Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 231, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1914 — IN ANCIENT ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

IN ANCIENT ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD.

IN the rear of St. Paul’s churchyard are three rows of old tombstones which have been restored to their original places, the New York Sun states. In the upheaval of the last few months due to digging the Broadway subway beneath the historic graveyard, some of the stones were removed temporarily and others were covered with wooden frames to save them from injury by the subway laborers. That part of the subway work has been completed and the gravestones have been replaced, and new grass has been planted over the graves. In the last row is a plain white stone upon which may faintly be traced the name “George I. Eacker." A few years ago the date, 1804, could be discerned, but it is now Illegible. The stone has long ceased to attract attention, and it would doubtless surprise most of the visitors to St. Paul’s to learn that the white sandstone slab marks the burial place of the young man who killed the eldest son of Alexander Hamilton in a duel three years before General Hamilton was killed in his duel with Aaron Burr. Hamilton Received Fatal Wound. Philip Hamilton was not quite twenty years old when he cros'sed the ferry to the dueling ground at Weehawken to face Eacker, one of the young lawyers of the time who was attached to the political party of which Aaron Burr was the acknowledged leader. The meeting took place on Monday afternoon, November 23, 1801. David 8. Jones was one of Hamilton’s sec-

onds and Thomas Apthorpe Cooper, one of the popular actors of his day, represented Eacker. According to the best accounts of the affair, Hamilton had told his seconds that he intended to reserve his fire until Eacker had fired, and that then he proposed to discharge his pistol into the air. As the two young men faced each other there was a brief pause, then Eacker, it is said, leveled his pistol with accuracy, and, firing, shot Hamilton In the right side. Hamilton’s pistol was discharged at the same time, but it did no damage. The wounded youth was brought back to this city and died the next day. The duel aroused great excitement and the newspapers devoted far more attention to it than was customary for those affairs of honor at the time. One of the papers did not hesitate to call It murder. In this paragraph, which was published on the afternoon of November 24: "Died—-This morning, in the twentieth year of his age, Philip Hamilton, eldest son of General Hamilton, murdered in a duel.” The cause of the duel, as it appears in the light of the present-day, seems trivial. At the Fourth of July celebration of 1801, George Eacker delivered an address which by his partisans was received with great praise. He criticised the federalist, which angered the party favorable to Hamilton. A few 1 Jays before the duel, Philip Hamilton? with a friend named Price, occupied the same box at the old Park

theater on Park Row, with Eacker and some of Eacker’s friends. The Park theater was nearly in the middle of the block between Ann and Beekman streets, a little above the present Park Row building. Hamilton and Price indulged in some laughing remarks about Eacker’s speech. The latter, overhearing the conversation, asked Hamilton to step into the lobby. Price followed. There was a slight altercation, ending by Eacker’s using the word “rascals." According to the dueling code, that demanded satisfaction. After the performance, the three men repaired to a nearby tavern and when Eacker was asked for whom he meant the epithet he replied. “For both.” He then left, saying: “I shall expect to hear from you.” Challenges were issued "the next day, that of Price being accepted first. Eacker and Price met at Weehawken on Sunday, November 22f, and after exchanging four shots without injury, the seconds stopped the duel. Hamilton’s challenge was then accepted after the duel. “Reflection on this horrid custom must occur to every man of humanity,” said one of the newspapers, “but the voice of an individual or of the press must be ineffectual without additional strong and pointed legislative interference. Fashion has placed it upon a footing which nothing short of this can control." Father Fell in Combat Later. Young Hamilton had been graduated from Columbia college the year

before and was preparing for a legal career. Mr. Eacker apparently suffered no inconvenience as a result of the duel, but he did not long survive, for he died of consumption in 1804. He is the only person of that name appearing in the city directories of 1801 to 1804, in which he was listed as a “counselor at law at 50 Wall street” A little less than three years after the death of his son, Alexander Humilton was killed In the duel with Aaron Burr on July 11, 1804, and that did more than anything else to turn public opinion against the custom. The old dueling ground is now obliterated. The tracks of the West. Shore railroad wiped out every evidence of the bloody field years ago, but a little monument to Hamilton commemorative of the spot and the fate! event now stands on the Heights of Weehawken, almost above the exact spot, which was close to the river bank* Upon the pedestal of the monument is a large red sandstone boulder, upon which, it is said, Hamilton rested his head, after he was shot