Boston, the documentary record suggests, is where Alexander Hamilton’s story in the British colonies of North America began.

Although Boston was to play a crucial part in the precursor and early stages of the American Revolution, it was not a scene of major military action after the British evacuation in 1776. The political developments that would later shape the United States of America shifted to places like Philadelphia and Virginia.

In his mid-teenage years, the young Alexander Hamilton sailed from his home on the island of St. Croix in the Caribbean to begin an education in America. The first steps Hamilton took in America were at Boston Harbor, probably at Long Wharf.

Long Wharf was an extensive pier constructed between 1709 and 1710 that extended about 1/3 of a mile from land to sea. Storehouses stood side by side along it.

Hamilton did not stay in Boston long in 1773. He immediately set out for New York, which was then a smaller city than Boston.  Hamilton had close personal ties to the merchants in New York who had placed themselves in charge of settling the young man in an appropriate situation in terms of lodgings and college.

Hamilton would only return to Boston many years later, while serving as Inspector-General of the Provisional Army during what has since been dubbed “the Quasi-War with France.” (See Oxford for further background).

Boston was, and would remain, a Federalist Party stronghold. And Hamilton returned here to be feted by fellow party members in June of 1800. He was toasted at the city’s Concert Hall as a “supporter of the Constitution” and a “founder of the public credit.”

One newspaper reported that Hamilton was additionally “receiv[ing] the polite attentions of citizens at the elegant boarding house of Mrs. Carter, in Southwick’s Court.” Reportedly, he attended a church service and inspected Fort Independence—the English-built fortificati0n formerly known as “Castle William” in Boston Harbor, then being rebuilt and expanded.

Hamilton would remain highly regarded in Boston for a long time to come. The city erected a statue in his honor in 1864 that stands to this day.