Alexander Hamilton

📍Hamilton Grange, 414 West 141st Street, New York, NY 10031, USA

“I was born on the Caribbean island of Nevis and raised on St Croix, the son of an unmarried mother and a Scottish father who left us; my mother died when I was a boy, and I went to work as a clerk for a trading house in Christiansted. When a hurricane tore through the island in 1772, a letter I wrote describing it was published, and local merchants raised money to send me to New York to study at King's College. I fought beside Washington, helped write the Federalist Papers, and founded the nation's financial system. In 1802 I built the Grange, a Federal-style country house by the architect John McComb Jr., on my estate in the hills of upper Manhattan, the first and only house I ever owned, and named it after my father's ancestral home in Scotland. I planted thirteen sweetgum trees for the thirteen original states and drew up detailed plans for the garden. I lived here barely two years before the duel with Aaron Burr. The house has since been moved twice and is now the Hamilton Grange National Memorial in St Nicholas Park.”

Sources: nycgovparks.org blog.mcny.org nylandmarks.org