Shameless Self-Promotion: A Pair of Upcoming Events Featuring I, ELIZA HAMILTON

Susan reporting,

July seems to have become the unofficial month to honor Alexander Hamilton: statesman, soldier, hero of the American Revolution, signer of the Constitution, first Secretary of the Treasury, founder of America's financial system, the United States Mint, the Federalist Party, the Coast Guard, two banks, and a newspaper -  and he was the husband of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, the heroine of my current historical novel, I, Eliza Hamilton. (He's also "Ten Dollar Founding Father" on the ten dollar bill, and the star of the award-winning Broadway show that bears his name; John Adams would be sick with envy.)

But until Lin-Manuel Miranda put Hamilton's life to music several years ago, what most people knew about Hamilton was that he was shot in a duel by then-Vice President Aaron Burr. (Read more about that tragic event in my blog posts here, here, and here.) The duel took place on July 11, 1804, and Hamilton died the following day. For better or worse, this is the reason for July being "Hamilton Month" - and with that in mind, I'll be participating in two events that will focus less on Alexander, and more on his wife Eliza.

On Thursday, July 12, 6:00-7:30 pm, I'll be the guest of the Friends of Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. I'll be speaking about Eliza and Alexander and how I came to write Eliza's story in the Benjamin Franklin Museum - only a few blocks away from where the Hamiltons lived while Alexander was serving in the new Federal government. We'll share a toast in honor of Alexander (not you, Colonel Burr), and I'll be signing copies of I, Eliza Hamilton as well. The talk will benefit the Friends of INHP. See here for more information and for tickets.

And on Saturday, July 14, 3:00-5:30 pm, I'll be part of the Schuyler Sisters Book Slam, hosted by the historic Schuyler Mansion (the beautifully restored and furnished 18thc home of the Schuyler family, and the site of Eliza's wedding to Alexander) in Albany, NY.  I'll be discussing my research about Eliza that inspired I, Eliza Hamilton. Also participating will be author and scholar Danielle Funiciello, who will share her research regarding the oldest Schuyler sister, Angelica Schuyler Church. Rounding out the program will be L.M. Elliot, author of the young adult historical novel Hamilton and Peggy!, who will discuss the third Schuyler sister, Margarita "Peggy" Schuyler Van Rensselaer. A reception and booksigning will follow. See here for more information.

Hope to see you there!

Top left: Alexander Hamilton by James Sharples, c1796, New York Historical Society.
Right: Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA.
Lower left: Schuyler Mansion, Albany, NY.
All photos by Susan Holloway Scott.

Visiting the c1765 Schuyler Mansion in Albany, NY

Susan reporting,

This weekend I visited one of my favorite historic houses, the Schuyler Mansion in Albany, NY. Originally known as The Pastures when it was built in the 1760s, the large brick house was built by Philip Schuyler (1733-1804), who was one of George Washington's original four generals during the American Revolution, a state senator, and a successful business entrepreneur.

The Pastures was surrounded by nearly a hundred acres of orchards and formal gardens, and filled with costly furnishings imported from London. Guests (who included George and Martha Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, Benjamin Franklin, and Francois Alexandre, the Duc de La Rouchefoucauld-Liancourt) remarked both upon the house's grandeur and the Schuylers' warm hospitality.

Philip Schuyler's grand house remained in the family for only a single generation, however, and was sold by his children after his death. The house passed through numerous owners, and in the late 19thc it became the home of the St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum Society, serving as a dormitory for orphans. In 1911, the diocese sold the house to the State of New York for $40,000. A Board of Trustees (including three women) oversaw the house's preservation and restoration. Renamed the Schuyler Mansion, the house opened to the public on October 17, 1917, fittingly on the anniversary of the British defeat at the Battle of Saratoga.

Now operated under the auspices of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (NYS OPRHP), the Schuyler Mansion has celebrated its centennial as a historic site this year in grand style with projects that have included restoring the steps leading to the house's front door; recreating the "Ruins of Rome" scenic wallpaper in the halls (see my earlier blog post here, and another about the elaborate wool flock wallpaper found in several of the rooms); restoring Schuyler family silver and china for display; replacing the roof and repairing exterior woodwork; and restoring and reupholstering an elegant set of 1790s chairs and sofa that had belonged to the family.

The Schuyler Mansion was also the childhood home of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, the heroine of my new historical novel I, Eliza Hamilton. The house was also the site of Eliza's marriage to Alexander Hamilton and the birth of their first child, and she continued to return to it frequently through her parents' lifetimes.

This weekend the house welcomed Schuyler Family descendants (as well as this non-family-member.) With the shutters opened to the bright autumn sunshine, the rooms and furnishings were beautiful; the 18thc Schuylers would have been proud.

While the Schuyler Mansion's visitor season is winding down, the house is open for various tours and events and by appointment throughout the year. See the house's Facebook page for more information.

Many thanks to Jessie Serfilippi for the private tour, and thanks, too, to the Friends of Schuyler Mansion and the Schuyler Family reunion for welcoming me so warmly to their events this weekend.

All photos ©2017 by Susan Holloway Scott.

Brave Peggy Schuyler, 1781

Susan reporting,

As much as I love reading about history, there are times when the tangible scars of a long-ago incident are infinitely more memorable than a thousand written words. A long time ago (oh, in the last century or so), when I was still in elementary school, my parents took me to Historic Deerfield as part of a family vacation. All the details of that trip are long gone from my memory except for one incredibly powerful object: the "Old Indian House Door" from the 17thc Capt. John Sheldon House.

The door survived the infamous 1704 Deerfield Raid by the French and their Native American allies, a massacre that killed fifty English men, women, and children, made captives of dozens of others, and left the town in ruins. The Sheldon House door stands as a mute testament to that harrowing day, with its broad beams hacked to form a ragged hole through which the French fired their muskets on the inhabitants. I recall the door being displayed complete with a tomahawk in place, but I might be imagining that. In any event, the door fed my nightmares for years. Still does.

That door has yet to appear in any of my books, but I thought of it immediately while I was researching my new historical novel, I, Eliza Hamilton. I've written before about the Schuyler Mansion, the house in which my heroine Eliza Schuyler Hamilton was raised (here, here, here, and here.) Originally known as The Pastures in the 18thc, the elegant brick mansion was surrounded by a large estate that overlooked the Hudson River.

But even The Pastures didn't entirely escape the American Revolution. Gen. Philip Schuyler, Eliza's father, first served in the Continental Army, and later in the war continued to advise his close friend Commander-in-Chief General George Washington. By the summer of 1781, the majority of the fighting had moved south, but the general's importance still made him a target to the enemy, and a small group of soldiers was assigned to the house to guard the general and his family. At the time, this included not only his wife Catharine and their younger children, but also his two older, married daughters, Angelica Church and Eliza Hamilton (both of whom were pregnant and visiting while their husbands were with the army), and Angelica's two children.

On a warm evening in August, the house was attacked by a group of local Tories and Native Americans. While the guards attempted to fight them off, the family fled upstairs to barricade themselves in one of the bedchambers until help arrived. Too late Catharine Schuyler realized to her horror that her youngest child, a baby also named Catherine, had been left asleep downstairs.

Bravely - or impulsively - the third daughter, twenty-two-year-old Margarita (better known as Peggy, and shown right in a later portrait) raced back downstairs to rescue her baby sister. Challenged by the attackers who were now ransacking the house, Peggy thought quickly, and told them that armed reinforcements were on the way from the town. As she raced up the stairs with her sister in her arms, one of the attackers swung a tomahawk at her, catching her skirts and and hacking a deep gouge into the banister.  Soon afterward, reinforcements did indeed arrive, the general and his family were saved, and Peggy was lauded as a heroine.

Today some of the details of the attack are suspected to have been 19thc embellishments. But there's no doubt that the raw tomahawk gouge remains in the banister, above left, carefully preserved over the centuries as proof. The gouge has grown wider over time as early 20thc visitors who were intrigued by the story carved out slivers of the railing for themselves as souvenirs. But as I ran my fingers over it, I couldn't help but picture brave Peggy Schuyler, her skirts flying and her baby sister wailing, as she faced down the enemy who'd dared attack her home.

Left: Photograph of the Schuyler Mansion staircase, ©2017 Susan Holloway Scott.
Right: Photograph detail of a miniature portrait of Magarita Schuyler Van Rensselaer by James Peale, c1796.

Read more about Eliza Schuyler and Alexander Hamilton (and yes, Peggy as well) in my latest historical novel, I, Eliza Hamilton, now available everywhere.

Recreating the 18thc "Ruins of Rome" Wallpaper in the Schuyler Mansion

Susan reporting,

When Philip Schuyler (1733-1804) began building his estate near Albany, NY in 1761, he was determined to make it a suitable home for his growing family as well as for his stature as a gentleman of wealth and property.

Called The Pastures, the brick house was to be elegant and substantial in its Georgian symmetry, and sit grandly on eighty acres high on the hill overlooking the Hudson (or North) River so that visitors coming to Albany from New York City would be sure to see it first. Twenty-eight-year-old Philip wanted his house to be as impressive inside as it was commanding from the exterior, and while the house was being built, he combined a business trip to London with something of a decorating spending spree.

I've already shared the dramatic wool-flocked wallpaper that Philip bought, replicas of which can be seen today on the walls of the house (now called the Schuyler Mansion.) But even more impressive was the scenic wallpaper he bought for the upstairs and downstairs halls. Unlike most 18thc wallpaper which was block-printed, or "stampt", this paper was painted entirely by hand in tempera paint in shades of grey - en grisaille was the term - to mimic engraved prints. In fact, the entire scheme of the papers was an elaborate trompe l'oeil to represent framed paintings and cartouches, all custom designed for the walls and spaces they would occupy.

This was, of course, extremely expensive, and as much a sign of Philip's deep pockets as his taste. The wallpaper he ordered featured romantically scenic landscapes by the Italian painter Paolo Panini, and was called "Ruins of Rome." The "Ruins of Rome" wallpaper was so rare and costly that there are only two examples of it known to survive in America: in the Jeremiah Lee Mansion in Marblehead, MA, and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, which has installed the paper taken from the now-demolished Rensselaerwyck, the home of Stephen Van Rensselaer II, also near Albany. (Yet all status and expense is a matter of degrees; the scenic wallpaper was inspired by aristocratic rooms like this one from Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire, UK, which features real Panini paintings in gilded, carved frames and Genoese cut velvet on the walls.)

But for colonial New York, the wallpaper was grand indeed. Philip became a general during the American Revolution, and the wallpaper formed the first impression of the house's many illustrious guests during that era, including Benjamin Franklin, the Marquis de Chastellux, and George and Martha Washington, as well as gentlemanly British "prisoners" such as Major John Andre and General John Burgoyne.

Oh, and there was that one other young officer who ended up marrying the Schuylers' second daughter Elizabeth: Alexander Hamilton. (Eliza often returned to The Pastures throughout her married life, and the house is something of a secondary character in my new novel, I, Eliza Hamilton.)

Tastes change, however, and cities and families change, too. After General Schuyler's death in 1804, the family sold The Pastures, and the land around it was divided and developed. Albany grew to surround the house, which passed through various owners before finally being purchased by the State of New York and opened as a historic site in 1917.

The scenic wallpaper had long been removed. But over the last few years, the state's Peebles Island Resource Center, led by Rich Claus and Erin Moroney, has painstakingly recreated a high-quality digital reproduction of the "Ruins of Rome" based on the wallpaper from both the Lee Mansion and the Van Rensselaer installation in the Met, but redesigned to fit the Schuyler Mansion's walls and woodwork as perfectly as the original once did. The new wallpaper was completed and hung as part of the Mansion's centennial celebration this year. As you can see from these photos, it's a glorious recreation, ready to impress modern visitors just like their 18thc counterparts.

Many thanks to Danielle Funiciello of the Schuyler Mansion, and social, cultural, & architectural historian Judy Anderson (former curator of the Jeremiah Lee Mansion & author of Glorious Splendor: the 18thc Wallpaper in the Jeremiah Lee Mansion)  for their help with this post.

The Schuyler Mansion is open for tours; please check their Facebook page or call for days and hours.
All photographs ©2017 Susan Holloway Scott.

Read more about Eliza Schuyler and Alexander Hamilton in my latest historical novel, I, Eliza Hamilton, now available everywhere.

From the c1765 Schuyler Mansion: Fabulous Flock Wallpaper

Susan reporting,

This past weekend I visited the Schuyler Mansion in Albany, NY. It's a magnificent Georgian brick house built by landowner, merchant, and politician General Philip Schuyler (1733-1804) between 1761-1765, the one-time centerpiece to a sizable 125-acre estate overlooking the Hudson River.

But what makes the house important to me is that the heroine of my new book, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, considered this house both her childhood home and her adult retreat. Here Eliza met her future husband, Alexander Hamilton, married him in the family parlor, and gave birth to their first child. The estate - then known as The Pastures - was an important place to her, and I'll be writing several blogs about it over the next few months.

Philip Schuyler was determined that everything in his new house would be in the latest style, and while on a trip to London in 1761-62 on business, he went on something of a buying spree. He had both considerable wealth and considerable taste, especially for a young man; he was only 28 when the house was begun. It's easy to imagine fashionable shopkeepers racing to bring out their best wares for the consideration of the New Yorker with deep pockets, and I only hope that his wife Catherine, left behind in Albany with their growing family (she'd eventually bear fifteen children), had some say in the decoration of their new home.

Among Philip's stylish indulgences were flock wallpapers. Mimicking the elaborate patterns of woven silk damask, flock (the flock was pulverized, powdered wool, a by-product of the woolen industry, that was applied to the paper with a turpentine-based glue) wallpapers were the height of luxurious display in the 18thc, and the richly patterned and textured papers hung on the walls of royal palaces. The scale of the patterns tended to be large, and looked best in big rooms like the ones that Philip was having built in his new house.

Miraculously, the record of exactly what he purchased remain in an "Invoice of Sundries to America." He bought flock wallpaper, listed by color, as well as "caffy," a kind of flock that copied damask patterns, enough to paper nearly every room. (He also purchased a special scenic wallpaper that I'll discuss in another blog.) While the original 18thc papers have long vanished from the house's walls, replicas have been created and hung in their place - the expert work of the Peebles Island Resource Center of the Regional Alliance for Preservation. 

As you can see from these photographs, the effect is stunning, the mixture of colors and textures both bold and sophisticated. (It's also tempting, and visitors are cautioned not to touch the lushly fuzzy patterns.) Impressive as it all is today, 18thc guests to the house must have been left in amazement by so much colorful splendor - exactly as Philip would have wished.

The Schuyler Mansion is now a state historic site, and open to the public. See their Facebook page for more information about visiting and tour reservations.

Many thanks to historic interpreter Danielle Funiciello for her expert tour, and her assistance with this post.

All photographs ©2017 by Susan Holloway Scott.

Read more about Eliza Schuyler and Alexander Hamilton in my latest historical novel, I, Eliza Hamilton, now available everywhere.