George Eacker is best known for having fatally shot Philip Hamilton, the eldest son of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, in a duel on November 23,1801, in Weehawken, New Jersey.
18 Facts About George Eacker
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George Eacker was the son of Jacob Eacker, a German immigrant who fought in the American Revolution and served as a county judge and a member of the New York State Assembly, and Anna Margaret Finck, daughter of Andreas Finck and the sister of Andrew Fink Jr, who rose to the rank of Major during the war.
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George Eacker attended a preparatory school in Schenectady, New York, and graduated from Columbia College in 1793.
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George Eacker then studied law under Henry Brockholst Livingston, a future Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
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George Eacker was admitted to the New York bar at 21 and quickly established himself as one of New York City's premier attorneys.
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George Eacker soon built his practice in Manhattan into a lucrative business, which allowed him to take a house on Wall Street and to employ a married couple as his valet and housekeeper.
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George Eacker gained popularity in New York City's well-to-do social circles as a lawyer, Freemason, cavalry captain, and fire brigade inspector.
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In 1801, George Eacker was appointed as a master in the New York Court of Chancery, which was the highest court in the state.
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George Eacker was selected in 1801 to deliver the Fourth of July oration at an Independence Day celebration held in New York City by a brigade of the New York State Militia, the Tammany Society, and two of the city's labor organizations: the Mechanics' Society and Coopers' Society.
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In politics, George Eacker was known to be aligned with Burr, what automatically placed him at odds with Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists.
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On November 20,1801, a Friday night, George Eacker attended a play at the Park Theatre with his fiancee Harriet Livingston, a daughter of Walter Livingston and Cornelia Schuyler.
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Hamilton refused to raise his pistol to fire after he and George Eacker had counted ten paces and faced each other, following his father's instructions to reserve his fire.
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However, according to Eacker's brother, George Eacker fought a raging fire as part of his fire brigade duties on a bitterly cold night in January 1802, two months after the duel.
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George Eacker was soaked to the skin, and his clothes froze.
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George Eacker's funeral was a grand event, featuring military honors and participation from the fire brigade, the Howard Lodge of Freemasons, and various civic leaders.
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George Eacker's remains were interred in the graveyard behind St Paul's Chapel, and a volley of musketry was fired over his grave.
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George Eacker appears as a minor character in the 2015 Broadway musical Hamilton in which the musical number "Blow Us All Away" dramatizes his duel with Philip Hamilton.
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The role of Eacker originated on Broadway by a member of the show's ensemble, Ephraim M Sykes, who appears as Eacker on the original cast recording.