All from Wikipedia
- James Madison:
James Madison, Jr. was born on March 16, 1751 (March 5, 1750) Old Style) at Belle Grove Plantation near Port Conway in the Colony of Virginia, to James Madison Sr. and Nelly Conway Madison. His family had lived in Virginia since the mid-1600s.[1] Madison grew up as the oldest of twelve children,[2] with seven brothers and four sisters, though only six lived to adulthood.[3] His father was a tobacco planter who grew up on a plantation, then called Mount Pleasant, which he had inherited upon reaching adulthood. With an estimated 100 slaves[1] and a 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) plantation, Madison's father was the largest landowner and a leading citizen in the Piedmont. Madison's maternal grandfather was a prominent planter and tobacco merchant.[4] In the early 1760s, the Madison family moved into a newly built house that they named Montpelier.
- Alexander Hamilton:
Hamilton became a clerk at Beekman and Cruger, a local import-export firm that traded with New York and New England.[24] He and James Jr. were briefly taken in by their cousin Peter Lytton; however, Lytton took his own life in July 1769, leaving his property to his mistress and their son, and the Hamilton brothers were subsequently separated.[23] James apprenticed with a local carpenter, while Alexander was given a home by Nevis merchant Thomas Stevens.[25] Some clues have led to speculation that Stevens was Alexander Hamilton's biological father: his son Edward Stevens became a close friend of Hamilton, the two boys were described as looking much alike, both were fluent in French and shared similar interests.[23] However, this allegation, mostly based on the comments of Timothy Pickering on the resemblance between the two men, has always been vague and unsupported.[26] Rachel Faucette had been living on St. Kitts and Nevis for years at the time when Alexander was conceived, while Thomas Stevens lived on Antigua and St. Croix; also, James Hamilton never disclaimed paternity, and even in later years, signed his letters to Hamilton with "Your very Affectionate Father."[27][28]
Hamilton, despite being only in his teenage years, proved capable enough as a trader to be left in charge of the firm for five months in 1771 while the owner was at sea.[29] He remained an avid reader and later developed an interest in writing. He began to desire a life outside the island where he lived. He wrote a letter to his father that was a detailed account of a hurricane that had devastated Christiansted on August 30, 1772. The Presbyterian Reverend Hugh Knox, a tutor and mentor to Hamilton, submitted the letter for publication in the Royal Danish-American Gazette. The biographer Ron Chernow found the letter astounding for two reasons; first, that "for all its bombastic excesses, it does seem wondrous [that a] self-educated clerk could write with such verve and gusto," and second, that a teenage boy produced an apocalyptic "fire-and-brimstone sermon" viewing the hurricane as a "divine rebuke to human vanity and pomposity."[30] The essay impressed community leaders, who collected a fund to send Hamilton to the North American colonies for his education.
- John Jay:
The Jays were a prominent merchant family in New York City, descended from Huguenots who had come to New York to escape religious persecution in France. In 1685, the Edict of Nantes had been revoked, thereby abolishing the rights of Protestants, and the French Crown proceeded to confiscate their property. Among those affected was Jay's paternal grandfather, Auguste Jay. He moved from France to Charleston, South Carolina and then New York, where he built a successful merchant empire.[2] Jay's father, Peter Jay, born in New York City in 1704, became a wealthy trader in furs, wheat, timber, and other commodities.[3]
Jay's mother was Mary Van Cortlandt, of Dutch ancestry, who had married Peter Jay in 1728 in the Dutch Church.[3] They had ten children together, seven of whom survived into adulthood.[4] Mary's father, Jacobus Van Cortlandt, was born in New Amsterdam in 1658. Cortlandt served in the New York Assembly, was twice elected as mayor of New York City, and also held a variety of judicial and military offices. Both Mary and his son Frederick Cortlandt married into the Jay family.
Jay was born on December 23, 1745 (following the Gregorian calendar, December 12 following the Julian calendar), in New York City; three months later the family moved to Rye, New York. Peter Jay had retired from business following a smallpox epidemic; two of his children contracted the disease and suffered blindness.
