Last Saturday was the 216th anniversary of the famous duel that Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr fought on the dueling grounds in Weehawken, New Jersey; the duel that led to Hamilton’s death. With that anniversary in mind – and since Hamilton is in the news again – we thought it would be fun to highlight a Hamilton-related item that the Law Library recently acquired for its rare books collection.
The item is four manuscript pages on which Alexander Hamilton hand-copied a 1784 special verdict delivered by New York’s Supreme Court of Judicature presided over by John S. Hobart. Hamilton represented the plaintiff in the case, a man named James Leonard. Leonard sought to recover a New York City property that he purchased but that the state of New York had confiscated