BIOGRAPHY: Alexander HAMILTON, Cambria County, PA 

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From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria 
County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 337-8
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ALEXANDER HAMILTON, formerly superintendent of the Cambria Iron Company's 
rolling-mills, is known to iron workers throughout the country as one of the 
best practical mill managers to be found anywhere. In fact, there is scarcely a 
prominent iron or steel mill in the country in which men trained under his eye 
are not employed, either as foremen or skilled mechanics.
     Alexander Hamilton is the son of James and Mariah (Knapp) Hamilton, and was 
born in Orange county, New York, July 11, 1821. His father was also a native of 
Orange county, but moved to the city of New York when our subject was six or 
seven years of age, and made that his home until his death, which occurred in 
1830. The grandfather of our subject, who was also named Alexander Hamilton, was 
a native of Scotland, and emigrated to New York when a young man. He married and 
settled in Orange county, and made that his home until his death. The mother of 
our subject was a daughter of William Knapp, a soldier who served his country 
through the war of the Revolution, and survived until he reached the advanced 
age of ninety-five years. He died at his native place near Stamford, 
Connecticut. His brother, Uzial Knapp, the last survivor of General Washington's 
bodyguard, died in Orange county, New York, when he had almost completed his one 
hundredth year.
     Mrs. Hamilton was born in the ancestral home of the Knapps in Fairfield 
county, Connecticut, near Stamford, and died in Johnstown, at the age of seventy 
years. She was a woman of high character, and was a devout Christian, belonging 
to the Methodist Episcopal church.
     Our subject passed his boyhood in Orange county and New York city. He 
received but little schooling, as he began to earn his own living at an early 
age. When about eighteen years of age, he went to work in a rolling-mill in 
Fairfield county, Connecticut, and for more than half a century since has been 
actively engaged with rolling-mills.
     He was employed in mills at Albany, Troy and New York city, also at Fall 
River, Massachusetts. He then came to Pennsylvania, working in rolling-mills in 
Philadelphia and other places in the eastern part of the State. In 1855 he came 
to Johnstown as superintendent of the manufacturing department of the Cambria 
Iron company.
     For nearly forty years Mr. Hamilton held this position, which kept growing 
in importance, as the small plant of which he originally took charge, kept 
enlarging from year to year until it was among the largest--if not the largest--
rolling-mill in the world. And the "Cambria" rails made in this mill achieved a 
world-wide reputation for their excellence.
     Mr. Hamilton was a superintendent who thoroughly understood every detail of 
the work, for had he not worked with his own hands at every process, from 
putting the metal in the puddling furnace to drilling the finished rails for 
shipment? He was an expert heater and roller, and in an emergency could himself 
fill any position in the mill.
     He is a man of boundless energy and great determination; when he took a 
stand he was firm and unyielding. Yet the workmen know he possessed one of the 
kindest hearts to be found anywhere. His ability to control men was shown in the 
"Great Strike;" when other men feared for their lives Mr. Hamilton went steadily 
to work, started and kept the mills running until the strikers returned to work. 
The men knew the strength of his will and respected him for both his firmness 
and his kindness. As a result, more than twenty years have passed without a 
strike in the Cambria mills.
     On January 30, 1849, Mr. Hamilton was united in marriage to Mary P. 
Jacquett, daughter of Azzel P. Jacquett, of Wilmington, Delaware. The Jacquetts 
are of French extraction. They trace their American descent from two brothers--
Paul and Anthony, who settled in Delaware at the beginning of the Revolutionary 
War. Mrs. Hamilton's father served in the War of 1812.
     Mr. Hamilton has four sons and one daughter living: George W.; Thomas F.; 
James A.; Edgar Y. T., and Susan M. L.
     In the great flood in which his home was swept away he lost one son, 
Alexander, Jr., aged thirty-four, and one daughter, Jennie M., aged twenty-seven 
years. Four daughters died in infancy.
     In 1892 Mr. Hamilton resigned his position with the Cambria company, in 
which two of his sons are now superintendents, and retired to his beautiful home 
in Westmont, where he now resides. After the loss of his home and its contents 
in the flood, Mr. Hamilton was one of the first to build a residence in the 
beautiful village of Westmont. It is on the top of a high hill overlooking 
Johnstown and the surrounding country. He was also one of the first to urge the 
building of the incline plane by which the village is made easy of access.
     While always known as a public-spirited citizen, Mr. Hamilton has never 
sought office. He served for nine or ten years as a member of the council in 
Johnstown borough from a sense of duty.
     He is a member of Kensington Lodge, No. 211, of Philadelphia; Kensington 
Chapter and Oriental Commandery, F. and A. M., of Johnstown.