When Hamilton was appointed Treasury Secretary 200 years ago, New York was a growing city of 30,000. Front and Greenwich Streets marked the island's shoreline and development along the east River stretched as far north as Grand Street.
Known as the Common in Hamilton's day, City Hall Park had been a hot spot of Hothead activities since the Sons of Liberty erected the first of five Liberty Poles on the lawn to protest the Stamp Act of 1765. In July 1774, Hamilton delivered an impassioned speech against British imperialism at one of the Common rallies. In 1775 and 1776, Hamilton drilled an artillery company on the Common.
St. Paul's Chapel, New York's oldest church building, sat amidst land granted by Trinity parish to King's College (Columbia University) which Hamilton attended from 1773-1775. In May 1775, 400 angry patrons charged the King's College campus to seize the Tory School's president. Hamilton stepped in front of the mob and stalled the violence by speaking at length against the British oppression. Hamilton escorted the school head through back streets to a waiting boat on the Hudson River.
At the southeast corner of Broadway and Fulton stood the original home of The New York Evening Post, a newspaper Hamilton founded in 1801. The paper relocate to Vesey Street in 1906.
Following his resignation from Treasury and return from Philadelphia, Hamilton lived at a number of houses in lower Manhattan before his family moved in 1802 to his country estate. The first was located at 56 Pine Street, followed by a house on Liberty Street near Broadway, and finally another across from Bowling Green at 26 Broadway.
Trinity Church was destroyed by a 1776 fire during the British occupation and rebuilt beginning in 1790. The existing church building was erected in 1846, following the demolition of the second model. Hamilton is buried at the south end of Trinity's graveyard in a plot marked by a white marble monument. His wife Betsey, who survived him by half a century, is buried at his side.
Hamilton set up his first law office at the corner of Broad and Wall Streets following the war. He watched Washington's inauguration at Federal Hall from his second floor window. In 1795 or 1796, he chose this corner to speak out in favor of the controversial Jay Treaty. Demonstrators who believed the treaty a sellout to Britain shouted him down. Some historians say the tried to silence Hamilton with a shower of stone-throwing.
Federal Hall, 26 Wall Street, stands on the ground where Washington was inaugurated on April 30, 1789, as America's first president. Here Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, delivered the reports and recommendations to Congress which established the nation's financial system.
40 Wall Tower was built for the Bank of the Manhattan Company, originally the prime rival to Hamilton's Bank of New York. Founded by archrival Aaron Burr and chartered by the state in 1799 to provide clean drinking water to the island, the Manhattan Co. served as the financial wellspring for Burr's New York Republicans, who frustrated Hamilton's political will throughout his last years. The Manhattan Company withdrew from the water supply business altogether in 1842 and ultimately merged with Chase National Bank.
The Bank of New York, 48 Wall St. was organized by Hamilton in 1784 when there was only one other bank in America. The Bank of New York has dwelled in various buildings on this site since 1798, when it replace by one of the U.S. Branch Banks established under Hamilton. Hamilton lived at 57 Wall Street (corner of Wall and Pearl Sts.) when he wrote his share of The Federalist Papers in 1787-88.
Under a sycamore tree near 70 Wall St., precursors of the NY Stock Exchange circulated $80 million in government bonds issued in 1790. The exchange later took cover inside the Tontine Coffee House, erected in 1792 at today's 82 Wall St. At the opposite corner was the Merchants Coffee House, whose painting with the Tontine House made "Coffee House Slip" a popular meeting place for merchants, politicians, and traders.
After Hamilton's Bank of New York outgrew its first home, it settled temporarily at 11 Hanover Square.
On July 23, 1788, New York merchants staged a parade down Broadway to rally support for ratification of the Constitution. A 27-foot-long frigate named Ship Hamilton, drawn on a truck by 10 horses, sailed down Broadway accompanied by canon salutes and was moored at Bowling Green for a year after many of Hamilton's opponents reversed course and backed the new national government.
In Revolutionary days, the site of the U.S. Custom House was occupied by Fort George, erected by the Dutch colonial government in 1626 as Fort Amsterdam. The fort was demolished in 1789 to make way for Government House, built as the President's mansion, then briefly occupied by the governor until the state capital's move to Albany in 1796. The Custom House is now home the Smithsonian Museum of the Native American.
After Hamilton was struck in the chest by Aaron Burr's bullet on the dueling grounds of Weehawken, New Jersey, he was brought by boat to his friend William Bayard's home the next day, July 12, 1804.
The Grange, still standing in Hamilton Heights on Convent Ave. off W. 141st St. was the country residence Hamilton built for his family. The family moved from lower Manhattan to the 30-acre estate in 1802.
The Bank of New York
As a founding director, Hamilton wrote the original 1792 charter for the
oldest commercial bank in America.
Chase Manhattan Bank
Aaron Burr's Bank of Manhattan Company (est'd 1799), a foil to the Federalist
monopoly on banking, received the unwitting lobbying efforts of Hamilton.
When he realized Burr intended more than waterworks, Hamilton founded the
Merchants Bank in 1803, a second institution absorbed by today's Chase.
Paterson, New Jersey
Hamilton organized the investors that founded Paterson as a model of industrial
development.
The New York Post
Hamilton founded The New York Evening Post in 1801, believing New York needed
a Federalist daily paper.
Judicial Review
The Supreme Court's ability to judge the Constitutionality of a law derives
from principles Hamilton established in his private law practice and in his
contributions to The Federalist Papers.
U.S. Coast Guard
As Treasury Secretary, Hamilton secured funding from Congress to build a
fleet of 10 revenue cutters. These precursors to the modern Coast Guard prevented
smuggling from reducing national impost revenues.
The Two-Party System
Hamilton's loose interpretation of Constitutional powers and attachment to
a strong central government inspired Thomas Jefferson and his followers to
develop national opposition to the standing administration.