5. Hamilton Only Lived There for Two Years
Although Hamilton had boundless excitement regarding his country home, he only lived two years following its completion. His death, immortalized in the musical devoted to his life, occurred in 1804 at the hands of Aaron Burr. As Burr sings in the song “The World Was Wide Enough,” “I strike him right between his ribs / I walk towards him, but I am ushered away / They row him back across the Hudson,” he recounts the death of an American politician and father. Now, Hamilton fanatics can visit the place of his death in Weehawken, New Jersey. Hamilton was indeed rowed across the Hudson and taken to the Bayard Mansion at 80-82 Jane Street after and Angelica Schuyler and Eliza Hamilton “were both by his side as he died” here, as sung in “The World Was Wide Enough.”
After Hamilton died in 1804, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton devoted her life to preserving Hamilton’s legacy. Although there were two years of memories shared with her late husband in Hamilton Grange, Schuyler Hamilton lived in his “sweet project” for nearly 30 years following his death. In these years, she established The Hamilton Free School, a school for students who could not afford public education, and the Orphan Asylum Society, New York City’s first private orphanage.
