New Biography Shines Light on Eldest Schuyler Sister
Cover of the book “Angelica: For Love and Country in a Time of Revolution” by Molly Beer, published on July 1 by W. W. Norton & Company.
Update: Due to a flood at the Northshire Bookstore, the event featuring author Molly Beer will now take place at Pitney Meadows Community Farm at 223 West Avenue in Saratoga Springs. The date and time of the event (Tuesday, July 8 at 6pm) remain the same.
SCHUYLERVILLE — In her 58 years of existence, Angelica Schuyler had one of her childhood homes in present-day Schuylerville incinerated by retreating British troops; maintained correspondence with American luminaries like Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson; eloped with a British-born businessman with a shady past; befriended Benjamin Franklin in Paris; attended the first inauguration of George Washington; was the namesake of a town in western New York; birthed eight children; and served as the inspiration for a Tony Award-winning performance in a hit Broadway musical.
Yet, despite such an accomplished and remarkable life, Angelica Schuyler has always been depicted as a supporting character in the stories of other people’s lives: her father, General Philip Schuyler; her brother-in-law Alexander Hamilton; and her husband, John Barker Church. A new biography, “Angelica: For Love and Country in a Time of Revolution” by Molly Beer, aims to cast this pivotal figure in a new light, one in which power is not just defined by battle victories and terms in elected office.
“[Historically], we think about power as being located in the men and women are connecting them, but now we talk more about soft power and social networks and connections and being locuses of power. Historically, she occupies this locus of power,” Beer told Saratoga TODAY. “A rubric for greatness is completely male specific, but when we talk about what power looks like now, she checks a lot of those boxes.”
Angelica’s power often lay in her extraordinary social and diplomatic skills, which allowed her to form connections with everyone from passionate patriots to loyal monarchists, from Americans to Brits to the French. Beer believes these talents may have arisen from Angelica’s outsider status as a Dutch New Yorker.
“From early childhood, she is seen as a foreigner,” Beer said. “She’s always navigating the Dutch-British divide and I think people who are used to crossing cultural lines get good at it.”
All of this isn’t to suggest that Angelica was without flaws. Although historians and gossip-mongers have long speculated that her relationship with Hamilton may have been more than friendly, the true blemish on the eldest Schuyler sister’s legacy was her use of enslaved people, a sin from which Beer doesn’t shy away. Beer never found any evidence of Angelica speaking about the issue of slavery directly, and it’s hard to piece together what Angelica’s thoughts may have been. On the one hand, she was a client of the famous hairdresser Pierre Toussaint, a formerly enslaved Haitian-American. On the other hand, enslaved people worked at the Schuyler family farm that still stands in the Village of Schuylerville (then called Saratoga). This farm reminds visitors of early America’s inability to rid of itself of a practice that the French (with whom Angelica spent much time) found abhorrent.
Despite these grim reminders of past crimes, historic sites can also serve as inspiration. Beer grew up in Angelica, New York, the town named after the eldest Schuyler sister, and her school bus drove past Belvidere, a mansion built for Angelica and her husband, every day.
“I always knew that this is where this historic woman who had to do with the forming of the country had lived,” Beer said. “The effect for me was that even if you’re from this place and even if you’re a girl, you can matter in the world. If you read books and you study hard and you’re brave, you can go do stuff. For me, that was important. One of the reasons I wrote the book was because I thought that would be useful for other girls to know.”
Beer will discuss all things Angelica Schuyler at the Northshire Bookstore on Broadway in Saratoga Springs on Tuesday, July 8 at 6 p.m. For more information, visit www.northshire.com/event/northshire-saratoga-molly-beer-angelica-love-and-country-time-revolution.
The Schuyler Estate, where Angelica spent parts of her childhood, is open to visitors on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. For more information, visit www.nps.gov/sara/planyourvisit/basicinfo.htm.
