Top: Emmeline and her brother and sisters lived their lives in this three-story brick house on West High Street near the corner of Pitt Street in Carlisle.
Bottom: Letter to James Hamilton with postscript by Emmeline Hamilton. Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Hamilton Collection, Microfilm Roll #10, Box 20 p. 332.
Emmeline Veazey Hamilton, daughter of Judge James and Sarah Hamilton, was born on December 8, 1804, and although she lived for only eighteen years, her name was carried on in her relatives’ families for several generations. (Emmeline Hamilton Parker Grubb, Emmeline Cruse and Emmeline Bradish.)
When Emmeline’s sister Susan wrote to her brother James on February 22, 1818, she let Emmeline write a note at the bottom of her letter. “Dear Brother,” Emmeline wrote:
“As you know poor Emmeline’s inability in writing, you must excuse her defects or mistakes in this letter. I am happy to hear you are to have a delightful ball and congratulate you upon it, but not upon being manager, for it is a very disagreeable business, but I hope you may have as much pleasure as you anticipate at the ball…Dear Brother, tell me if you had any success in obtaining an artificial snake which I can imagine must be a [great] curiosity. We will expect you home on Wednesday, don’t disappoint us. I remain your affectionate sister Emmeline Hamilton. P.S. My pen is so bad I can hardly write.”1
A month after writing to her brother, Emmeline was installed in a nunnery. Her father wrote to her brother James on March 20, 1818 from Gettysburg saying, “I expect to leave this [place] on Sunday. Emmeline was left at the nunnery in good spirits, although it will appear a situation new and extraordinary.”2 Emmeline was 13 years old, and she was there to be educated by the nuns, although the Hamilton’s were not Catholic. The nunnery was probably the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph’s in Emmitsburg, Maryland, founded by Elizabeth Ann Seton in 1809.
In May 1823, Mrs. Hamilton left for Philadelphia quite suddenly to consult a physician about Emmeline’s health.3 Emmeline died three months later of a severe illness on Thursday, August 7, 1823. She was 18 years old. Isaac Brown Parker, Emmeline’s cousin’s husband, wrote to his uncle John Brown announcing her death. He said that the whole town was sharing the family’s sorrow, and that he had been called upon to “give necessary directions for the family,” as the Judge had died four years previously.4 Emmeline is buried in the Hamilton plot in Carlisle’s Old Graveyard.
Sarah Hamilton's daughter, Susan Thorn, bequeathed the miniature portrait of her mother “in a square frame” to Mrs. Mary Moore. Its whereabouts are unknown. We are left to form a picture of Sarah Hamilton, or Sally as her husband and her sister Mary Veazey referred to her, from remarks about her in their letters.
[1] Susan Hamilton to James Hamilton, February 22, 1818. Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Hamilton Collection, Microfilm Roll #10, Box 20 p. 332.
[2] Dickinson College Special Collections: I-Vale M-1947-29.
[3] Letter from John Brown Parker to John Brown, May 24, 1823. Typescript by Emmeline Knox Parker of family letters. Cumberland County Historical Society Ms. 37-2 p. 13.
[4] Ibid. JBP letter to JB August 7, 1823.