07/14/2019
On this date (July 14), 1804: General Alexander Hamilton was laid to rest. It was a solemn, but grand funeral, complete with full military honors. Guns fired from the Battery, drums played, church bells rang, and ships in the harbor flew their colors at half-mast. His sword and hat donned the top of his beautiful mahogany casket. New York militia units led the funeral procession, bearing their arms in reversed position, their muzzles pointed downward. Hamilton’s gray horse followed; the boots and spurs of its former rider reversed in the stirrups. His four eldest sons, “with tears gushing from their eyes,” walked the route, trailed by representatives of every segment of New York society; from artisans to mechanics, bankers, physicians, students, laborers, politicians and more – collectively reflecting the diverse economic mosaic that Hamilton had envisioned for America. The crowd of mourners was so large that the procession streamed on for over two hours before the last of them arrived at Trinity Church. “Not a smile was visible, and hardly a whisper was to be heard, but tears were seen rolling down the cheeks of the affected multitude,” wrote one newspaper. In the eulogy, Hamilton’s dear friend Gouverneur Morris said that “knowing the purity of his heart, he bore it, as it were, in his hand, exposing to every passenger its inmost recesses.” He also told his fellow citizens that Hamilton “never lost sight of your interests…in his most private and confidential conversations, the single objects of discussion and consideration were your freedom and happiness.”
(photo taken by Jenny Davis, Park Ranger at the Hamilton Grange NM)
