None of the Founding Fathers came from such unpromising origins: three years before the American Revolution, Hamilton was an illegitimate orphan working in the Virgin Islands as a merchant's clerk. Few achieved as much as he did in such a compact career. Hamilton held his first important public office (colonel on George Washington's staff) when he was 20 years old, and retired from his last one (Inspector General of the army) when he was 43. None suffered such a spectacular death -- shot in a duel by the Vice President of the United States. Hamilton overcame huge odds, left behind ideas and institutions that have lasted for centuries, and never quite escaped the shadows of his past.(excerpt from the New York Historical Society)
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