From Historic Houses of New Jersey by W. Jay Mills, 1902
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002
NEAR the comer of Morris Street
and Oliphant Lane is the small
two-storied house where Surgeon-General John Cochrane had his
head-quarters during the camp at
Morristown. It was the home
of Dr. Jabez Campfield, a surgeon in Spencer's regiment, then in the wilds of Pennsylvania.
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Many years before the Revolution Dr. Cochrane had
married General Philip Schuyler's only sister. In the
spring of 1780, when the head-quarters house saw most
of its gaiety and merrymaking, Elizabeth Schuyler, the
general's second daughter, journeyed by coach to Morristown, under escort, to visit her aunt. From all the
accounts history has recorded, this maiden from Albany
possessed a most pleasing personality. Colonel Tench
Tilghman, a close friend of Alexander Hamilton's, on
meeting her for the first time, described her as being " a
brunette, with the most good-natured lively dark eyes I
ever saw, which threw a beam of good temper and be-
nevolence over her entire countenance." In her portraits
she undoubtedly possesses a fair share of physical attractions, and perhaps her beauty was heightened a little at
the time she lived by her father's wealth and high social
position in the colonies.
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Colonel Tench Tilghman was one of Alexander Hamilton's favorite companions during the army's stay at Morristown. At the time of
Elizabeth Schuyler's arrival at the Cochrane House he was in love with
his cousin Anna Maria Tilghman, whom he met for the first time a few
months before, when on a furlough. Tradition says he helped along
Hamilton's courtship by ofttimes assuming some of his duties. At the
close of the war he married his cousin, Miss Tilghman.
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Girls of the eighteenth century, minus hoop and high
head-dress, were very much the same as girls of to-day,
and it would be interesting to know Elizabeth Schuyler's thoughts as she gazed out of her coach window on
primitive Morristown. Did she dream that she was
soon to reach the greatest epoch of maidenhood? No
mediocre suitor Destiny had marked out for her, but
the Prince Charming of the army, Alexander Hamilton, who shortly after her arrival laid his heart at her
feet.
Alexander Hamilton at that period was still under
twenty-one. He had been the commander-in-chief's
aide-de-camp and secretary for nearly three years, and
then enjoyed his special favor and confidence. His
Scotch shrewedness and perseverance, inherited from his
father, and a share of his French mother's vivacity and
tact had combined to make him one of the most
remarkable figures of the time. Born on the Island
of Nevis, in the West Indies, he early evinced a desire
to get on in the world. When but thirteen he was employed in the counting-house of Nicholas Cruger,
at St. Croix. This gentleman was connected with several old New York families. In early life, during a visit
to Santa Cruz, he married a native heiress descended
from the French nobility, and established a permanent
home on the island, journeying to New York City
every two or three years. On one of his voyages,
during the latter part of the Revolution, his ship
was captured by a British frigate, and he was taken a
prisoner to New York City. Through the influence of
the Walton family, high in Tory circles, he was released
on parole, and made his home with them in the famous
Walton House. He sympathized with the colonies,
although he did not take an active part in the struggle
for independence, and on the day of General Washington's inauguration was one of the guests of the
New Jersey Livingstons, following the great chief's
barge from Elizabethtown to New York. Some years
after Alexander Hamilton's death, his niece by marriage,
Catherine Church, wedded Bentram Peter Cruger, a son
of Nicholas Cruger.
While employed by Nicholas Cruger, young Hamil-
ton wrote to his boyhood friend Edward Stevens the
famous letter which has often been published. In it
he says:
My ambition is prevalent, so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk, or the like, to which my fortune condemns me, and
would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station
I am confident, Ned, that my youth excludes me from any hopes of immediate preferment, nor do I desire it ; but I mean to prepare the way
for futurity. I'm no philosopher, you see, and may be justly said to build castles in the air ; my folly makes me ashamed, and beg you'll
conceal it ; yet, Neddy, we have seen such schemes successful, when
the projector is constant. I shall conclude by saying I wish there was
a war.
These longings and restive desires to escape the dull
and dreary routine of a mercantile career soon incited him
to write an article for a newspaper, which attracted the
attention of the governor of St. Croix, and that worthy
interested himself in having Hamilton sent to America.
Arriving at Boston, he set out at once for New York.
While in the latter city he delivered some of the
letters of introduction given to him by Mr. Cruger
and his old tutor, the Rev. Hugh Knox, and through
the advice of new friends he soon started for Francis
Barber's grammar-school at Elizabethtown. Carefully
guarded in the pocket . of his coat was a letter of
introduction to William Livingston, whose many subsequent acts of kindness to him formed a firm foundation
for his meteoric career. This prominent man was so
pleased with his respectful address and yet sprightly bearing on their first meeting that he invited him to live with
his family at the Hall. In such an environment as the
cultivated Livingston household a youth of Alexander
Hamilton's temperament could not fail to blossom forth
as he did. Liked by the head of the household,-who
was very chary of his liking, – made much of by Mrs.
Livingston, and adopted by the Livingston daughters
as a brother and playfellow, fortune indeed smiled on his
auspicious advent into the Jerseys.
A new girl in Morristown, and one as celebrated as
Miss Schuyler, did not long remain unnoticed in the
war-time days of 178o, when every chance of pleasure
that relieved the dull tedium of the routine at headquarters was eagerly pursued by the officers, many of
whom began to frequent the Campfield House; and
young Hamilton was among the first to pay ardent court
to his "Betsey," as he soon commenced to call her.
Life at camp, with its hardships and elements of
danger, was not without attractions. There was always
the glorious thought for these brave men and women
that they were helping to mould the destiny of the
country, and in the intervals between the alarms of
the enemy many of the refined pleasures of life were
enjoyed. During the minuets in the wide hall of the
chiefs dwelling our young lover found ample opportunity to whisper sweet nothings into his charmer's ear.
In the games of forfeits he could always steal to her side
to obtain a love-knot, and he most likely found ample
opportunity to ride with her over the hills and vales of
Morris County, then in the first flush of early spring, –
a pretty setting for a budding passion.
After a few months had passed, all the members of
the Washington household, Dr. Cochrane, – dubbed by
his friends "good Dr. Bones," – and his wife at the little
house by the lane were aware of the romance unfolding
before their eyes. About this time General Schuyler
arrived at the head-quarters house to confer with General
Washington on needed reforms in the army, and with
his sanction the youthful pair were betrothed and the
wedding talked over for an early date.
There was another Revolutionary love-affair in General Schuyler's family which history has scarcely noted,
– overshadowed as it is by that of Hamilton and his
"Betsey," – and that is the elopement of Angelica, his
eldest daughter, with John Barker Church, a gentleman of fortune masquerading in America under the nom de
guerre of Carter. The vivacious and clever Angelica,
who far outshone the more retiring Elizabeth, met him
at a Philadelphia assembly at the beginning of the war.
Possessed of dashing manners and almost godlike beauty,
it is small wonder that he attracted the attention of the
maiden. From his mother, Elizabeth Barker, celebrated
at the court of George III. for her loveliness, he inherited
the languishing blue eyes and finely-chiselled features
which Reynolds and Cosway have immortalized. Although but a few years past his school-days, he was
already the hero of many adventures and a breaker of
hearts. To escape a marriage with a wealthy kinswoman,
whose Lowestoft estates joined his own, and the consequences of a duel, he fled from London without baggage
or credentials ; and it was under his assumed name that
he wooed and won the most brilliant daughter of one of
New York's first families. General Schuyler at first did
not approve of the marriage, but through the influence of the Patroon Van Rensselaer, who encouraged and sheltered the young couple at his manor, he gradually
relented, and finally received them with open arms at
the Albany homestead.
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John B. Church fought a duel with Colonel Burr in the summer of
1799, on the same ground where Alexander Hamilton subsequently fell.
At a dinner given by Chancellor Livingston, Mr. Church in the course
of conversation mentioned a report he had heard that the Holland Land
Company had cancelled a bond for twenty thousand dollars against Burr
for services rendered in the Legislature. This reached the ears of Colone
Burr, and he demanded an apology. Mr. Church declined any further
than to say that perhaps he was indiscreet in repeating the accusation
without fuller authority. This was not accepted, a challenge was sent,
and they met and exchanged shots without effect.
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The careers of Alexander Hamilton and John B.
Church possess many instances of striking similarity.
They both were of versatile energetic temperaments, and
Fate decreed them lives that were veritable marches
of triumph. While one was moulding the destiny of
America, the other became a power in the London world
which circled about a throne. The daughter of General
Schuyler, as Mrs. Church the fair American, was one of
the first of our matrons to win pronounced social success
in England. She spoke French like a native, having
learned the language from her father, who had been educated in a French Huguenot school at New Rochelle.
Her card-parties were always attended by the highest
nobles of Europe. The great Mrs. Sarah Siddons acted
in her drawing-room, and George IV. once said of her
that she was one of the brightest stars in the world he
knew as a young man.
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Elizabeth Schuyler never longed for her elder sister's
great social triumphs. It is true she was one of the
ladies of the Washington circle, but, simple and retiring,
she was happier in her domestic life than when forced to
face the glare of candles and the din of drawing-rooms.
"Betsey," the Morristown sweetheart, always occupied
the first place in Hamilton's heart, whatever may have
been written to the contrary. Through their strangely
eventful lives they walked hand in hand; and long after
his death, when she sat alone in her purple-lined pew in
old St. John's, on Varick Street, New York City, she was
still devoted to his memory. When a very old lady and
given to reminiscences, she is said by those who knew
her to have spent fully a fourth of her time talking of
the Hamilton of her youth, – the handsome boy who
paid his court to her at a little house on a Jersey
lane.
Alexander Hamilton never did anything in his life
without the force of his whole nature, and surely he was
an ideal lover. The letters which followed his leaving camp on various missions for General Washington were
enough in themselves to storm the heart of any maiden.
In a very beautiful one he writes to the object of his
affections, after telling her many times that he loves her, –:
I suspect, however, if others knew the charm of my sweetheart
as well as I do, I should have a great number of competitors. I wish
I could give you an idea of her. You have no conception of how
sweet a girl she is. It is only in my heart that her image is truly drawn.
She has a lovely form, and a mind still more lovely ; she is all goodness,
the gentlest, the dearest, the tenderest of her sex. Oh, Betsey, how I
love her!
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In a recent work on Alexander Hamilton there is a most cruel, and
generally false, sketch of the woman best known to the world as Madam
Jumel. Friends who had her confidence in life deny that her affection
for Alexander Hamilton was more than platonic and that she tried to
estrange him from his wife. She was a faithful and loving helpmate to
Stephen Jumel, and always spoke of him with tenderness. During
her last years she possessed a fondness for talking about her brilliant
career, and if one mentioned the name of Alexander Hamilton in conversation it never secured more than a passing interest.
It is a shameful act to endeavor to ruin the good fame of a woman
remembered with affection and respect by many people still living. No
one will ever be able to answer Madam Jumel's traducers, for the secret
of her life lie locked in her silent breast
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The old Campfield House was moved many years ago
from its original site to the plot it now occupies. The
side windows no longer peep over the hill-top at the
large Ford Mansion, as they used to do in days gone by.
The Campfield garden, where Dr. Jabez Campfield in his
diary tells us that he had so many fair flowers and choice
vegetables, is now occupied by modem houses facing
Oliphant Lane. The Campfield House itself is very
little changed. Its interior has been somewhat modernized, but its exterior still looks as it did when young
Hamilton went forth from the Ford Mansion to court
his "Betsey."
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A portrait of Mr. and Mrs. John Barker Church and their children, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, is in the possession of the Misses Cruger,
of Cruger Island in the Hudson. A small painting on copper of Mrs.
Elizabeth Church, by an unknown artist, and a miniature of John Barker
Church, by Cosway, are owned by Mrs. Benjamin S. Church, of New
York City.
In the year 1790 John Barker Church, with Lord George Cavendish,
was elected to Parliament from Wendover, – referred to in a letter of the
time by the rather inelegant sobriquet of "rotten borough."
Nothing has been written on the family's gala period in England,
although many memories are still alive. Their old home in Sackville
Street is still standing, and until a few years ago was quite a prosperous
lodging-house. There on the birthday of one of Lord Gage's daughters the Churches gave a famous ball to "Prince Florizel" and his charmer
Mrs. Fitzherbert. The house, though a large one, was not adequate
for the great company invited, and a dancing-pavilion was temporarily
erected over Lord Melbourne's gardens in the rear. The Duchess de
Noailles was the belle of the occasion, wearing a gown embroidered with
brilliants and dancing many times with His Royal Highness the Prince
of Wales. In those days Philip and his younger brother John used to
entertain crowds of Eton school-fellows at Down House, their father's
country home near Windsor. They always made their journeys on the
Thames in the royal boats, by permission of the Prince of Wales.
"Florizel" was very fond of their father, and a great admirer of his
personal beauty, although he sometimes laughingly spoke of him as " the
French Commissary."
Philip Church made many friends among the sons of the gentry when
at Eton, and in after years, when he returned to America and became
his uncle Alexander Hamilton's secretary, he frequently corresponded
with them. An amusing and hitherto unpublished letter received by
him from the notorious Sir Philip Francis, during a second visit to England, is in existence to-day. It reads:
July 8th 1812
DEAR SIR
I wish you would rite me a line by any days post in the present
week to let me know whether u have any thauts of returning into the
bosom of your family a fond de l'Amerique. I want to send many
instructions to my friend the great Cadwallader, I wish he had been
crissened Caractacus, particularly to have no mercy on my Debtors ; but
to remit me the amount as fast as he can rescue the computed value of
my lands, now theirs out of their Bowels.
From this I proceed to Tunbridge Wells on Tuesday next, where
it seems fit that u should pay a visit. I can furnish u with food, but not
with Lodging, or washing, much less raiment.
PHX.
N.B. – I have just received a letter from a fine lady ending thus
ures til deth.
To enumerate the friends of the Churches in London it would be
necessary to repeat many of the names which added lustre to the gilded,
glowing days when Dame Fashion by her extravagances made the first
gentleman of Europe pawn the crown jewels of the British empire.
One of the most notable was the brilliant Charles J. Fox, who formed
a strong attachment for them. During the space of a few years he bor-
rowed a fortune from John B. Church, and the latter's descendants still
possess some of the I. O. U.'s, which a wit of the reign of George IV.
termed Fox's "new currency." The following is an unpublished
letter received by John B. Church, in New York City, from Charles
J. Fox, when the latter was made Prime Minister of England:
June 5th I806
MY DEAR SIR:
I take the opportunity of the first mail since my entrance into office
to repeat to you my assurances of friendship and regard, and the deep sense I have of the many essential obligations you have conferred on me.
If it should be in my power either by the share of power which is peculiarly my own, or by my influences with my collegues, to show my
kindness or civility to you or yours it will give me highest satisfaction...
With respect to public affairs there seems to be getting up on your
side of the water a heat, that has the appearance at least of being very
alarming ; as the business between the two countries is chiefly in my
department, I am sure you know me well enough to be sure that
every thing possible will be done to settle the matter amicably. Lord
Selkirk who is going as envoy is a very well informed and sensible
young man, and if you happen to meet I am sure you will be pleased
with him.
My best respects to Mrs. Church, and good wishes to the whole
family.
I am, my dear sir,
Most truly your faithful & obliged servant
C. J. Fox.
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