Rachel Faucett

RACHEL FAUCETT

Biographical Summary for her bastard son Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton was born in Charlestown, the capital of Nevis in the British West Indies. He was born out of wedlock to Rachel Faucett Lavien, of partial French Huguenot descent, and James Hamilton, the fourth son of Scottish laird Alexander Hamilton of Grange, Ayrshire. Hamilton's mother had been separated previously from Johann Michael Lavien of St. Croix, a much older merchant-planter. To escape an unhappy marriage, Rachel left her husband and first son for St. Kitts in 1750, where she met James. They moved together to Rachel's birthplace of Nevis, where she had inherited property from her father. Their two sons were James, Jr., and Alexander.

Notes

The fort at Christiansted also served as the colony jail. A notable inmate was the mother of Alexander Hamilton, Rachel. Wed to Johann Michael Lavien by 1745, she soon abandoned the marriage. Under Danish law, he had her jailed after she was "twice found guilty of adultery and no longer resided with him." She spent several months in a ten by thirteen foot cell with one small window, then fled to St. Kitts soon after being released.

Discovering Hamilton

o who was this Johan Cronenberg with whom Rachel Faucett had this affair? ... Johan Jacob Cronenberg was sent by the Danish West India Company from Copenhagen to serve as St. Croix’s head land surveyor and to draw an accurate up-to-date map of the island. He arrived on St. Croix in late 1746 or in January 1747. According to the census records, he was single and lived in Christiansted with two slaves. But we saw in the court records that he had been living with Rachel in a plantation house, presumably a different house than the one in town. ... Finally, on February 3, 1751, the superior court ruled that Cronenberg, “for his shameless” and “scandalous” behavior, “with warning and admonishment, carrying on his life with the woman Rachel,” was guilty and “liable for fines in accordance with the law” in addition to his previous incarceration. He was to pay the “fine for fornication of 24 lod silver,” a mere twelve rigsdalers, and “further to submit to an open confession.”

As for Rachel, her future story is relatively well established. In summary, after she was released from prison, Rachel left St. Croix and made her way to St. Kitts, where she met a man named James Hamilton. James and Rachel lived together for upwards of 15 years, were generally treated as husband and wife, and had two children together, namely James Hamilton Jr. and Alexander Hamilton. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Intellectual Takeout

1766. Ann Lytton, Alexander's aunt, dies. Rachel, the last surviving Faucette, takes up work in a shop, an extraordinary occupation for a white woman in the British West Indies. 1768. Rachel dies at 9 p.m. on Feb. 19. Chernow states: “Mother and son must have been joined in a horrid scene of vomiting, flatulence, and defecation as they lay side by side in a feverish state in the single upstairs bed. The delirious Alexander was probably writhing inches from his mother when she expired…” Despite the late hour, probate court officials arrive on scene and sequester the property. Days later, Rachel, perhaps deemed unfit for a Christian burial, is laid to rest on a hillside in the shadow of a grove of mahogany trees. At a court hearing weeks later, Lavien declares the Hamilton children offspring of “whoredom.” He persuades the court to give Rachel’s inheritance to his son, Peter Lavien, even though the young man had not seen his mother in 18 years. . . . . . Hamilton’s rise from this Dickensian nightmare to army officer under George Washington is a story for another day. What is clear is that his boyhood was a trial of despair, a story unlike any other Founding Father's. What is perhaps most astonishing is that the story was almost never told. As Chernow points out, almost everything we know about Hamilton’s upbringing has been discovered in the last century. This is largely due to the fact that Hamilton went to great lengths to conceal his painful past for reasons we can speculate.

Genealogy and Biography

1. Biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, page 24
2. Find A Grave
3. Wikipedia: John Michael Lavien
4. Wikipedia: Alexander Hamilton
5. Discovering Alexander Hamilton
6. Intellectual Takeout
7. Alexander Hamilton: The West Indian “Founding Father”. William F. Cissel Historian, Christiansted National Historic Site, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. July, 2004