#peggy schuyler van rensselear

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Name ; Elizabeth "Betsy" Schuyler

Nicknames ; Eliza, Lizzie, Betsy

Age ; 18

Universe ; Hamilton

Personality .

Never the one for the spotlight, Eliza much prefers the company of a few people close to her. She isn't the type for large crowds and would often get uncomfortable in them. Elizabeth would often be seen with a book or two in her hands. She is an observer. The type that would remember who was there, what they were wearing, who they were with and so on and so forth. She normally stands to the side and watches people have fun. Although, if being forced to(Angelica and Peggy we're looking at you), she will participate in the activity.

Now, with that being said, she does have her bad side. She can get competitive at times. Often working herself to the point of exhaustion. She wants to be the best society lady but also be true to herself. That's a fine line for her to walk in however. She is a tad bit judgemental at times, believing in first impressions. Despite her dainty appearance, Elizabeth does have a temper. She will strike out with words rather than fists. She does have a sharp tongue. She has a strong impulsive side to her as noted by several people, mainly her family and friends.

History.

Elizabeth was born the middle child to Phillip Schuyler and Catherine Van Rensselear. She is the middle sister as she had a sister who was a year older, Angelica, and a sister who would be two years younger, Margarita 'Peggy'. The sisters were born with a silver spoon in their mouths. The Van Rensselear family were very wealthy and Phillip was a General in the Continental Army. They were from old Dutch families who settled in the area around the mid 1600s or so. They are able to fully speak and understand Dutch as both parents held firm in making sure they learned the language of their ancestors.

Growing up, life for Elizabeth had been wonderful. If not for one without constant worrying whenever her father would be called out. She spent most of her childhood learning how to read and playing in the mud. A lot of people had described her as a tomboy. She had matured around the age of eight, a late bloomer as she started learning how to become a proper lady of society. She learned how to walk properly, play the piano, sing, speak French amongst other things. She spent time usually annoying Angelica, following her around and asking a lot of questions.

Eliza is now eighteen and she is around the age where Phillip is starting to look for a suitable match for his daughters. She doesn't want to get married as of yet. She thinks that there is more to life at her age. 

[pub-lius]

The Schuyler Sisters (Peggy, Angelica, Eliza) for @thereallvrboy

aaaaaaa

this post is a couple weeks late because the research took longer than normal for some reason, so i’m typing it all out on the same day im researching for the next post so you’ll probably see that tomorrow if not next week. a lot of the information for this post comes from this website, and cross referenced with my usual favorites (britannica especially) and Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow because i hate myself. but i love @thereallvrb0y so its fine

Margarita Schuyler Van Rensselaer

Margarita Schuyler was born on September 24, 1758 in Albany, and was referred to as Meggy or Peggy, but I’ll be calling her Peggy because that is how she is widely known. She was the THIRD OF ELEVEN children to General Philip Schuyler and Catharine Van Rensselaer Schuyler, which is why I am refusing to do all the Schuyler kids (don’t love you that much, richie /j). She was closest with her sisters Angelica and Elizabeth (who I will refer to as Betsey). She was known for being smart, beautiful, witty, and fiesty.

On August 7, 1781, the Schuyler home was threatened by a Tory mob. There’s this one story that when they sieged upon the house, Peggy came out of hiding to get her younger sister Catherine who was just fucking abandoned, and they threw a tomahawk at her which sliced her gown and was embedded in the staircase. That didn’t happen, Catherine made it up because she didn’t like Indigenous people (probably).

Peggy married Stephen Van Rensselaer III when he was 19 and she was 25. At this time, men were shamed for their mommy kinks, and Stephen’s dad was disappointed that he married an older woman, so they eloped. They would go on to have three children, one of which would survive to adulthood, Stephen Van Rensselaer IV.

More about Stephen, his mom was a Livingston (these three families constantly married each other it was lowkey highkey weird) and his dad was the ninth patroon of Rensselaerwyck which means he was a really really rich dude who owned a big ass piece of land. Stephen was entitled to assume responsibility as lord of Van Rensselaer Manor when he turned 21. 

The Schuylers were wealthy, Dutch American, landowning families in New York. Peggy and Stephen’s parents were third generation immigrants, and it was likely that Dutch was a common family language. They all belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church in Albany, New York.

Peggy was unfortunately affected by an illness in 1799, and died on March 14, 1801. She was really close with Alexander Hamilton, and was with her when she died. 

“On Saturday, my dear Eliza, your sister took leave of her sufferings and friends, I trust to find repose and happiness in a better country.” -Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Hamilton

She was initially buried in the family plot at the Van Rensselaer estate, and was later reinterred at Albany Rural Cemetery.

Angelica Schuyler Church

Angelica Schuyler was born on February 20, 1756, and Ron Chernow shat himself. She was described as educated, intelligent, attractive, and more sociable than Betsey because that is a character trait apparently (solid notes, Henry). She was the eldest daughter so she totally had some kind of complex going on.

She eloped with John Church in 1777 before Alexander Hamilton had time to get into her pants. She was afraid her father wouldn’t approve of Church because he was suspicious as fuck. He came to America to avoid bankruptcy, and was secretly (and suspiciously) supplying the French and American armies, and eventually became Washington’s Commissary General, which is slay, but like you didn’t need to be that suspicious. 

Angelica left for Europe in 1783 with her family and didn’t return until 1797 (once again before Hamilton could engage in Amorous Congress with her). She held frequent parties, and was an absolute bad bitch in European social circles. For example, between 1783 and 1785, John was a US envoy to the French government, and Angelica became besties with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson (she kinda bullied him but besties nonetheless) and the Marquis de Lafayette. Also, Jefferson’s daughter attended the same school as Angelica’s daughter, and I think that’s cool. 

In 1785, she made a visit to New York, but again, left before Hamilton could make whoopee with her. She also went to Washington’s inauguration in 1789, but I don’t know if that was the same or a different trip.

She moved to London after that and became friends with the fucking royal family, specifically the Prince of Wales. Also, Church was elected to serve on the British Parliament in 1790, but this isn’t about him. 

She was reunited with her family in New York in 1797 and that was cool. The US wasn’t able to pay Church back for his efforts during the war which is homophobic so they gave him 100,000 acres of land in Western NY (Genesee and Allegany counties) in order to retain their status as allies. They laid out a town with designs reminiscent of Paris, and their son Philip named it after Angelica. The layout is still the same which is really cool!

FINE I’LL TALK ABOUT HER AND HAMILTON.

So Angelica was very close with her brother-in-law Bitchbaby Ham a ton. She told Betsey she loved Hamilton “very much, and if you were as generous as the old Romans, you would lend him to me for a little while.”

“I am sensible how much trouble I give you, but you will have the goodness to excuse it, when you know that it proceeded from a persuasion that I was asking from one who promised me his love and attention if I returned to America.” -Angelica to Hamilton, February 19, 1796

Did they have an affair? Was Hamilton the little slutty man that Angelica makes him out to be in the first quote?

No. *roll credits*

Okay, I’m gonna say this once and never again (jk I probably will), but the idea that they had an affair is bullshit (in my opinion, this is all my opinion, my educated opinion, but my opinion nonetheless). There is like. more proof that they didn’t have an affair than that they did. 

The biggest “evidence” there is for the relationship is the flirtatious comments they made in their letters to one another. I think there’s two reasonable explanations to this than just assuming they were fucking or in love: they were joking, or they were just being affectionate. Angelica refers to Hamilton as “brother” in literally every letter we have from her to him, and the two of them, along with Angelica’s sister and Hamilton’s wife, Betsey, had extremely affectionate relationships. The affection in the second quote is a great example of how they all talked to each other. 

Now for the actual flirtatious comments, you can tell they are joking. Like in all the examples, they have a lighthearted, joking tone, that doesn’t really come across as actual flirting. 

Okay, but let’s say you’re insistent that they were actually flirting. It still doesn’t make sense. Angelica loved her husband (she had to to stay with that fuckhead for that long), and Hamilton was working constantly to balance his job, his family, and the other affair SLFHSKJFH Additionally, they were apart for a large part of their lives, and honestly, I don’t think there would have been any kind of opportunity for romantic feelings to grow between them. 

Also, I’m just going to say it, most of the people who argue for this (historians mostly) are homophobic and misogynistic. First of all, if you assume that a man and a woman are automatically romantically or sexually involved because they have an affectionate relationship and make flirtatious jokes, it gives thinking that women are inherently unable to form platonic relationships with men. Especially if you think that same sex friends can make flirtatious jokes and not be in a romantic/sexual relationship, but it’s impossible for opposite sex friendships (that’s also pretty homophobic).

But most of the homophobia comes from the people who will die on the hill that Angelica and Hamilton had a romantic and/or sexual relationship, but refuse to accept the idea that Hamilton and Laurens had feelings for each other. Their letters displayed legitimate jealousy and anger over each others’ marriages, which doesn’t exist with Hamilton and Angelica. Their letters lack the flirtatious humor, but contain legitimate evidence of a romantic relationship. The logic that backs up Hamilton and Angelica’s “relationship” provides basically double the amount of evidence for Hamilton and Laurens’ relationship.

Anyway... she died on March 13, 1814.

Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton

Elizabeth Schuyler was born on August 9, 1757 in Albany. She was called Eliza or Betsey. Hamilton called her Eliza later in life, but before that he called her Betsey.

She stayed with her aunt in Morristown, New Jersey in 1780 where she met Alexander Hamilton, who was serving as Washington’s aide-de-camp at headquarters which had been set up there for the winter encampment. Their relationship grew quickly, even after he left a month after she arrived. They became officially engaged in early April with her father’s blessing. This was very important to General Schuyler, because his two other daughters had eloped and he was starting to get sad. 

They were married on December 14, 1780 at the Schuyler Mansion in Albany. The only person to attend the wedding on Hamilton’s side, James McHenry, a fellow aide-de-camp, wrote them a cute little poem that i don’t feel like looking for, but it definitely exists. 

They moved around a lot during the early part of their marriage, but settled in New York City in late 1783. They had an active social life, and became well known. Betsey was very important to Hamilton, helping him often with his work, but had the biggest impact on his domestic life. His traumatic past caused him to really not have much of a comfortable, safe space to come home to, and he often thought of a familial environment (ie Washington’s staff) almost like he was being coddled. Until he married her ofc. She helped him mature and move past, what I call, his “I hate Dad” phase. More on that later, but he had a major change in personality after she met him.

Then there was the uh... the affair. I’ll go into more detail about Maria Reynolds in Hamilton’s post, but I’ll talk a little about what we know of Betsey’s experience. She didn’t believe the rumors at first, until Hamilton owned up to it. It put a strain on the relationship for a little while, but they eventually reconciled. That’s all we know pretty much. 

Then he died. Whoops!

This is when Betsey turned on the girlboss and kicked absolute fucking ass. She became a co-founder of the Society for the relief of poor widows with small children. She became the co-founder of the Orphan Asylum Society, of which she was appointed second directress, then first directress in 1821 and served for 27 years until she left New York in 1848.

She was required to pay substantial debts after Hamilton’s death, and sold her 35 acre estate in upper Manhattan, and was later able to buy it back because executors decided she couldn’t be publicly dispossessed. She sold it again and moved into a townhouse owned by her son, the Hamilton-Holly House. She lived there for 9 years with her kids. She left for Washington DC in 1848 where she lived until 1854 with her daughter.

She, along with her children, remained dedicated to preserving Hamilton’s legacy. She re-organized all of his letters, papers, and writing with John, C. Hamilton, and ensured his biography was published. She also helped Dolly Madison raise money for the Washington Monument. 

She died in Washington DC on November 9, 1854. She was buried by her husband and son in Trinity Church.