Alexander hamilton mini biography harriette

Harriet Hemings (1801-unknown) was the only surviving daughter of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. She grew up with her three brothers and a large extended family at Monticello. Like her mother, Hemings was enslaved by her father, and she worked in the textile workshop as a wool spinner. She “ran away” with Jefferson’s knowledge when she was twenty-one years old in 1822, at which point she moved to Washington, D.C., where she started a family and passed into white society as a free woman.

As part of the prominent and extensive enslaved Hemings family, Harriet Hemings lived and worked in and around Monticello. Her younger brother Madison Hemings left his account of growing up alongside her:

My brothers, sister Harriet and myself were used alike. They were put to some mechanical trade at the age of fourteen. Till then we were permitted to stay about the “great house,” and only required to do such light work as going on errands. Harriet learned to spin and weave in a little factory on the home plantation.

This “factory” was the textile workshop where Harriet Hemings was working at the age of fourteen according to Jefferson’s records. This was a typical position for enslaved girls her age at Monticello before they were either trained in a skill or sent into the fields to work. 

Jefferson was “not in the habit of showing partiality or fatherly affection” to Hemings and her brothers. Although they worked like other enslaved people with positions in and around the household, Madison Hemings wrote that they “were free from the dread of having to be slaves all our lives long and were measurably happy. We were always permitted to be with our mother, who was well used.” Harriet Hemings and her brothers knew that one day they would be free because their father had promised to free Sally Hemings’s children when they turned tw

c. 1820-1913

Who Was Harriet Tubman?

Born into slavery in Maryland, Harriet Tubman escaped to freedom in the North in 1849 to become the most famous “conductor” on the Underground Railroad. Tubman risked her life to lead dozens of family members and other slaves from the plantation system to freedom on this elaborate secret network of safe houses. A leading abolitionist before the American Civil War, Tubman also helped the Union Army during the war, working as a spy, among other roles.

After the Civil War ended, Tubman dedicated her life to helping impoverished former slaves and the elderly. In honor of her life and by popular demand, in 2016, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the center of a new $20 bill.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Araminta Harriet Ross
BORN: c. 1820
DIED: March 10, 1913
BIRTHPLACE: Dorchester County, Maryland
PARENTS: Harriet Green, Ben Ross
SIBLINGS: Linah, Mariah, Soph, Robert, Benjamin, Rachel, Henry, Moses

Early Life and Family

Tubman’s date of birth is unknown, although she was likely born between 1820 and 1825. According to the National Park Service, oral traditions and recent research suggest she was born in early 1822.

She was one of nine children born between 1808 and 1832 to enslaved parents in Dorchester County, Maryland. Her mother, Harriet “Rit” Green, was owned by Mary Pattison Brodess. Her father, Ben Ross, was owned by Anthony Thompson. (Thompson and Brodess eventually married.)

Originally named Araminta Harriet Ross, Tubman was nicknamed “Minty” by her parents. Araminta changed her name to Harriet around her marriage, possibly to honor her mother.

Tubman’s early life was full of hardship. Mary Brodess's son Edward sold three of Tubman’s sisters to distant plantations, severing the family. When a trader from Georgia approached Brodess about buying Rit’s youngest son, Moses, Rit successfully resis

History: This name is borne by one of the most distinguished families of the Scottish nobility; they hold many titles, including marquessate and dukedom of Hamilton, the marquessate of Douglas, the dukedom of Abercorn, and the earldom of Haddington. They are descended from Walter FitzGilbert de Hameldone, a Norman baron who gave his support to Robert the Bruce in the 13th century. A member of this family was Sir William Hamilton (1730–1803), a British diplomat and archaeologist, whose wife, Lady Emma Hamilton (c. 1765–1815), became the mistress of Admiral Horatio Nelson. A branch of the family was established in Ireland by Sir Frederick Hamilton (died 1646), who served in the Swedish army of Gustavus Adolphus. He later became governor of Ulster, and his descendants were created viscounts Boyne. The family have given their name to Newtownhamilton and Hamiltonsbaron in County Armagh. Another branch of the family were to be found in Denmark, where Henrik Albertsen Hamilton (1588–1648) was a noted Latin poet. A 17th-century example of a Hamilton from Glasgow, Scotland, is recorded in the Netherlands, where the name is found in the form Hamelton. Another Scottish Hamilton, James, went to the West Indies in the 18th century and was the father of Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804), who arrived in NY in 1772 and became the first US secretary of the Treasury.

American lawyer

Harriet Hamilton Pier Simonds (April 26, 1872 – April 12, 1943) was a lawyer in Wisconsin. Her mother and two sisters were also lawyers, at a time when there were only eight female lawyers in Wisconsin.

Biography

Harriet Hamilton Pier was born on April 26, 1872, in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. She was the third daughter of Kate Pier and Colwert Kendall Pier.

She was educated in the public schools of Fond du Lac, Madison and Milwaukee, and graduated from the Milwaukee High School in 1889. With the inheritance from her father, Kate Pier went to law school and became a lawyer. Her three daughters, Kate Hamilton Pier, Caroline Hamilton Pier and Harriet Hamilton Pier, would also attend law school.

Mother and daughters constituted a law firm practicing first in Fond du Lac and then, in 1888, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The firm was instrumental in the passage of two laws in the Wisconsin Legislature, one enabling women to act as assignees, and another enabling women, who were attorneys-at-law, to be court commissioners. The firm did not take criminal business, but outside of that their practice is a general practice, running mostly to corporation, real estate and probate law.

Pier entered the law department of the Wisconsin University, and, at the end of two years, she took her degree of LL.B. In 1891 Caroline and Harriet were admitted to the bar, alongside their mother and sister were four of the eight female lawyers in Wisconsin.

Pier studied the Polish language, all sisters having practical knowledge