The Hamilton-Tuxedo connection

This past Sunday, as the nation prepared to celebrate the 243rd birthday of America, the Tuxedo Historical Society hosted a timely presentation, linking one of our country’s founding fathers with both the Town of Tuxedo and the Village of Tuxedo Park.
Growing general interest in local history, plus the burgeoning attention on Alexander Hamilton from the current Broadway show, sparked a capacity crowd for the society’s program on “Tuxedo’s Hamilton Connection,” presented by Town Historian, the Rev. George Langberg.
First, personal connections to Hamilton
Langberg, whose Eagle Valley home was purchased from the Hamilton family by his grandfather, is a lifelong resident of Tuxedo, recently retired from 30 years as pastor of the chapel built by William and Juliet Hamilton in the early 1920s in memory of their daughter Elizabeth, who died as a child.
Langberg was also chaplain to the Orange County Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police for more than 20 years, and, adding another “string to his bow,: continues to perform as guitarist and singer, offering one-man concerts at venues throughout the region.
His description of this genealogical journey traced the historical links between the town of Tuxedo and the family lineage of Alexander Hamilton, one of the framers of the U.S. Constitution and the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury. More than 70 interested local history buffs listened as Langberg detailed the facts and circumstances leading direct descendants of one of the nation’s most famous founding fathers to reside in Tuxedo and environs from the late 1800s until 1970.
In his talk, Langberg displayed a variety of charts, photographs and maps of the Tuxedo area to demonstrate the historical interconnection between the Hamilton family and his town, famed for some of its famous residents.
The Hamilton and Morgan families
Langberg’s presentation focused attention on the marital connection that occurred in 1894 between two significant American families in the 1894 wedding of William Pierson Hamilton, great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton, and Juliet Pierpont Morgan, the daughter of one of America’s most prominent and successful businessmen, financier and banking giant John Pierpont (J.P.) Morgan.
Langberg, in his hour-long talk (which he admitted could have gone on for more than three hours) detailed profiles of numerous Hamilton family-member residents of Tuxedo, demonstrating their lineage in genealogical charts as well as sharing personal anecdotes of Hamilton family members in his acquaintance.
Consider these connections
Among the major facts of interest shared by Langberg are the following:
• The Hamiltons owned almost all the Eagle Valley portion of southern Tuxedo and their family included multiple Harvard graduates, war heroes, founders and trustees of major preservation and conservation groups, and recipients of tributes and awards from agencies like the National Park Service.
• The Hamiltons’ local legacy includes the Tuxedo Club Golf Course, St. Elizabeth’s Chapel and Tuxedo Memorial Hospital (now The Promenade at Tuxedo Place).
• There were a number of accomplished military men among Alexander Hamilton’s Tuxedo descendants, notably General Pierpont Morgan Hamilton, who was awarded the medal of honor by President FDR for service in World War II, and the general’s son David Hamilton, who recently attended the 70th anniversary of D-Day in France and was previously honored in 2015 with France’s Legion of Honor medal for his contributions as a pilot to the D-Day invasion effort.
• Of interest here in New York State, as an assemblyman, Laurens H. Hamilton, son of William Pierson Hamilton and Juliet Pierpont Morgan, co-authored the Feld-Hamilton Law in 1937, which set in place a salary plan that provided state employees with minimum salaries and equal pay for equal work. It also established the 8-hour workday and 40-hour week for state employees.
Prior to this law some state employees worked 10- or even 12-hour days and some jobs required six days of work per week.
Research, conversations 'and occasional help from Google'
Asked about his extensive research for the program, Langberg noted:
“My approach to research is probably not best described as ‘methodical.’ It’s the product of many personal conversations with members of the Hamilton family and others who knew them well, some of which go back many years, and more recently searching the archives of the New York Times and spending several hours in the library of the New York Historical Society in Manhattan, along with occasional help from Google.”