“I grew up in Angelica, New York, a village with a population of 1,300 people in northernmost Appalachia. As a little girl, I rode the Angelica Central School bus past Angelica Schuyler Church’s beautiful Villa Belvedere to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and learn what “We the People” meant. What I already knew, from local lore, was that Angelica Church was a leading member of the generation that fought the War for Independence and carried out the American Revolution, through the years of forming a constitutional government and a more-or-less-united democratic republic. I was always disappointed that my social studies textbooks neglected to mention her.”
That’s the beginning of the author’s note of Angelica by Molly Beer. I knew what I was going to be reading about in this book.
But I was surprised when I started an audiobook that I picked up randomly from the library and heard this opening line.
“New York: 1804. Alexander Hamilton was going to die and he knew it. “
What is he doing in this book? He’s not an unsung American. (I sing about him in my head all the freaking time.) It turns out that this leads into a story about Gouverneur Morris who was there when Hamilton died and then spoke at his funeral. He had all kinds of accomplishments but was known in his time mostly for being a very strange man.
This came up again in Angelica when he was hanging out with Angelica in England while the American powers-that-be decided whether or not to name him as a foreign diplomat. The main concern? He was weird and may not have been the kind of guy they wanted representing their country. Now I’m going to have to read a whole book about this dude.
Book Beginnings is hosted by Rose City Reader.
