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Schuyler refused to bless the union due to his suspicions about Church’s unsavory past, yet one night in 1777, Angelica left the family home under the cover of darkness, eloping with Church against her parents’ wishes.Īt the time of the Midwinter Ball in 1780, where the Schuyler sisters first encountered Hamilton, Angelica was a married mother of two toddlers-far from the lovesick young socialite portrayed in the musical.
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Church was handsome, cosmopolitan, and vaguely dangerous, enchanting Angelica through a series of illicit notes and letters. Angelica first encountered Church in 1776, when he was sent to the Schuyler home by Congress to audit her father’s accounts, as Congress suspected General Schuyler of poor command.
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Yet even so, the suitor Angelica chose was far from a satisfactory match.Īngelica chose as her husband John Barker Church, an English-born businessman and supplier of the Continental Army who settled in the colonies either to escape gambling debts or retribution for a duel. In “Satisfied,” a song set at the 1780 Midwinter Ball where the Schuyler sisters first encountered Hamilton, Angelica sings, “I’m a girl in a world in which my only job is to marry rich / My father has no sons so I’m the one who has to social climb for one.” In reality, Philip Schuyler had three sons and an ample fortune inherited through marriage, meaning that Angelica had her pick of the litter where suitors were concerned. Yet in the matter of stealing hearts, the love triangle depicted in Hamilton takes some creative license with the historical record.
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