Hamiltons Widow Petitions To Receive Her Husbands Revolutionary War Pension (ELIZABETH HAMILTON PETITION)

ELIZABETH SCHUYLER HAMILTON (1757-1854). Widow of Alexander Hamilton (1754-1804), founder of the Federalist Party and first Secretary of the Treasury. She was the daughter of Revolutionary War General Philip Schuyler and Catherine Van Rensselaer, who was from one of the richest families in all of New York. She and Alexander had ten children.Pamphlet. 3pg. February 24, 1816. No place. A disbound pamphlet entitled Report of the Committee on Pensions and Revolutionary Claims on the Petition of Elizabeth Hamilton. The widow argued that her late husband Alexander Hamilton wasjustly entitled to five years full pay (as commutation of half pay during life) of a lieutenant colonel in which capacity he served in the regular army of the United States during the revolutionary warher husband never received the said pay, to which he was so entitled that if he ever relinquished his claim to said pay, of which an apprehension is expressed by the petitioner, it was from the delicate motive of devesting himself of all interest upon the subject of making provision for the disbanded officers of the revolutionary army, who served during the warthey should receive the renumeration to which he was justly entitled from his countrythat to reject the claim under the peculiar circumstances by which it is characterized, would not comport with that honourable sense of justice and magnanimous policy, which ought ever to distinguish the legislative proceedings of a virtuous and enlightened nation. They have therefore prepared a bill, granting the relief solicited in the premises. Later in 1816, Eliza was awarded a lump sum pension worth approximately $10,000. The pamphlet is in very good condition with ghosting of the second page ink onto the third page.