Lin-Manuel Miranda’s record-breaking, Tony Award-winning hip-hop musical Hamilton is indeed as good as everybody says it is, if not better. I saw it last year before it moved to Broadway and was stunned by its originality and its take on some of our nation’s founders. But there is one scene from the life or rather the death of Alexander Hamilton that you won’t see in the musical.
As any winner of Trivial Pursuit knows, Hamilton was mortally wounded in a duel with his political adversary Aaron Burr. The duel took place on July 11, 1804, in Weehawken, New Jersey, across the river from New York City because dueling was against the law in New York.
Both men fired once and Hamilton was hit in the abdomen, just above his right hip. He was rowed back to New York to the house of a friend on what is now Jane Street in Greenwich Village. While he lay dying, the rector of Trinity Church, Bishop Benjamin Moore, was sent for to administer Holy Communion.
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(If that last name Moore rings a bell, it might be because his son, Clement Clarke Moore, a professor of ancient languages at General Seminary, and like Alexander Hamilton an alum of Columbia University, was the author of the famous poem that begins, “Twas the night before Christmas…”)
According to his account, Bishop Moore hesitated, “being desirous to afford time for serious reflection,” and had to be called a second time that day before he actually made it to Hamilton’s bedside.
The language Bishop Moore uses to describe the conversation he had with Alexander Hamilton sounds outrageously stilted and formal, considering the circumstances–not at all like Lin Manuel Miranda’s riveting lyrics. But no doubt they indicate Hamilton’s intention.
“My dear sir, you perceive my unfortunate situation,” Hamilton is supposed to have said, “and no doubt have been made acquainted with the circumstances which led to it. It is my desire to receive the communion at your hands.”
Moore records the questions he would have had to ask: “Do you sincerely repent of your sins past? Have you a lively faith in God’s mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of the death of Christ? And are you disposed to live in love and charity with all men?”
But the most bizarre request he makes of the dying man is a promise to never engage in a duel again. “Should it please God to restore you to health, sir, will you never be again engaged in a similar transaction?”
How could Hamilton have not agreed?
After receiving communion, Hamilton lingered all day and into the next when Moore was called again to his bedside, “when with his last faltering words he expressed a strong confidence in the mercy of God through the intercession of the Redeemer.” He died that day, July 12, 1804, “without a struggle and almost without a groan…”
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Hamilton’s grave lies within a few blocks of the Guideposts editorial offices in the Trinity Church cemetery. These days you’re as likely as not to see a few Hamilton fans lingering to take a selfie.
Every time I see one of them, I want to tell them about the communion he received on his last day, and the promise a minister extracted from the dying man.
To read more, check out this blog from the Trinity Church archivist.
