All products featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Just over a year ago, the only thing that most people knew about Alexander Hamilton is that he was on the $10 bill, that he lived a really long time ago, and that he (probably) wasn’t a president. Now? An entire generation has memorized a certain soundtrack. They know that, as Lin-Manuel Miranda puts it, Hamilton came from “a forgotten spot in the Caribbean...impoverished, in squalor.” He rose from penniless orphan to become the second-most powerful person in America, trailing only George Washington. He created our modern economy. His rags-to-riches(-to-debt) story is electrifying, inspiring, enthralling.
But just what was this “forgotten spot” in the Caribbean, exactly? How did it shape the man? And what does it look like today? For me, these questions were more than just idle curiosity. A few months ago, I was deep in research for my new book, Alexander Hamilton’s Guide to Life. The book views the arc of Hamilton’s life through the prism of “life lessons” that can instruct us, maybe inspire us. It explores topics like Self-Improvement (Read when Others Play), Career Advancement (Speak with Authority…Even if You Have None), Romance (Seduce with Your Strengths), and Money (Don’t Skimp on the Life Insurance).
To truly get inside the man’s head, I wanted to trace his early footsteps, explore his birthplace. I trekked to the islands of Nevis and St. Croix for research. It’s a trip that anyone can take. Most of these locations are easy to spot, free, and, well, they also give you an excellent excuse to visit unspoiled beaches, lush vegetation, and stone roads that have more roosters than cars.
Welcome to Hamilton’s Caribbean.
Fort Christiansvaern (St. Croix)
Several years before Hamilton was born, his mother, Rachael Fawcett, was “twice guilty of adultery,” according to her first husband, which, in those enlightened times, gave him the legal right to toss her in prison. So he locked her in a fort, later claiming that she was “whoring with everyone.” The fort still exists, and it stands vigil on the shores of Christiansted (St. Croix’s historical district), with a line of cannons pointing the sea. You can walk inside Rachael’s very jail cell: It’s small, hot, dark, and has a tiny window that looks out on the clear blue sea, almost as a taunt. Tourists are rare (I was the only one), so you can roam the dark tunnels and imagine life as a prisoner. The husband eventually freed Rachael, hoping that the time in prison would melt her heart. Shockingly, his plan backfired: Rachael fled and took a ferry to the nearby island of St. Kitts, where she met a Scot named James Hamilton.
Hamilton’s Birthplace (Nevis)
Rachael and James Hamilton soon moved to an even smaller island, Nevis, where Rachael gave birth to two boys, one named Alexander. Because Rachael was still married to her first husband, Alexander Hamilton, technically, was born a bastard. What is believed to be their home is a grand, two-story building made from stone blocks, the kind of upper-middle class home that would dominate the end of a suburban cul-de-sac. The building overlooks the water, meaning that young Alexander, perhaps, could sit on his front lawn and view the ocean and dream of something more. The building now contains the official Nevis museum—worth exploring in its own right. (Amazingly, the tiny Nevis government actually conducts its meetings upstairs in this very building.) Skeptical of the home’s authenticity? Fair. The house, while lovely, has been restored and rebuilt from the (alleged) original stone foundation. While we’re standing on the front lawn, Evelyn Henville, the executive director of the Nevis Historical and Conservation Society, lets me in on something of a secret. “You see that building?” she says, and then points to a nearby house. “That might be his actual birthplace. Follow me.”
Hamilton’s (Real?) Birthplace (Nevis)
Henville tells me that more recently, some historians suspect that the “official house” (the fancy museum) might have actually been the Hamilton family’s barn. The evidence? In the official museum house, the first level does not have any columns or interior walls, suggesting that it was just one giant stable used by the horses. I follow Henville inside the second home. “Come,” she says, then unlocks a door I didn’t see, and leads me into a dark basement. There are no signs or banners or fancy marble plaques. Only clutter and boxes. She points at the basement's columns and walls. Because there are clear partitions, she says it’s far more likely that this building is actually the real home. (And to further muddy the waters, some historians are skeptical of both houses.) The basement—which might be the birthplace of our Founding Father—is now filled with boxes, dirt, and plastic lawn chairs. Henville says that Nevis does not yet have the funds to restore the home to its proper glory. “Maybe someday,” she says.
Site of the Slave Market (Nevis)
A very short walk from Hamilton’s (possible) home is the site of the old Nevis slave market. Not much remains besides a sign and some old stone rubble, but the very proximity to Charlestown, the island's capital, and to the incoming ships, suggests its prominence. In the 18th century, St. Croix and Nevis were home to the sugar trade; the slaves made the sugar. The “white gold” was to the Caribbean what oil now is to the Middle East. And it was savage—ninety percent of the population was enslaved. For Hamilton, slavery was not some abstract evil; it was a horror that he saw every day. He would see the slaves marched from the ships, in chains, under the baking sun. He heard the snap of the whip. This might be why he is one of the very few Founding Fathers who did not own a slave, and he was also a co-founder of New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves. (Another co-founder? Aaron Burr.)
The Scale House (St. Croix)
The Hamilton family soon moved back to St. Croix. As a teenager, and possibly as young as eight, Hamilton worked as a clerk in the trading shop Beekman & Cruger. At first, he performed simple tasks like sweeping the floors and hauling crates of apples, but he quickly earned the trust of his boss (the Dickensian named Nicholas Cruger) and eventually used the job to master the arts of finance, operations, and negotiation. (Lesson in Hamilton’s Guide: Steal new skills from every job.) When boats arrived to the docks of St. Croix, young Hamilton would unload the cargo and lug it to a “Scale House” where, using a massive scale, he weighed the inventory and gauged its worth. The same Scale House still exists. It’s a yellow building the size of a garage, with large doors that swing open to let Hamilton lug in the cargo. Cost to visit this historical Scale House where our first Treasury Secretary learned the basics of Finance: $0.
Hamilton’s Family Doctor Offices (St. Croix)
Not 200 yards from the Scale House, along the old stone roads near King’s Street, stands a building called The Hotel St. Croix. In 1760 it was the only doctor’s office in Christiansted. “Hamilton would have almost certainly come here as a kid,” says Robert White, president of the Alexander Hamilton Society of St. Croix, a sharp-tongued, silver-foxed 75-year-old who spends all day whisking me around the island. (Bonus factoid: The hotel is also a bar, restaurant, and cafe, filled with its own history and secrets. The roof of the hotel has a narrow wooden bridge, and the bridge was allegedly designed by Robert Oppenheimer, of Manhattan Project infamy.) In the cafe, as the locals drink coffee and discuss Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, I soak in the vibe and imagine young Hamilton walking through these very doors, in panic, to tell the doctor that his mother is sick. She had tropical fever and was confined to her bed, coughing, bleeding, and vomiting. She died when he was 11. Hamilton received nothing from the modest estate, as the court ruled that he and his brother were “obscene children.”
King’s Street (St. Croix)
No one is exactly sure of the address of Hamilton’s teenage home or the actual trading shop of Beekman & Cruger, but it’s somewhere along the old historic roads of King’s Street and Company Street. This extremely helpful map on AllThingsHamilton.com lets you walk the stone roads and play archaeologist. “This is pretty much what it looked like back then,” says White, pointing at the sidewalk. “Hamilton would have walked on these very stones.” Historic Christiansted is the real deal—there are no Dunkin’ Donuts, no Starbucks, no modern flourishes. It’s preserved as if in amber.
Christiansted Wharf (St. Croix)
On August 31, 1772, when Hamilton was 15 years old, a hurricane hit St. Croix. Hamilton wrote a letter about the hurricane, the essay was soon published in the local newspaper, and it was his first taste of fame. (Sample line: “The roaring of the sea and wind, fiery meteors flying about it in the air, the prodigious galore of almost perpetual lightning, the crash of the falling houses, and the ear-piercing shrieks of the depressed, were sufficient to strike astonishment into angels.”) The island’s money-men raised a scholarship, of sorts, to send him to the mainland. In 1772, carrying little or no luggage, Hamilton set foot on these docks one last time. He climbed into a boat. From the boat he would have been able to see the fort where his mother was imprisoned, the Scale House, and the hundreds of slaves. Hamilton’s boat eased from this very wharf, it headed into the sea, and he cast his eyes north. To New York City.
Jeff Wilser is the author of Alexander Hamilton’s Guide to Life, from Three Rivers Press, in stores September 20. He’s on Twitter at @jeffwilser.