Stephanie: As interesting as the house were the exhibits of family artifacts, some of which came to play a role in the book. British General Burgoyne’s shoe buckles, which we used to show an interesting facet of Peggy’s character. Eliza’s sewing box, which helped us develop a theme about sewing that we—pardon the pun!—stitched into her character. And especially Eliza’s locket necklace containing a clipping of George Washington’s hair, which became a touchstone for her throughout the novel. Those were details that added real authenticity to the book, and we wouldn’t have known to include them without visiting the site.
Laura: I agree. When you read a novel, you want it to be an immersive experience. As a writer, one of the best ways to create that experience is to have it yourself. And the best of both worlds is reading the book and visiting the sites, so we encourage you to go to them all! We hope you enjoy learning more about Eliza Schuyler Hamilton’s life and journey in My Dear Hamilton.
Learn more at DrayKamoie.com.
Telling Her Story
How My Dear Hamilton Differs from Hamilton: An American Musical
We’re superfans of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical. And we’ve been known to sing along to the soundtrack on our road trips together. Repeatedly! But even if you haven’t seen the show or listened to the music, you might be familiar with at least some of the most iconic lyrics. And you might know that the musical ends by asking a question: Who tells your story? Answer: Eliza.
However, the show’s focus on Washington’s right-hand man doesn’t recount much of Eliza’s own story. While we’re inspired, awed, and humbled by Miranda’s incredible storytelling, we made a number of different narrative choices. Here are the most noteworthy differences!
Where the Story Starts
The musical starts brilliantly with Alexander’s famous Caribbean backstory and his arrival in New York City in 1773. Eliza enters his story in a supporting role in 1780 when they’re introduced by her older sister, Angelica.
Because our story is about Eliza, we debated what our starting point should be. Should it in fact be when she met Alexander? Ultimately, we decided against that. After all, as Eliza says in our opening chapter, she was someone before she met Alexander Hamilton. And she was. Eliza was the daughter of a general who was also a diplomat with the Indians and later ran a spy ring. The daughter of a Dutch mother with significant medical and estate-running skills she undoubtedly passed down. A frontier woman in her own right who attended Indian treaty negotiations, received an Indian name, and was fond of the outdoors. An eligible heiress who attracted the attention of Tench Tilghman and maybe even the British officer John André. None of Eliza’s dynamic backstory makes it into a musical framed around Alexander Hamilton. And even her accomplishments as a patriot and activist in her own right are centered, in the musical, around Alexander’s memory.
Though she might not have agreed, we thought she deserved a story of her own.
Eliza’s Characterization
In the musical, Eliza heartbreakingly contemplates whether she’s enough to satisfy Alexander. Her sister says she’s overly trusting, and she evolves into a wronged but forgiving wife.
But neither Hamilton nor Angelica lived to see Eliza’s 1825 confrontation with James Monroe, which occurred long after the musical’s last refrains, and was a big part of our inspiration for her characterization in My Dear Hamilton.
We asked ourselves what kind of woman would dress down a man who was once her husband’s friend and until recently, the president of the United States, telling him that unless he was there to apologize, she had nothing to say to him? That strength, loyalty, confidence, stubbornness, and confrontationalism gave us the building blocks to portray Eliza as more than a forgiving wife. Certainly, she was also a woman who could hold an “unladylike” grudge!
This is, after all, the woman who assisted Alexander in copying and drafting some of his most famous political writings. And in her later life, she was known for being as relentless in her charitable and fundraising work as her husband was in his political work. In her eighties, she traveled halfway across the continent to visit her son in largely unsettled Wisconsin. And into her nineties, she was known to take two-mile walks around Washington, D.C. We took all of these into account in crafting our version of Eliza, a woman every bit as intrepid as the man she married.
Angelica and Alexander
In the musical, Angelica introduces Eliza to Alexander after having fallen in love with him herself. That meeting serves wonderfully as the beginning of an emotional affair between Angelica and Alexander and calls into question whether Hamilton had true feelings for Eliza.