New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-03-08
THE DAILY CRESCENT.
WEDNESDAY MORNING. MARCH s, 1854.
4 dEflll EI,Ll TTD.Ni.4.M.

mean Mrs. Ezabeth Halniton---We Hnus IL
one IL the. Northern journals, the following no
toes
The widow ofAlexander Hamilton has reached
the great age Of ninety five, and retains in al
Astonishing degree her faculties, and converse,
with much of that ease and brillianey which
lent so peculiar charm to her younger DAYS
And then the old lady, after passing tile comph
fnents and congratulations Of the day, insist
upon her visitors taking merry glass iron
Gen. Washingtons punch bowl, which, will
ether portions Of his table-set, remains in he,
possession.
Mrs. Hamilton completes, on the 10th Angus
next, we believe, her ninety sixth year Sigh
Of figure, rather small in size, and originally b
what seemed a feeble organization, she has YET
passed to her present remarkable age, with an
almost total exemption from disease, in spite Of
the severe misfortunes which overcast her life,
in its very prime. We alIude 10 the bloody
death, FIRST Of her eldest son Philip, a young gen
tieman of great promise, and, soon after, the
fan of her beloved lord, by what was nothing
less than deliberately executed assassination.
For Aaron Burr knew, when, upon the mere
pretence Of d quarrel, be summoned Gen. Ham
ilton to. the field, that he would not decline to
fellow being in private combat. To return,
however, to- his widow her admirable virtues
1 and sense, with the firm yet gentle courage and
cheerfulness which these bestowed, and piety
as simple as it was unshaken, have no doubt
gone far TO uphold. by the forces of the mind,
abe natural weakness of her body When last
wesaw her, less than year since, she was stin
IN the habit Of going on foot and unattended, tp
visit friends who lived half a mile from her,
Two years before, we had seen her, in very
hot summers day, arrive at her own house on
q. street,. Washington (the Menou buildings)
from mornings walk to visit her old friend.
Judge Cranch, on Capitol hill, a good way to
the East of the Capitol The distance which
she had trod for this friendly purpose is a good
deal above three miles.
She never was what the text which we have
taken calls her-brilliant For the women,
who shine Or blaze with that sort Of light, sell
dom have the genuine one of their sex-its gem
tleness, its pure warmth, its sweet reserve, its
sure woman1y sense, which rather perceiyes
than rejects, and sees, at a glance, all it is fit
that women Natures most delicate and ingent
ious work. should Sec Though very pretty,
vivacieus and winning, Mrs. Hamilton7Was never
dazzling. Neither her manners, though high
bred, nor her conversation, though spirited and
full sense, were at all of the Snowy order: she
never said silly, she never said brilliant
thing, in her Life. There was no fash about
her; sho shone only with the soft beam which
radiates from what, in d woman, not boys nor
maturer coxcembs lispingly adore nor false SEN
timentalists dilate upon, but what the heart and
the understanding of all, however shallow or
corrupt, easn, with not mere admiration, but
love and awe everything that's most feminine
which is, we take it, good deal better than
angelic. For we must confess that, 80 far as
can be judged from the most commendatory
descriptions, we look upon one woman as worth
full forty angels.
In short, she was just the wife for one of a |
spirit 80 high, faculties SO pewerful, character
SO strenuous, and affections SO fond as those of
Hamilton; and accordingly there could be no
tenderer union than was theirs. Not only did |
her loving, serene and cheerful temper gladden.
whatever he could snatch for brief intervals of
repose or enjoyment, but her perfect discretion
made her the confdante and her admirable
sense the counsellor of his affairs; in many Of
the weightiest of which, he thought it wise to
have such weman's opinion She shared, as
far as she could, his labors and when she could |
not, often sWeetened them by her presence. His |
papers, IN particular, she kept in order for him;
and it il to her Jealous care of them that we owe
the preservation of that large and Gn every
sense Of either the merely curious or the his
torically yaluable) precious body of the Hamil- |
ton MSS, which our Government acquired by |
purchase, in 1849, and of which selected por- |
lions are now seeing the light, in Congressional
series Of some nine or ten volumes, edited by |
Mr.. John Hamilton; who had previously given |
to the world more limited selection, with a |
biography Of his father.
Of the value Of these papers to the secret |
history Of our public affairs, during the war of /
thirty years 1775 to 1901 which they cover,
no one is in better condition to speak than |
ourself For We were entrusted, on the part of /
the family, with the choice, out of still yaster
body, Of the fifty seven folio volumes which,
after excluding whatever was Of no interest,
went into the hands of the Government
They give a prodigious idea of Hamilton's
abilities, usefulness, and the confidence and the
influence which these commanded for him, al /
most from the first moment when, mere boy |
of nineteen, he first drew, as the Captain Of a i
volunteer artillery company, Gen Westinghouse
attention to the superior discipline of his corps
and the skillful service of hisguns. Never did
any man possess more remarkable power of |
at once whatever he set abort In
troduced, at the age Of twelve, into the Count
ing house of considerable shipping merchant,
in st. Croix, We find him, at only fourteen, en- |
trusted, during his principals absence in this |
country, with his correspondence and the man
agement Of all his operations of buying, selling,
shipping, and all that. Already Gas is seen in |
his boyish letters to d young friend) he has |
begun to look to the state of things rising up in
this land Of ours, aud to foresee in it o country
and career which the West Indies could never
give him Atsixteen he is in Columbia College, |
New York, perfecting his boyish Latin and
Greek. At seventeen he is already writing for
the public journals, in behalf of the cause of the
colonies, papers SO striking that they seize upon
the general attention, and are attributed TO the |
best writer's. In his nineteenth year, he has |
not only become strong, popular orator. but /
has studied war rs an art, more especially the |
Artillerist's part of it; and raising company, |
(chiehy at his own charge, has Joined Washing I