![]() The OAS began with sixteen orphans, children rescued from a harrowing future in the city's streets or almshouses.īut Eliza and her friends realized that these first orphans must be only the beginning of their mission. ![]() In 1806, Eliza, Isabella Graham, and Joanna Bethune founded the Orphan Asylum Society in the City of New York (OAS). Her late husband had begun life as a poor and fatherless child, and orphans were always to hold a special place in her heart - and her energies. Financial difficulties - Hamilton had left her saddled with many debts - forced her to seek assistance from family and friends to support herself and her children, yet still she continued to help others. When Alexander Hamilton died after his infamous duel with Aaron Burr in 1804, Eliza was grief-stricken, but refused to fade into genteel widowhood. In 1797, she was one of the founders (with her friend Isabelle Graham and her daughter Joanna Graham Bethune) of the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children. She took in a young motherless girl who'd no place to go, and the child became part of her own family for years. She brought food, clothes, and comfort to refugees of the French Revolution, and to new widows after yellow fever epidemics. Born to privilege and married to Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, she still believed in helping others directly. Built on kindness and a genuine concern for the welfare of others, the legacy of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton (1757-1854) continues today because the same challenges that faced many children in 1806 unfortunately remain a part of our society in 2017.ĭuring her lifetime, Eliza Hamilton thought of the present, not posterity. ![]() Yet one New York woman's legacy still flourishes after more than two centuries. They're difficult to create, and even harder to maintain.
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