s by that point,” she says. “I didn’t really see it as something that was going to help, but I did feel that it could stir up stuff from when I was 19 years old.”

The 1990s made Doherty a household name, but the decade also left scars. She had helped build 90210 and the Fox network into juggernauts, but on and off set, she seemed to run into problems wherever she went. Celebrity tabloids regularly published stories about Doherty fighting with producers, writers, and actors. She was a diva, according to reports. She was a bitch, they said, impossible to deal with. A 1993 People magazine cover declared Doherty “Out of Control!” after the actress’s ex-fiancé accused her in court of threatening him with bodily harm. The story itself, one of many like it, reported that Doherty had “left a trail of bad debts, trashed homes, exhausted friendships, and wasted relationships.” There was even an I Hate Brenda newsletter devoted to bad-mouthing Doherty and her onscreen character. “The more stories that were written about me, the more defensive and closed off I became,” Doherty tells me. “And the bigger the walls I built around me. I had a lot of resentment.” 

Doherty had worked hard to move on from that time. When the newest reboot came around, she had long been out of the spotlight, but her relative obscurity had an upside—privacy, which she prized more than anything. She didn’t want to go back, to the tabloids or her castmates. But Green asked her to reconsider. “I was really pitching her: ‘I know it’s going to be fucking hard, but come do it. I think it’ll be really good for you,’ ” Green says. The actors had grown up and were all different people now, Green told her, and so was she. He would act as a buffer if she needed one. “ ‘This is a rare opportunity to experience each other again in a much different way,’ ” Green says he told her. 

Perry’s death shifted things for Doherty. Maybe the show could be a sort of tribute to him. Maybe it was a chance to prove to herself that metastatic breast cancer didn’t mean the end of working. Maybe it was both. “Things happen and you go, ‘All right, this is what I’m supposed to be doing at this moment,’ ” she says.

This moment would be different. Doherty had changed, yes, but so had her ability to fight back against negative stories in the celebrity press. “I knew that once I signed up for the show, the bullshit would start all over again. And, in fact, it did,” she says. The reboot’s showrunner and several writers quit before the new show began shooting, and rumors swirled that Doherty was once again acting out. “I addressed it immediately,” Doherty says. On Instagram, she wrote, “I refuse to be cast in the same villain role because ‘journalists’ lack imagination.… I am a woman with my own story.” She wrote that the rumors about her causing upheaval with the new show were untrue and that she was a more complicated person than the headlines made her seem: “I promise,” she wrote, “you don’t know me.”

Part 1 - Part 2

[iafayettes]

tell me about hercules before he took hamilton in. thanks

Hercules Mulligan was born on Thursday September 25th1740 in Coleraine, County Antrim, Ireland. His parents were Hugh Mulligan andSarah Cooke, and they had three sons and a daughter; their first child wasHugh, their next Sarah, then Hercules and lastly a final son named Cooke. Thefirst three children were all born while the Mulligans lived in Coleraine,however Cooke was born in New York sometime after the family had moved toAmerica in 1746. The Mulligans did not arrive as indentured servants or redemptioners– they paid for their passage to America. This is shown by Hugh Mulligan beingrecorded as a Freeman in the ‘New York List of Freemen in the city’ in 1747.

His father, Hugh Mulligan, initially worked as a wig maker, however inlater years he worked with mercantile businesses. He also worked as a New Yorklaw enforcement officer, and records show that on October 14th 1748Hugh was appointed as deputy constable for the Dock Ward, and further promotedto constable of the Dock Ward exactly 8 years later in 1756.

After the family settled in New York, Hercules was educated byMaster James O’Brien, who had a school in Horse and Cart Street, where he wasgiven a high quality education. In the 1760s, his older brother Hugh took aposition and was made junior partner at the trading firm Kortright and Company,which primarily traded on the New York-West Indies markets. During this time,Hercules started his first clothing business and was listed as a freeman in NewYork City in 1765. He went to start his ownclothing business, and his first residence and business were located on thewest side of Smith Street (which is now William Street) in the block betweenLittle Queen (which is now Cedar Street) and King Streets (now Pine Street).This building was sold in 1771, and Hercules relocated to an establishment nearWater Street which ran along the East River. In an advertisement in 1772, hisbusiness is described as being ‘next door to Philip Rhinelander’s chinastore, between Burling’s Slip and the Fly market’. Hamilton boarded atMulligan’s Water Street residence until the business was moved to Number 23 Queen Street sometime before1776.

The earliest recordings of Hercules’s patriotic activitiesare in 1765, where he arranged the distribution of a publication called ‘Theconstitutional courant’ that opposed the stamp act. He arranged for it to bedistributed in New York by Lawrence Sweeney, NYC’s only letter carrier, who wasknown as the ‘penny post boy’. When Sweeney was interrogated by Britishofficials, he did not give away Hercules’s name, only that the publication camefrom ‘Peter Hassenclever’s ironworks, somewhere in the Jerseys’, and afterwards other patriot publishersdemonstrated their patriotism by adding to their publications ‘Printed at Peter Hassenclever’s ironworks’. Mulligan was also at the Battle of Golden Hill, a clash between British soldiers and the Sons of Liberty in January 1770.

[46ten]

1755 or 1757?

[For this post, I'm heavily indebted to Newton's Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years. Newton writes for over 12 pages and offers 109 glorious footnotes discussing the controversy over AH's birth year. I’m detailing this because it’s important to appreciate how many St. Croix ties AH had when I get into his friendships, that never-ending post.]

Until 1939, nearly everyone thought AH's birth date was January 11, 1757. 1757 is the birth year that AH used consistently throughout his life; it's the birth year his family and friends attested to. The few writers who objected to this year did so on the grounds that he was so small and delicate he likely appeared younger than he actually was, or that he could not have been employed so young.

In 1939, H.U. Ramsing published an essay on Hamilton's birth with extracts from the probate record for the estate of AH's mother. This document, completed in February 1768 by a clerk and signed by James Lytton, Sr, uncle of AH, in place of Peter Lytton, AH's cousin, states that she had "two sons, namely James Hamilton and Alexander Hamilton, one 15 and the other one 13 years old.*

This causes a flurry of re-evaluation of AH's birth year. Now I will note that 1939 is in a period of decline in AH's popularity. He gets hammered for his seeming love of banking, capitalism, aristocracy, protection of the rich, etc. That he seems to have spent his entire adult life lying about his age is just gravy.

Some historians accept the 1755 birth year, making the following Arguments: 

The probate record must be correct;

AH's youthful poetry endeavors support a 1755 birth year;

AH was witnessing legal documents as early as 1766 for Beekman and Cruger, and there's no way a 9-year-old would have this responsibility or even have a job;

AH is a liar and schemer, so it makes sense that he would lie about his age for his entire adult life.  Or (Chernow!) AH is so desperate to fit in he's even shaving two years off of his age, because he's such an insecure outcast in his own mind.

[Now there remains the possibility that AH may have thought he was born in 1757, when he was actually born in 1755. My grandmother did not know if she was born in 1908 or 1910. But she also knew that she didn't know - she wasn't declaring a birth year for herself the way AH did. As a contemporary of AH's, Newton offers up James McHenry as someone whose birth year is also unclear.]

Argument 1, the probate record must be the correct claim:

Records from the West Indies are highly unreliable. To quote Newton (pg 20): 'Dates and ages were recorded incorrectly, names were spelled and misspelled in every possible variation, and records were poorly kept, inaccurately transcribed, lost, damaged, or destroyed." One example of this is AH's mother. How many different ways are there to spell Rachel Fawcette Levine? Her burial registry is also incorrect on several details. [Newton produces several other examples of the inaccuracy of West Indian records.]

Refutation 1A: the clerk made an error, or the information was transcribed incorrectly. 

James Lytton, Sr. was signing this document in place of his son, Peter Lytton. "Present for the two minor children and heirs was Mr. James Lytton on behalf of Peter Lytton." It's not clear why Peter was not present, only that he was designated as the person to complete the document and did not do so. Therefore, it's possible that his father, James, having to rush to finalize this document in Peter's place, simply did not know or mis-stated the ages of his nephews to the clerk. It also seems possible from the record that neither James nor Alexander were present to correct any misinformation. Flexner states that James Lytton may have deliberately lied about the ages of his nephews in order to increase their likelihood of employment, and then AH returned to his real age (the 1757 birth date) when he arrived in America. Though I don't really care what Flexner thinks because that speculation would be impossible to substantiate, Flexner's wrong about employment ages anyway, and Flexner makes stuff up all the time in The Young Hamilton.

Refutation 1B: James Lytton, Sr. made an error

In both A&B, the probate record is simply wrong.

______________________________________________________

Argument 2, AH's poetry points to a 1755 birthdate:

In April 1771, "A.H." submitted poetry for publication in The Royal Danish American Gazette, stating "I am a youth about seventeen." Hamilton's authorship of these poems can't be demonstrated.  Even so, with a 1755 birth date, he would have  recently turned 16, not 17. Of course, it's also possible Hamilton is the author, and lied about his age at the time of sending in the poems anonymously for publication to make himself appear older.  [There's also lots of stuff in some biographies about AH's sexual precocity and what age it's more likely he would have written such poems, but those poems don't guarantee that "A.H." is sexually active - actually, they read as the opposite - a fantasy.]

In October 1772, The Royal Danish American Gazette published "The Soul Ascending into Bliss." Elizabeth Hamilton was very proud of this poem, sent stanzas of it to a friend, and stated that AH wrote it when he was 18. J.C. Hamilton wrote that AH wrote it when he was at King's College. It's likely that EH was JCH's source, so all that establishes is that EH believed her husband to have been born in 1757 and to have written this poem when he was at King's.

Refutation 2: The identity of "A.H." is unclear; EH likely mis-attributed the date of AH's poem.

______________________________________________________

Argument 3, AH was witnessing legal documents in 1766, so he was more likely 11, and anyway would have just been too young for employment if he were born in 1757:

There's zero evidence that 9 vs 11 was considered a substantial difference in maturity in young boys in the West Indies, so that an 11-year-old can serve as a witness, but a 9-year-old can't. A two-year difference in age is not that drastic.

Additionally, boys were often working by the time they were 7 in the colonies. Newton also provides the examples of Henry Knox, who started working at a bookstore at the age of 9; and Benjamin Franklin, who worked for his father at the age of 10 and by 16 was managing a paper. Also, as AH himself notes, he was still a 'lowly clerk’ in 1769, at the age of 12.  He wouldn't become the de facto business manager of the firm for another couple of years, and he is without question a prodigy. The fact that it's unclear what happened to James Hamilton, Jr after his mother's death also points to both boys having to seek employment at early ages, likely at the time that James Hamilton, Sr. left.

Refutation to 3: There’s no evidence that the witnessing of a document by an 11-year-old carried more weight than that of a 9-year-old. Boys frequently worked at young ages in the colonies. It does not seem a two-year difference in age would account for such a drastic difference in responsibilities, including the ability to witness to legal documents.

______________________________________________________

Argument 4, AH lied about his age:

I could get into the number of contemporaries, even his enemies, who attest to AH's honesty and frankness throughout his life as Newton does, but I won't here. Instead, let's assume for a moment that AH did lie about his age.

Question 1: Why would AH want to make himself appear younger? According to some, because he wanted to more closely match the ages of his classmates at King's College. Students at King's College were between 12 and 19, with the average age of entrance as 15. If born in 1755, AH would have been 18 upon beginning his studies. Newton points out that one of AH's classmates, David Clarkson (enrolled in 1774), was born in 1751, so AH would not have even been the oldest person there. 

Question 2: So if AH wanted to lie about his age to appear younger at King’s, when exactly did he start lying about his age? On that, historians who push the 1755 birth date can't agree, strangely. It seems obvious that because of the intertwining of people in AH's life, he really would have had to decide that he was shaving two years off of his age from the very time he enrolls at Elizabethtown Academy (the people he knows there carry through to King's), if not at the moment he arrives in America.

But wait, plenty of people who knew AH or knew of him in St Croix, also lived in NYC or traveled through there often!** His employers are based in NYC! Let's run down the people who would have had to go along with this lie:

Edward Stevens - AH's childhood St. Croix friend, who studied at King's College from 1770 to 1774. Their time at King's likely briefly overlapped, and they shared some of the same friends.

James Yard - brother-in-law of Edward Stevens and knowledgeable enough about AH and life in St. Croix to provide details of AH's background to Timothy Pickering (for Pickering's attempted biography of AH where he entertains the notion of Thomas Stevens as AH's real father).

Hugh Knox - possibly knew AH as early as fall 1771, definitely knew him spring 1772, travels to NYC intermittently also.

Ann Lytton Mitchell - AH's cousin who traveled back and forth between St. Croix and NYC and discussed AH's parentage with EH.

Nicholas Cruger and family- AH's St. Croix employer - originally from NYC and based there; Cruger's son marries the eldest John & Angelica Church daughter.

Cornelius Kortright and family - AH's St Croix employer - originally from NYC and based there; Kortright & Co handle AH's financial account when he first moves to NYC.  Cornelius is the brother of Lawrence Kortright, Elizabeth Monroe's father - I think AH lying about his age would have been a fun detail to share with James Monroe, if true.

David Beekman and family - AH's St. Croix employer - originally from NYC.

Ship captains and merchants who traveled between NY and St Croix - not going to list them, except for George Codwise, NYC ship captain for Cruger who dealt with AH on St. Croix and years later hires AH as his attorney; he names his son Alexander Hamilton Codwise. 

Note: AH would be employed as a lawyer for no fewer than 15 cases involving a Cruger, Kortright, or Beekman, and worked on cases dealing with merchants based in St. Croix. AH didn't cut ties to St. Croix as some may think.

AH lied about his age for 30+ years, and not one of the people above ever said anything? Maybe they didn't know that he was born in 1755? It seems highly unlikely that Stevens, Yard, Mitchell, Knox, Cruger, and Kortright would not have known AH's actual age in St. Croix. 

And it's not like NO ONE knew that AH claimed to be born in 1757 until funeral orations were being delivered and his tombstone went up. For example:

Nicholas Fish wrote to EH that AH was "about eighteen" when he wrote his political pieces, and he's "certain" of this because they "compared and knew each other's ages, he being one year older than me.”

Benjamin Rush notes AH as "a young man of 21 years of age" in Oct 1777.

The Pennsylvania Gazette reports in 1781 that AH was 23 years of age in the previous year. 

In AH's letter to his uncle William Hamilton (1797), he states that he was "about sixteen" (three months shy of 16) when he arrived in America (Oct 1772) and "by the age of nineteen" could earn a college degree and became an artillery captain (1776). Both point to him believing he was born in 1757.

James Kent wrote to EH in 1832 that AH died when he had not yet reached his 48th year.

So we have to believe that AH confidently went around telling people that he was an age consistent with having been born in 1757, and never gets called out on it even though there are several people around who could have done so and caught him in this lie. 

_____________________________________________________

So let’s look at these options again: 

The probate record is incorrect (either the clerk or Lytton made an error, or the probate record was later mis-transcribed);

The poetry authorship or dating is mis-attributed;

Historians don't know exactly how old one had to be in St. Croix in the 1760s to act as a witness on a property record;

AH and a number of co-conspirators lied about his age for to prevent him from being an older student at King’s College, and got away with it for over 150+ years, with no hint of this ever making its way into any record or correspondence, until the discovery of a 1768 probate record that has to be accurate.

As Brookhiser states, "[B]elieving that a man is more likely to know his own birthday than a clerk in a probate court, I will accept 1757." pg 16, Alexander Hamilton, American

*The date of James Hamilton, Jr.'s birth, whether he is older or younger than AH, whether he's really AH's brother, or whether he even existed at all(??!!) is also up for debate in Hamilton biographies. 

**This is a huge thing to me that I'll get into in a few days, but gosh, AH was FAR from "an immigrant coming from the bottom" - he was wrapped in privilege with elite NYC/NJ people who knew him/of him from the very beginning of his American adventure. 

[dianaleaghmatthews]

First Ladies: Elizabeth Kortright Monroe

First Ladies: Elizabeth Kortright Monroe

Elizabeth Monroe was the wife of the fifth President of the United States, James Monroe.

Elizabeth Kortright Monroe

She was born as Elizabeth Jane Kortright on June 30, 1768 in New York City. She was the daughter of Lawrence and Hannah Aspinwall Kortright. Her father served as one of the founders of the New York Chamber of Commerce. She had four older siblings. Her mother died from the “child…

[sonofhistory]

Life of Elizabeth Monroe 1768-1785

Also published on my website here. 

James Monroe wrote to Thomas Jefferson that he’d “form’d the most interesting connection in human life” [x], but to whom?

She was a woman of a short stature of five foot, with black hair, a nose that blended into her physically beautiful face, a round, soft chin and large blue eyes. Her portraits display self-curled hair, never submitting herself to the styled wigs or powder of the days, and a sense of fashion. She gives an aura of delicacy and a calm reassuring manner and self confidence. Even later in life, she was described is looking youthful, younger than her actual age [x], in her forties described as “an appearance of youth which would induce a stranger to suppose her age to be thirty.” [x]. When John Quincy Adams met her and her three sisters in 1785, he wrote to his diary that she was “beautiful” [x] more so than her sisters. During her time in France, she would become known as “La Belle Americane.” and would adopt a more French dress. There was no wonder she was considered one of the most beautiful women of her generation [x].

Her most famous dress, is pink with ruffles and silk, white laces out from her neck and her wrists [x]. The dress details a rather beautiful and prideful manner of elegance but not vanity. Another dress of hers is long, to the floor made of tan orange velvet and sleeves ruffled up to her shoulders [x]. Occasionally, she’d dawn a yellow headband that rested behind her bangs. ”Regal-looking”, New Years Day 1825 “Her dress was superb black velvet; neck and arms bare and beautifully formed; her hair in puffs and dressed high on the head and ornamented with white ostrich plumes; around her neck an elegant pearl necklace. Though no longer young, she is still a very handsome woman.”

With the ability for herself and her two older sisters and one younger sister to dazzle any room they were in, and in any company, it was noted one night at the theater with her sisters and Monroe that they “made so brilliant and lovely an appearance as to depopulate all the other boxes of all the genteel male people therein.” [x]. Her charm, beauty and sincerity won the admiration and esteem of all, including her most severe critics [x]. Never one to turn down a challenge or undermine a fear. Adaptable wherever she went, she was dignified, reserved, quiet, to herself but never cold; bold but not flamboyant. In later years, her future husband would say of her “It is a remark, which it would be unpardonable to withhold, that it was improbable for any female to have fulfilled all the duties of the partner of such cares, and of a wife and parent, with more attention, delicacy and propriety than she has done.” [x]

There is very little primary source of her but what is gathered is that she was courageous, well educated and intelligent. Fluent in Latin and French, she was educated in literature, music, dancing and sewing. She also was an artist who drew [x]. She suffered from poor health, something her husband would worry deeply over. In the summer of 1785, Monroe met his ultimate match. It would be a partner to guide him through his entire life, one he would confide to in personal matters and in politics, he would fall head over heels for her as a devoted wife and doting mother, “possessing to the full the domestic virtues then so highly prized–a complete absorption in the affairs of her family and household and a total detachment from the world of politics and business.” [x]. It was rare to find the two ever apart. In seventeen year old Elizabeth Kortright, James Monroe would discover acceptance and a keen, thoughtful listener.

Elizabeth–mostly called “Eliza” by family and friend–was born in New York City on June 30, 1768 to an already well established family.

The Kortright’s (”Cortright”) were sixth generation descendants of Bastian Van Kortryk, a native of Belgium who emigrated to Holland in about 1615, later proceeding to Amsterdam in 1663 [x]. Kortryk, France is the where the earliest known ancestor of the Kortright’s came from [x]. Kortryk is situated twenty-six miles Southwest of Ghent, on the river Lys, in the Province of West Flanders, Belgium. They were pioneer settlers, arriving to America in the 17th century living in rich flat lands called Muscoota, about eight miles north of New Amsterdam, on Manhattan Island [x].

Eliza’s father Lawrence Kortright–nicknamed “Laurens” [x]–was born a few days after his parent’s one year marriage anniversary on November 27th, 1728. He was the eldest sibling of two brothers and four younger sisters [x]. His father, Cornelius Kortright (1704-1745) was a wealthy and prominent merchant and baker [x]. Every morning, Laurens’s father would rise before going down to Kortright’s Wharf, “called so by his name” [x] on the East River, where he had a vessel. His baker's shop resided on Queen Street (now Pearl Street), after his death his third eldest son, also named Cornelius, took over the building and worked it along with his mother, Hester [x]. There is scarce details about his mother other than that she was born in 1706 and that she was very beautiful [x].

Judging by the wealth of his family, Laurens most likely had a rather well off education, raised by a full family. As the eldest boy, he probably received the most attention from his father, more than any of the other children. One day, April 15th 1745 [x] Cornelius went down to the East River, as he usually did [x]. He found that all the crew belonging to his ship had deserted on the Easter Monday. “The wind was blowing very fresh,” Cornelius found the cabin windows “in danger” of being smashed to pieces on the side of the dock. While attempted to secure them and latch them back to the boat, with his head and body being out the window, the brig was driven so violently against the wharf as to “dash his brains out”. Found, Cornelius was taken home as lifeless corpse. Laurens lamented this event “in less than one hours absence from perfect health to a silent, mangled, lifeless corpse!"

The affected Laurens’s mother Hester so terribly, that her health grew steadily worse and she was “in danger” [x]. From this untimely event and being stripped from her husband so violently, she became very melancholy [x]. Her friends, dreading the consequences were she not to prevail, urged upon her to “open a retail dry goods store” [x]. About a year after the old merchant's death, She opened the store, connected with the bakery she kept with her son, and “not only regained her health and spirits, but supported her children in a very genteel way” [x]. She continued to do this business until all her children were grown up, educated and married, without diminishing the property left by her husband [x]. According to her children, she was “devotedly attended to him and his children” [x]. She was a beautiful woman, but for their sake, she rejected “many good offers of marriage” and never married again.

When the French and Indian War broke out in 1754, Laurens enlisted on the British side and was part owner of several privateers fitted out at New York against the enemy [x]. Serving under the crown, he gathered a great deal of fortune to his name financially through these privateers [x]. He had a large interest in Tryon County lands and purchased land tracts in what is now Delaware county, New York. From the sale of this land the town of Kortright, New York, was formed [x]. In later 1754 or early 1755, Laurens met Hannah Aspinwall and they married on May 06, 1755. There is little known about Hannah as well, she was born in 1735 in New York City [x] and lived a somewhat short life. From what is known, we have no description of Eliza’s mother that she spoke of.  The same year they married, their first son, John Kortright was most likely born, although his birth date is unknown; he would be their only son [x].

After John, a girl, Sarah Kortright was born two years after her older brother in 1757 (her birth date is also perfectly unknown) [x]. Another girl, Mary followed in 1761 [x]. During this time it is unknown exactly where the Kortright family resided, other than that it was in New York City around Harlem. In 1768, Laurens Kortright became one of the founder of the Chamber of Commerce [x], the same year his third daughter and second to last child came into the world. On June 30th, 1768, Hannah Kortright gave birth to a little girl whom they would name Elizabeth meaning “oath of god”. Her family was already flourishing when she entered the mix. Raised by a Dutch church, Laurens Kortright identified himself with the Episcopal Church [x]. Their home was in the area east of present-day Amsterdam Avenue near 148th Street [x]

Above: Harlem in 1765, when Elizabeth Monroe would know it. (Manual of the Corporation of the City of New-York, 1863 [x])

Even with families of high standing, it was uncommon for girls of the era to be educated just as well as boys were, though that was not the case for young Eliza; she would grow into a well educated and intelligent young woman who was fluent in Latin and French, and educated in literature, music, dancing and sewing and occasionally--art, something she would become rather good at [x]. She was said to of been as intelligent as some as the most learned men of her generation [x]. The last child of the Kortrights was Hester born in 1770 [x], a sibling that Eliza would grow the closest to. One of the younger children of four older siblings, in Hester, Eliza found a best friend. While her sisters dotted over her while she was growing, Eliza and Hester formed an extremely close bond as the two youngest of the family. She built an unusually strong bond with her all her sisters. It is documented that the family owned at least four house slaves [x]. Sampson and Kaiser were sold to Lawrence Kortright for 75 pounds each on June 27, 1763 [x]. 

She was only eight years old when the revolution broke out on American soil and the Declaration of Independence was written by. For the entirety of the revolution, despite his past fervency in the French and Indian War, Laurens Kortright would remain quiet at his residence while men fought from both sides on the battlefield. New York housed the largest population of loyalists of any colony--that’s what the Kortrights were; loyalists. It was during this period that their long standing higher social standing declined [x].

On September 18th, 1776 General George Washington wrote in his General Orders, “Genl Mifflin’s, McDougall’s, Heard’s, Wadworth’s, and Fellow’s Brigades, and the Brigades under the Command of Cols. Silliman & Douglass, are to have each a regiment in the Field this evening, by Mr Kortright’s house.” [x]. The home was indeed the home of Lawrence Kortright. “By McCartrights House back of the Lines at 5 O’Clock this afternoon as Piquet Advance Posts the whole to be under the command of Brigadier Generals who are to see thay are properly posted from the North River round to the Encampment above the Road.” [x] Gen. Joseph Spencer’s headquarters was at a house rented by Lawrence Kortright in the area east of present-day Amsterdam Avenue near 148th Street [x]. Being so close to the Continental Army, Eliza would get her tastes of the war, being so near to soldiers from her own porch. 

Late 1776, Eliza’s mother gave birth to another child whose name and sex has never been uncovered. She would never recover from the birth and Eliza would only have her mother for nine of her years. According to the parish records of Trinity Church, New York, Elizabeth’s mother, Hannah, died on September 6th or 7th, 1777, at the age of only 39. The cause of death was recorded as resulting from Child Bed [x]. The unidentified sibling of Elizabeth, “Child Kortright” age only thirteen months, succumbed to flux and fever a few days later and died on September 10th. [x]. Mother and infant were both buried at St. George’s Chapel in New York. At the time of their deaths, Elizabeth was nine years old. Her father never remarried.

Almost a year after the death of Elizabeth’s mother and young sibling, on August 3rd, 1778, their home of the Lawrence Kortright family was half destroyed by fire [x] during a blaze which caused damage and destruction to fifty homes near Cruger’s Wharf in lower Manhattan. The adjoining houses attached to the home where also destroyed [x]. The blaze was caused by the mismanagement of British troops while directing the firefighters [x], “Another fire occurred August 3, 1778, on Cruger's Wharf, and about fifty houses were destroyed. It was said the loss was increased by the ill-advised attempt of the British officers to direct the firemen...” Elizabeth, age ten, with her father and all her siblings, barely survived the fire but managed out unscathed.

1778, partly on Lauren’s security, Judge Fell, then a prisoner in the Provost, obtained his release. December of 1778, some attempted to camp at the home of Lawrence Kortright but to not avail as his house had burnt down months before. “Mr Willing who is some way connected with Lawr. Kirtwright immediatly repair’d to his house, but unhappily found no shelter there, he being a person of Consequence” [x]. After their home was burnt, they moved to a residence on 192 Queen street [x] which was close to her now deceased grandfather’s old bakery where her uncle and grandmother worked. This move would prove one of the most important things to happen to her in her youth. Because of the lack of a motherly figure in young Eliza’s life, her father saddled her paternal grandmother, Hester Kortright who would raise the young girl along with her younger sister who had the same name as her elder. Hester had a reputation of being a strong and very independent woman, who after her husband’s death in 1745 owned and managed her own vast real estate holdings in old Harlem [x]. 

By the wars end, Lawrence Kortright who once held such a standing in his society was now without any money and exhausted of all funds. This was also due to his Loyalist views which even though he’d been quiet during the revolution led to him being pegged as an outcast in society. Her grandmother died on January 13th, 1785 at age 78 years, greatly beloved. Summer of 1785, Elizabeth, living with her father in his home with her sisters, she would meet her maker. It would be her life partner, a beloved friend whom named her his “Venus” [x] and the love her life. Tall, broad chested, and shy, James Monroe.

[sonofhistory]

James Monroe Timeline of Slavery:

James Monroe depended on, used and benefited from the institution of slavery profitably. He was the owner of around seventy slaves in his entire life (not all held at once) [x] and like his friend James Madison, Monroe never freed a single slave. Hypocritically, Monroe believed strongly in the abolition and called for the freedom of slaves [x].

1774: Spence Monroe, James Monroe’s father, dies when he is sixteen. Spence left one slave directly, a boy named Ralph [x].

1786: Monroe marries Elizabeth Kortright whose father, a New York merchant, Lawrence Kortright who owned at least four slaves [x]. 

1794: Elizabeth journeyed to New York City to see her dying father. From there, she wrote to her husband about her own inheritance and her brother’s, which she deemed unfair and included “several slaves.”

1796: When James Monroe was in Paris he heard that one of his slaves in Virginia was very ill.  "We lament much the ill health of Tinah...  Indeed she is valuable as a sensible and honest servant, as well as most capable, and whose loss could never be repaired.  We are particularly gratified that she is well taken care of and wants for nothing."

1799: October 15, 1799, as some slave traders tried to transport a group of slaves from Southampton to Georgia, the slaves revolted and killed the traders. According to an article on the subject, a nearby slave patrol responded and killed ten slaves on the spot. The patrol took five slaves alive. They were tried in an oyer and terminer court without the benefit of a jury, four were convicted. The fifth pleaded benefit of clergy and was flogged and branded. Governor James Monroe postponed the slaves' executions to check their identities; he granted a pardon to one, and allowed two to hang. The fourth died in jail from exposure to the cold. The author of the article stated Monroe "help[ed] secure a modicum of civil protection for slaves sentenced to death for capital crimes." Monroe restored the requirement of civil protection for slaves sentenced to death for capital crimes [x] [x].

1800: During his term as governor, in Richmond on the afternoon of Saturday, August 30th, Monroe received information that an insurrection by slaves in the surrounding area would strike the city that night. He communicated with the mayors of Richmond and Petersburg and called out militia to protect the capitol building and public stores of arms and ammunition. Heavy rainfall that made roads and bridges impassable forestalled the beginning of the revolt that night, but Monroe soon received information to convince him that the plan for rebellion was still in place, truthfully, one of the plans was to kidnap him. The legislature was not in session, but with the concurrence of the council on Tuesday, September 2nd the governor alerted all Virginia militia regiments and strengthened the guard on key locations in and around the capital city. He also communicated with local civil officials. The evening of September 2nd the first group of suspects was brought to Richmond from the vicinity of the Henrico County plantation of Thomas H. Prosser, whose slave Gabriel had been named as the primary leader of the intended revolt. 

Under Virginia law of more than a century’s standing, the trial of a slave accused of committing a capital offense was to take place without a jury before a court of oyer and terminer assembled for the purpose. According to a 1786 statute, which was a modified version of a bill in the great revision of the state’s law code that Thomas Jefferson and others had drafted some years earlier, a slave could only be condemned to death by unanimous decision of the court of oyer and terminer, and the state would compensate the owner for the value of the executed slave. The first executions for participation in the conspiracy occurred on Friday, September 12th. During when he was to decide as governor for punishment he wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson stating himself as being torn between what the legislature wanted–execution–and what he wanted–mercy. In the end, twenty-six slaves including Gabriel were hanged. Monroe tried to get pardons for those condemned for execution but the council only agreed to some of the requests from Monroe for pardons or temporary reprieves. 

1802: The government considered sending insurgent slaves to Sierra Leone. Governor Monroe discovered that under the law of Sierra Leone the slaves would be free as soon as they arrived.  "Still I am persuaded that such was not the intention of the Legislature, as it would put culprits in a better condition than the deserving part of those people...  The ancestors of the present negroes were brought from Africa and sold here as slaves, they and their descendents for ever. If we send back any of the race subject to a temporary servitude with liberty to their descendants will not the policy be mild and benevolent?"

1804: “Slaves are kept under by fear—with them the term is synonimous with respect—Be generous, set them free, & they will insult you.” [x]

1807: “The twenty-fourth article engages that the parties shall communicate to each other the laws which their respective legislatures may enact for the abolition or limitation of the African slave trade, and that they will also use their best endeavors to procure the co-operation of other powers for the complete abolition of that trade. “ [x] “We ought to add that by one of the articles in the treaty a complete co-operation is stipulated for the abolition of the Slave Trade.” [x] James Monroe was negotiating a new treaty with Great Britain. 

1808: “I have in Albermarle 2500. acres of as good land as any in the county & about 30. slaves, with furniture stock &ca. I shod. suppose that my property there was worth three times the amount of the sum desired.” [x]

1810: Albemarle County, Virginia census showed forty-nine enslaved people living at Highland in 1810. At Monroe’s home of Highland, the enslaved included field workers, blacksmiths, carpenters, masons and “house servants” which including valets, a maids, a cook and assistants [x]. The same year, Monroe had offered to sell his Oak Hill estate, nearly two thousand acres in Loudoun County, located ten miles from Leesburg and thirty-five from Alexandria, along with its livestock and all its twenty-five slaves [x].

1814: “The procln. of Cochrane, inciting4 our slaves to rise, & join them, you have probably seen.” [x]

1816: Monroe was part of the American Colonization Society formed in 1816. They found common ground with some abolitionists in supporting colonization. They helped send several thousand freed slaves to the new colony of Liberia in Africa from 1820 to 1840. Monroe wanted to prevent free blacks from encouraging slaves in the South to rebel. The organization also bought land for the freedmen in what is today Liberia. The capital of Liberia was named Monrovia after him as president [x]. 

1817: According to William Seale, he took several slaves with him to Washington D.C. to serve at the White House from 1817 to 1825 [x]. 

1819: The Missouri Territory applied for statehood as a slave state, but that application failed largely due to opposition from the New England states. An amended bill was put forth which proposed gradually eliminating slavery in Missouri, but that just led to two years of bitter debate in Congress. The Missouri Compromise bill resolved the issue, pairing Missouri as a slave state with Maine, a free state, and barring slavery north of latitude 36/30' N forever.

1820: "I do not think that any foreigner can sustain a claim against an African brought directly from Africa as a slave, in our Courts, but that when brought within our jurisdiction he must be free."

1821: "[The international slave trade] is an abominable practice, against which nations are now combining, and it may be presumed that the combination will soon become universal.  If it does the traffic must cease, if it does not it will still be carried on, unless the nations favorable to the suppression unite to crush it, under flags whose powers tolerate it, which would in effect be to make war on those powers." 

1822: Liberia was established as a place where freed American slaves, as well as Africans captured on foreign slave ships, could be resettled. The country named its capital, Monrovia, after Monroe because of his endorsement of the American Colonization Society. [x]

1823: “you have, I presume, seen, by the gazettes, that a motion has been made in the British house of commons, to liberate the slaves in the W. Indies, & been treated with respect by Mr Canning, The effect, should the measure be adopted, on those in the southern states, may be anticipated.” [x]

1824: James Monroe signed a treaty with Great Britain that would have declared the African slave trade a form of piracy, thereby making it easier to fight the slave. He made a plea to the Senate, but they did not ratify the agreement. “Should this convention be adopted, there is every reason to believe that it will be the commencement of a system destined to accomplish the entire abolition of the slave trade… [Other nations  will  follow the United States and Britain]  The crime will then be universally proscribed as piracy, and the traffic be suppressed forever.” Also: “I forward also a copy of the documents, relating to the negotiations, with the British government, for the suppression of the slave trade.” [x]

1826: Two slaves named George and Phebe risked it and fled [x]. The duo ran away from Highland in July 1826 [x], and Monroe placed an advertisement in the local newspaper (below) for July 15th [x], offering a ten dollar reward for their return. It’s unknown of they reached freedom. Highland slaves endured not harsh conditions but instability caused by frequent transfers between Monroe’s two properties due to work needs [x].

1827: “The sale of my slaves, &ca, in Albemarle, it is expected will take place in Novr. so that it will be very pa[in]ful to me, to attend there, at the next meeting You shall however hear from me on the subject.” [x]

1828: Because of United State government not paying Monroe for his positions, he fell into enormous dept. Monroe began selling the farmland at his Highland any many of Monroe’s enslaved men, women, and children were dispersed south. Those sold went to a cotton plantation called Casa Bianca in Jefferson County, Florida. To the buyer, Colonel Joseph White Monroe told him to keep the families together and not to separate them [x]. “I have sold my slaves in that county, to Col: White of Florida, who will take them in families, to that territory. He gives me for them, (with the exception of a few sold there) five thousand dolrs.” [x]

1829: Monroe described slavery as “one of the evils still remaining incident to our Colonial system”. As president of Virginia's constitutional convention in the fall, Monroe reiterated his belief that slavery was a blight which, even as a British colony, Virginia had attempted to eradicate. "What was the origin of our slave population? The evil commenced when we were in our Colonial state, but acts were passed by our Colonial Legislature, prohibiting the importation, of more slaves, into the Colony. These were rejected by the Crown." To the dismay of states' rights advocates, he accepted the federal government's financial assistance to emancipate and transport freed slaves to other countries. At the convention, Monroe proposed that Virginia emancipate and deport its enslaved with "the aid of the Union."

[46ten]

Newton’s presentation on AH’s St. Croix years

Michael E. Newton, author of Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years (2015) recently gave a presentation at Liberty Hall Museum. (See his blog for the video of his talk.)

Prior to Newton's discoveries, the earliest extant record we had of AH is the February 1768 probate record of his mother Rachel Lavien, discovered in 1939.

From the Danish National Archives (St. Croix) online, Newton has found 2 earlier documents:

1) Volume of registration and assessments for Christian settlers (April 22nd, 1767), an appraisement of the effects belonging to Master William Bond (Newton doesn't know who he is). At the bottom is the signature of an Alexander Hamilton; David Beekman, AH's boss's name is above, leaving Newton to think this is likely AH. Beekman, originally of NY, was a partner in the St. Croix firm of Beekman & Cruger, founded in 1766. We know AH worked there as a clerk as of November 1769, based on a letter to Edward Stevens, until the hurricane of 1772. [Newton hasn't found any other Alexander Hamilton living on St. Croix, though there were other Hamiltons on St. Croix, and a ship captain named Alexander Hamilton who visited St. Croix.]

2) In mortgage records of Christians in St. Croix (August 17, 1767) debt owed to David Beekman.  First witness is Nicholas Cruger, second witness is Alexander Hamilton. 

Implications to AH's biography - Newton is a strong believer that AH was born in 1757 (see his book for reasons why), which means AH at only 10 years old was serving as a witness to these documents. (There is a story in Papers of Alexander Hamilton that he served as a witness to a document in 1766 - this record has not been found.)

Newton believes, based on these records he has discovered, that AH started working for the Beekman & Cruger firm at least by April 1767.  This would place AH’s job as clerk as the longest continuous job of AH's life

So was AH actually penniless or even financially struggling in St. Croix, as the Hamilton musical and other AH biographers state? According to Newton, no. RH had silverware and leather chairs - not living in poverty, though not rich.  AH's uncle and cousin, whom he briefly lived with after the death of his mother, were the wealthiest people on the island.  And AH already had a job - working as a clerk. Considering that he's single and doesn't have a family to support, he probably lives a reasonably comfortable life in St. Croix. He's not upperclass, but he's definitely middleclass, perhaps upper-middleclass by Newton's speculation.  For mysely, this casts AH's self-identification in a different light - less "fake it 'til you make it" and more "this is where I've always been and belonged.” 

A somewhat unrelated note: Elizabeth Monroe (James's wife) was the daughter of Lawrence Kortright, who was a business partner of Nicholas Cruger. Angelica Schuyler Church's daughter, Catharine Church, married Nicholas Cruger's son, Bertram Peter Cruger.  I'm always fascinated by how much they were all in the same social circle.