As second directress of the society, I sat at the head of the table next to our venerable founder and her daughter. Placing my hand upon the table as if a Bible sat thereon, I added my voice to the cause.
So the Orphan Asylum Society was born. Because some life must grow up from amongst all this death and sacrifice. And I was done with losing things.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
August 1807
New York City
WONDERFUL WORK YOU ladies are doing,” Pendleton said as I gave him and a small group of benefactors a tour of the new orphanage. “Just wonderful work. You must be quite proud of what you’ve accomplished.”
“It’s God’s work, indeed,” Reverend Mason added.
I beamed at their praise, for I was proud. We’d purchased a two-story frame house on Raisin Street in Greenwich Village for the children, and even though it had sixteen beds, we’d been flooded with applications in heartbreaking numbers—over two hundred in all.
In every story, in every name, I saw Alexander.
We would need another facility to help them all. It wasn’t enough, but it was progress. And as I showed the group one of the bedrooms with its small beds all in a neat row, I said, “It’s a start.” But there was a cause more dear to my heart that I was even more eager to see under way.
Three years had passed since my husband’s death, and not a word of his biography had yet been written. Partly due to my difficulty finding someone to write it, and partly due to the disorder in which my husband’s papers were left. At least this was the excuse given by Pendleton, who still held back certain documents from me, claiming they had to do with ongoing legal matters. And now, whenever I found myself in the presence of the thin-lipped barrel-chested jurist who’d been my husband’s law partner, I was plagued by conflicting emotions.
Pendleton had stood by his testimony that my husband threw away his fire. Pendleton had also loaned us money and taught my newly graduated son James the practice of law. I was certainly grateful to him.
But I felt resentment, too. For I could never see the man without wondering, You were his second, his law partner, and his friend. Why didn’t you stop him from taking part in a duel?
It wasn’t a fair question. Perhaps nothing but a bullet could have stopped Alexander Hamilton. But he ought to be remembered—which was the point I hoped to make when I gifted Pendleton with a ring I’d made with a clipping of Alexander’s hair, set beneath glass. He still wore it in friendship, something I admired as everyone offered their congratulations at the end of the tour.
I stopped Reverend Mason and Pendleton before they, too, departed, and took the opportunity to remind them, “Every day, every hour, every moment that passes without my dear Hamilton’s story being told is another memory lost to history.”
Pendleton gave a regretful smile while pretending not to glance impatiently at his gold pocket watch. “Perhaps there’s an advantage in waiting. For the Federalists shall soon sweep back into office. We are the party of Washington, and our success shall make the people remember that.”
I bit my tongue, for if the Federalists were the party of Washington, they were even more the party of Hamilton. But it would do my cause here today no good to push the matter.
Thankfully, the reverend did it for me. “The general’s biography will take some years to prepare and not a moment ought to be wasted.” He smiled at the younger man. “Which is why I’ve agreed to write it, with Mrs. Hamilton’s permission and encouragement.”
“Isn’t that wonderful?” I asked, smiling at the revelation of my achievement. I’d finally secured a scholar to write Hamilton’s biography. He was not only a man of letters, but an incorruptible man of God. When I made requests to borrow or look at letters my husband sent other men in government, my requests were often ignored. But they were unlikely to ignore a man of the cloth.
And that suspicion was borne out when Pendleton cleared his throat and said, “Indeed. Well, you’re welcome to anything at the office, Reverend.”
“The only impediment now is resources,” I said, first meeting Mason’s eager gaze, then Pendleton’s recalcitrant one. “For there will be expenses. We might have to travel—to Mount Vernon, certainly, to transcribe letters Alexander once sent to Washington.”
To get the money, I could sell off some of the land Papa left to me, but this country owed a great debt to my husband that hadn’t been paid. Other war widows received a pension, but I had none. In a fit of high-mindedness, Alexander had renounced the benefits he was due as an officer in the war. Now that the Republicans insisted upon destroying the country’s commerce with their idiotic trade embargo, breaking up my husband’s national bank, and emptying the treasury—they at least ought to be made to pay for it.