National Park Service

Hamilton Grange: Moving Hamilton’s House

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Hamilton Grange National Memorial, Hamilton’s country home is the only home he ever owned.  The home was built in 1801, three years before Hamilton’s death.  In 1889, the home was moved for the first time to 287 Convent Avenue.  According to the New York Times, the National Park Service took stewardship of the property in 1962.

In 1967, the Landmarks Preservation Committee observed:

“The almost square architectural mass of Hamilton Grange is impressive in its symmetry and handsome proportions.  Designed by one of the City’s best early architects, John McComb, Jr., and incorporating features suggested by Hamilton, this Federal style house, with its porches and unpretentious clpaboard exterior, has a gracious dignity.  ‘The Grange’ was planned as a country seat by Alexander Hamilton for the open countryside and was named after his paternal grandfather’s home in Scotland.  It is one of the few remaining notable historical houses, designed in the Federal Style, of true architectural distinction.”

In 2006, the National Park Service began an $8.2 million restoration project to restore the house, including a restoration of the original entryway and front and back porches.  For the first time in 119 years, the house would be visible from all four sides.  However, the ultimate location of the house created some controversy because the house was placed in a different orientation than was originally intended so that it could face 141st Street, as documented by the New York Times in a February 2008 article:

This spring, the National Park Service plans to move the Grange from a cramped nook on Convent Avenue to a far more generous setting in a hillside corner of nearby St. Nicholas Park in Upper Manhattan.

In doing so, the service will swing the house around to face West 141st Street. That means that the Grange’s front door will end up oriented northeast rather than southwest, as was intended by Hamilton and his architect, John McComb Jr., when the home was completed in 1802.

This is a grave concern to some preservationists, who believe the government is squandering a chance to authentically restore the home of a towering founding father.

After the house was moved, the National Park Service created a short video, available on YouTube documenting the process of moving the house and explaining the historical significance of Hamilton Grange.

Wolfe House & Building Movers also released a nine minute video compilation of news coverage of the house being moved so that you can watch it in action.

If you’re in New York, make sure to stop by Hamilton Grange, now located at 414 W 141st St, New York, NY 10031!  Information on visiting hours and tours is available here.

Hamilton’s Lighthouses

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As Secretary of Treasury, Hamilton worked diligently to create a network of federally funded lighthouses throughout the country.  Hamilton was the first head of the Lighthouse Services.

According to the National Park Service, “on August 7, 1789, President George Washington signed the ninth act of the United States Congress which provided that the states turn over their lighthouses, including those under construction and those proposed, to the central government. In creating the U.S. Lighthouse Establishment, aids to navigation became the responsibility of the Secretary of the Treasury.”

Once the law was passed, Hamilton began the task of placing each existing lighthouse under federal control.  Hamilton also saw the Lighthouse Services as something properly in the domain of his Treasury Department.  He “urged Congress to dispense with dues levied on passing ships, believing the move would encourage commerce and that the Treasury Department could handle the financial responsibility of navigational aids entirely on its own.”

Cape Henry in Virginia was the first new lighthouse built from federal government funds through Hamilton’s program.  In March 1791, the Government signed a contract with John McComb to build and equip a lighthouse for $17,500.  Once the structure was completed, Hamilton and Washington personally handled many of the minute details of selecting light keepers and funding repairs.   Ron Chernow characterizes the process of building lighthouses as “an administrative routine that stifled the two men with maddening minutiae.”  The first lighthouse keeper selected by Washington, William Lewis, was a former soldier in Washington’s army and was hired in October 1792.

The lighthouse below, at Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, was built on a spot that Hamilton passed as a 17-year old on his first journey from the West Indies to New York.  Reportedly, the ship carrying Hamilton, the Thunderbolt, caught fire and nearly sank a few miles away from the cape.  In 1794, Hamilton, who dubbed Diamond Shoals, the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” recommended establishing a lighthouse on the Hatteras Sand Banks to Congress.  On July 10, 1797, Congress authorized $44,000 for constructing a lighthouse at Cape Hatteras.

During the early years of the American Republic, Hamilton’s work with the Coast Guard and the Lighthouse Services both facilitated commerce and strengthened the power of the federal government.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse