Signing Their Rights Away by Denise Kiernan Read Free Book Online Page A

William was born the fifth child (out of nine) on the family’s mammoth estate, Livingston Manor, along the Hudson River. He was raised by his maternal grandmother and, when he was only twelve years old, spent a year with a missionaryamong the Mohawk. His family worked in the mercantile and fur trades, and they believed that experience on the frontier would be good for William, since he might one day take over the business. Later in life he wrote that the experience gave him “a good opportunity to learn the genius, and manners of the natives.”
    But Livingston didn’t want to be a businessman. What he longed to do was study painting in Italy. Then, as now, most parents weren’t thrilled with the prospect of sending a child to art school, so they shipped him off to Yale instead. He pursued law and graduated at the top of his class with a command of several languages—and a desire to write. While clerking for lawyers in New York City, he began drafting a series of essays that skewered the legal profession, the Church of England, and, later, the British. He needed a creative outlet, and he had finally found one.
    A self-described “ugly-looking fellow”—the man had a ski slope of a schnoz and did himself no favors with his choice of hairstyle—William fell in love with Susanna French, who hailed from a prominent landowning family that had seen some tough financial times. Initially his parents refused to consent to the union, but they came around when William agreed to delay the wedding by three years. These plans unexpectedly went astray, however, when Susanna found herself pregnant; the couple wed in secret and moved in with an aunt. Livingston’s family was not pleased. Later, when his father gave gifts of New York City townhouses to his boys, William was the only son who didn’t receive one.
    Throughout his successful legal career, Livingston kept writing, crafting poems, and railing against the Church of England. He decried the church’s attempts to control King’s College (Columbia University), which Livingston thought should be a nonsectarian school; when he was offered a position on the school’s board, he declined. Eventually, his editorials became so incendiary that his printer refused to publish them. He defended his prose, saying, “I do declare that I never wrote a syllable with a view of censuring thechurch as such: I have only exposed her unreasonable encroachments … it was my duty, my bounden, my indispensable duty.”
    It’s no surprise that a lawyer from a prominent family who had a talent for stirring up the pot would find his way into politics. Along with his older brother Philip, William became a member of New York’s colonial legislature. But over time he soured on New York politics and moved to New Jersey, where he bought an estate near Elizabethtown (Elizabeth) and built a mansion called Liberty Hall. Shortly after moving in, a young lad who had recently arrived from the West Indies showed up at his door and presented him with several letters of introduction. Livingston took in the young boy and arranged for his education. The kid turned out well—his name was Alexander Hamilton.
    In 1774, after the British closed the port of Boston in retaliation for the Tea Party, Livingston wrote letters for the rebel cause and then served in the first and second Continental Congresses. Though active, he hoped for resolution without bloodshed. After leaving Congress, he took a post as a commander of New Jersey militia, but the poet was ill suited for military life. He once wrote, “My ancient corporeal fabric is almost tottering under the fatigue I have lately undergone: constantly rising at 2 o’clock in the morning to examine our lines.”
    In August 1776, Livingston was elected New Jersey’s first governor, a post he would hold for fourteen years, until his death. He replaced the ousted royal governor and loyalist, William Franklin (Ben Franklin’s illegitimate son). While Franklin sat in