dow of General
Alexander Hamilton and her daughter, Mrs. Hamilton Holly, were taking
their mid-day repast, at one end of the long table, when they were
informed that Aaron Burr was partaking of the same meal not far from
them. Their indignation was boundless, and immediately there were two
vacant chairs. Mrs. Holly was a woman of strong intellect, and a
friendship which I formed with her is one of the most cherished memories
of my life. She devoted her widowhood to the care of her aged mother. We
often engaged in confidential conversations, when she would discuss the
tragedies which so clouded her life. I especially remember her dwelling
upon the sad history of her sister, Angelica Hamilton, who, she told me,
was in the bloom of health and surrounded by everything that goes
towards making life happy when her eldest brother, Philip Hamilton, was
killed in a duel. He had but recently been graduated from Columbia
College and lost his life in 1801 on the same spot where, about three
years later, his father was killed by Aaron Burr. This dreadful event
affected her so deeply that her mind became unbalanced, and she was
finally placed in an asylum, where she died at a very advanced age. Mrs.
Hamilton lived in Washington, D.C., in one of the De Menou buildings on
H Street, between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Streets, and Mrs. Holly
resided in the same city until her death.

Tragedy seemed to pursue the Hamilton family with unrelenting
perseverance until the third generation. In 1858 the legislature of
Virginia, desiring that every native President should repose upon
Virginia soil, made an appropriation for removing the remains of James
Monroe from New York to Richmond. He died on the 4th of July, 1831,
while temporarily residing in New York with his daughter, Mrs. Samuel L.
Gouverneur, and his body was placed in the Gouverneur vault in the
Marble Cemetery on Second Street, east of Second Avenue, where it
remained for nearly thirty years. The disinterment of the remains of
this distinguished statesman was conducted with much pomp and ceremony
and the body placed on board of the steamer _Jamestown_ and conveyed to
Richmond, accompanied all the way by the 7th Regiment of New York which
acted as a guard of honor. The orator of the occasion was John Cochrane,
a distinguished member of the New York bar; while Henry A. Wise, then
Governor of Virginia, delivered an appropriate address at the grave in
Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. My h