Alexander Hamilton Jr. was born in New York City on May 16, 1786, the third child and second son of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton. His father was then emerging as one of the nation’s most influential lawyers and political thinkers; his mother belonged to the wealthy and well-connected Schuyler family of New York. He grew up with seven siblings in a household that combined intense public activity with close family attachments and recurrent financial strain. Because he shared his father’s name, later accounts sometimes confuse his education or activities with those of other members of the Hamilton family.

At about eight years old, Alexander joined his elder brother Philip at a boarding school in Trenton, New Jersey, operated by the Reverend William Frazer, rector of St. Michael’s Church. After the Hamilton family returned to New York City in 1795, the boys attended Bishop Benjamin Moore’s school on Staten Island and came home for Sundays. Around 1800, Alexander and his younger brother James also studied under James Tod at New Utrecht.

His adolescence was overshadowed by family tragedy. In November 1801, Philip Hamilton died after a duel, a loss that devastated the family. Less than three years later, Alexander’s father was mortally wounded in his duel with Aaron Burr and died on July 12, 1804. Alexander was eighteen and near the end of his studies at Columbia College. Accounts differ over whether an accident prevented him from formally completing the degree, but Columbia remained the central institution in his higher education.

After his father’s death, the younger Alexander faced the task of establishing an independent profession while his mother struggled to stabilize the family’s finances and preserve her husband’s reputation. He turned to law, reportedly training for a time in the Boston office of merchant and lawyer Stephen Higginson before securing admission to practice.