Archibald Hamilton Rowan
Encyclopedia
Archibald Hamilton Rowan (May 1, 1751 – November 1, 1834), christened Archibald Hamilton (sometimes referred to as Archibald Rowan Hamilton), was an Irish celebrity and a founding member of The Dublin Society of United Irishmen. He was the son of Gawen Hamilton (1729–1805) of Killyleagh Castle
, Co. Down and Lady Jane Rowan Hamilton.
in 1768, but was expelled from the college and rusticated
for an attempt to throw a tutor into the River Cam. He was sent for a period in 1769 to Warrington Academy
, though he absented himself from the care of John Seddon of Warrington
. Upon his return he obeyed his grandfather's wishes by staying out of Ireland and returning to Jesus College
.
Hamilton Rowan traveled throughout the 1770s and 1780s, visiting parts of Europe, the Americas, and Northern Africa. During his travels, he witnessed early signs of revolutionary sentiment in America that may have planted the seeds of revolutionary inclinations that would flower later in his life. While serving as private secretary to Lord Charles Montague, the governor of South Carolina
, he witnessed the South Carolina legislature's vote to repaint the railings around the statue of Pitt the Elder, an affront to the ministry of Lord North under which Montague served. Montague dissolved the legislature, only to see all the members re-elected.
In 1781 Hamilton Rowan married Sarah Dawson in Paris, France. Dawson was the daughter of a former neighbor and did not have any fortune of her own. She was brought into the family by Mrs. Hamilton, who took her on as a ward. Mrs. Hamilton thought to make a match for Sarah with the Reverend Benjamin Beresford, but the plan went awry when Beresford eloped with Hamilton Rowan's younger sister. Meanwhile, Hamilton Rowan fell in love with Dawson and married her. The marriage proved to be an enduring love match; Sarah stood by her husband through all his later struggles and was the most important advocate for his pardon during his exile. The couple had ten children. He was the Grandfather, and Godfather of the Irish Mathematic William Rowan Hamilton
(1805–1865).
in north County Kildare
. He became a celebrity and, despite his wealth and privilege, a strong advocate for Irish liberty. He joined the Killyleagh Volunteers
(a militia group later associated with radical reform) under his father's command, also in 1784. Hamilton Rowan first gained public attention by championing the cause of fourteen-year-old Mary Neal in 1788. Neal had been lured into a Dublin brothel and then assaulted by Lord Carhampton. Hamilton Rowan publicly denounced Carhampton and published a pamphlet A Brief Investigation of the Sufferings of John, Anne, and Mary Neal in the same year. An imposing figure at more than six feet tall, Hamilton Rowan's notoriety grew when he entered a Dublin dining club threatening several of Mary Neal's detractors, with his massive Newfoundland
at his side, and a shillelagh
in hand. The incident won him public applause and celebrity as a champion of the poor.
In 1790 Hamilton Rowan joined the Northern Whig Club, and by October had become a founding member of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen, working alongside famous radicals such as William Drennan
, and Theobald Wolfe Tone
. Hamilton Rowan was arrested in 1792 for seditious libel
–a political charge –when caught handing out "An Address to the Volunteers of Ireland", a piece of United Irish propaganda. Unknown to him, from 1791 the Dublin administration
had a spy in the Dublin Society, Thomas Collins, whose activity was never discovered. From February 1793 Britain and Ireland joined the War of the First Coalition against France, and the United Irish movement was outlawed in 1794.
Hamilton Rowan’s reputation for radicalism and bluster grew during this time when he left Ireland to confront the Lord Advocate of Scotland about negative comments made in respect to his character and that of members of the Society of United Irishmen. As a prominent member of the Irish gentry, Hamilton Rowan was an important figure in the United Irishmen and became the contact for the Scottish radical societies as a result of his visit. Upon his return to Dublin, he was charged and was found guilty of seditious libel, even though he was excellently defended by the famous John Philpot Curran
. Hamilton Rowan was sentenced to two years imprisonment, received a fine of ₤500, and was forced to pay two assurities for good behavior of ₤1,000 each. In January of 1794 Hamilton Rowan retired to his apartments in Dublin’s Newgate Prison
.
, an Irish-born Anglican clergyman who was working as a spy for the French Committee of Public Safety
. Jackson’s mission was to assess Ireland’s readiness for revolution and French invasion. Jackson, Tone, and others met in Hamilton Rowan's Newgate cell to discuss the state of Ireland and the population’s willingness to overthrow British rule. But Jackson was betrayed by a friend acting as a spy for the British Government, was arrested and charged with high treason. Immediately following Jackson's arrest, Hamilton Rowan fled in order to escape being tried for high treason. He convinced his jailer to allow him to visit his wife on the pretense of signing legal documents. While the jailer sat in the dining room of their home in Dublin, Hamilton Rowan excused himself to the bedroom, where he climbed down a rope made of knotted bed sheets to a waiting horse. Unwilling to be taken alive, he kept a razor blade in his sleeve and fled south to the coast. There he hired a boat to sail to France, and upon his arrival he was immediately arrested as a British spy. While in prison he was interrogated by Robespierre, who found him innocent of the charges raised against him and had Hamilton Rowan freed.
In Paris, Hamilton Rowan became close friends with Mary Wollstonecraft
and kept a faithful correspondence with her for many years. Hamilton Rowan soon found himself in the middle of the Thermidor Revolution
. He recalls:
Deciding that France was too dangerous, Hamilton Rowan moved next to Philadelphia, then the capital of the United States. He reached Philadelphia on July 4, 1795, reuniting with fellow United Irishmen in exile. To his dismay, he discovered Philadelphia to be as full of backstabbing and partisanship as France (albeit of a less bloody nature). His more radical Irish friends were already inserting themselves into the dispute between Jefferson’s Republican faction against Adams’ Federalists. He chose to leave Philadelphia for the more peaceful and less expensive shores of the Brandywine River in Delaware
.
After fleeing Ireland, Hamilton Rowan was unable to access his fortune and was reduced to supporting himself by his own labor. He was able to borrow money from William Poole, a prominent Quaker in Wilmington, and purchase a calico mill. In Wilmington
, Hamilton Rowan led a very public life, enjoying the company of prominent Wilmingtonians such as Poole, John Dickinson
, and Caesar A. Rodney
, who later became Secretary of State for Jefferson. Living in constant fear of summary deportation under the Alien and Sedition Acts
, Hamilton Rowan took pains to socialize with both Federalists and Republicans, and he studiously avoided American politics. On Christmas Day 1797 his cottage on the Brandywine burned to the ground killing his two dogs, destroying most of his library, and leaving him homeless. The next year his business partner refused to make up the accounts for the calico mill, so Hamilton Rowan was forced to pay the bills out of pocket, and take over the entire operation himself. But with little knowledge of the operations or business, the press was sold at a loss of $500. Hamilton Rowan then worked for the flour mills hauling grain and flour by wheelbarrow to and from Wilmington.
During his time in America, Hamilton Rowan began writing his Memoirs, fearing he would never return to Ireland. He begins with an address to his family,
However, thanks to the persistence of his wife, in 1799 he received permission to travel to a neutral European country without being arrested and he moved from Wilmington to Hamburg, Germany, where he was reunited with his wife and children and lived until 1803. He continued to seek a pardon and was permitted to live in England from 1803. His father Gawen died in 1805 and he was allowed to return to Ireland in 1806.
, County Down, receiving a hero’s welcome. He was a respected figure, spending time in both Killyleagh
and Dublin. While he had agreed to be a model citizen under the conditions of his return to Ireland, he remained somewhat active in politics and (contrary to the biographical tradition) never lost his youthful radicalism. Following his last public appearance at a meeting in the Rotunda
in Dublin "organized by the Friends of Civil and Religious Liberty" on January 20, 1829, he was lifted up by a mob and paraded through the streets. After the deaths of his wife in February 1834 and his eldest son, Gawen William Rowan Hamilton, in August, Hamilton Rowan died in his home on November 1, 1834, an old man. While several of his radical acquaintances, like Tone and Jackson, died as a result of their political activities, Archibald Hamilton Rowan was able to escape this fate and live to the full age of 84. He was buried in the vaults of St Mary's Church, Dublin.
Hamilton Rowan was unable to finish his memoirs, and after his death, his family handed his papers and the task off to his friend, Thomas Kennedy Lowrey, who was also unable to finish them. Lowrey in turn passed them off to William Hamilton Drummond who finished the job and published Hamilton Rowan’s Autobiography in 1840. According to Harold Nicholson (his great-great-grandson), none of Hamilton Rowan's working papers exist, and some of them were burned by either his great-aunt Fanny or his great-aunt Jane. However, Hamilton Rowan produced several versions of his memoirs (in varying degrees of completion) at his own lithographic press in Dublin. These can be found in libraries in Ireland (Royal Irish Academy, National Library) and in Wilmington, Delaware
(The Historical Society of Delaware). And manuscript versions of the memoirs by various hands (again, in varying degrees of completion) are preserved in the Royal Irish Academy, The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, and The Delaware Historical Society.
Killyleagh Castle
Killyleagh Castle is a castle in the village of Killyleagh, County Down, Northern Ireland. It dominates the small village and is believed to be the oldest inhabited castle in the country, with parts dating back to 1180. It follows the architectural style of a Loire Valley château, being redesigned...
, Co. Down and Lady Jane Rowan Hamilton.
Early life
Archibald Hamilton Rowan was born in the home of his grandfather, William Rowan, in London, and lived there with his mother and sister for much of his early life. When his grandfather died in 1767, he inherited a large sum of money under the stipulation that he would add the maternal name Rowan, receive an Oxbridge education, and not visit Ireland before his 25th birthday. He was admitted to Queens' College, CambridgeQueens' College, Cambridge
Queens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou , and refounded in 1465 by Elizabeth Woodville...
in 1768, but was expelled from the college and rusticated
Rustication (academia)
Rustication is a term used at Oxbridge to mean being sent down or expelled temporarily. The term derives from the Latin word rus, countryside, to indicate that a student has been sent back to their family in the country, or from medieval Latin rustici, meaning "heathens or barbarians"...
for an attempt to throw a tutor into the River Cam. He was sent for a period in 1769 to Warrington Academy
Warrington Academy
Warrington Academy, active as a teaching establishment from 1756 to 1782, was a prominent dissenting academy, that is, a school or college set up by those who dissented from the state church in England...
, though he absented himself from the care of John Seddon of Warrington
John Seddon of Warrington
-Life:The son of Peter Seddon, dissenting minister successively at Ormskirk and Hereford, he was born at Hereford on 8 December 1725. The Unitarian John Seddon , with whom he has often been confused, is said to have been a second cousin...
. Upon his return he obeyed his grandfather's wishes by staying out of Ireland and returning to Jesus College
Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...
.
Hamilton Rowan traveled throughout the 1770s and 1780s, visiting parts of Europe, the Americas, and Northern Africa. During his travels, he witnessed early signs of revolutionary sentiment in America that may have planted the seeds of revolutionary inclinations that would flower later in his life. While serving as private secretary to Lord Charles Montague, the governor of South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
, he witnessed the South Carolina legislature's vote to repaint the railings around the statue of Pitt the Elder, an affront to the ministry of Lord North under which Montague served. Montague dissolved the legislature, only to see all the members re-elected.
In 1781 Hamilton Rowan married Sarah Dawson in Paris, France. Dawson was the daughter of a former neighbor and did not have any fortune of her own. She was brought into the family by Mrs. Hamilton, who took her on as a ward. Mrs. Hamilton thought to make a match for Sarah with the Reverend Benjamin Beresford, but the plan went awry when Beresford eloped with Hamilton Rowan's younger sister. Meanwhile, Hamilton Rowan fell in love with Dawson and married her. The marriage proved to be an enduring love match; Sarah stood by her husband through all his later struggles and was the most important advocate for his pardon during his exile. The couple had ten children. He was the Grandfather, and Godfather of the Irish Mathematic William Rowan Hamilton
William Rowan Hamilton
Sir William Rowan Hamilton was an Irish physicist, astronomer, and mathematician, who made important contributions to classical mechanics, optics, and algebra. His studies of mechanical and optical systems led him to discover new mathematical concepts and techniques...
(1805–1865).
Society of The United Irishman
Hamilton Rowan returned to Ireland in his thirties, in 1784, to live at Rathcoffey near ClaneClane
Clane is a town on the River Liffey and in the barony of Clane in County Kildare, Ireland, from Dublin.Its population of 4,968 makes it the eighth largest town in Kildare and the 78th largest in the Republic of Ireland....
in north County Kildare
County Kildare
County Kildare is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Kildare. Kildare County Council is the local authority for the county...
. He became a celebrity and, despite his wealth and privilege, a strong advocate for Irish liberty. He joined the Killyleagh Volunteers
Irish Volunteers (18th century)
The Irish Volunteers were a militia in late 18th century Ireland. The Volunteers were founded in Belfast in 1778 to defend Ireland from the threat of foreign invasion when regular British soldiers were withdrawn from Ireland to fight across the globe during the American War of Independence...
(a militia group later associated with radical reform) under his father's command, also in 1784. Hamilton Rowan first gained public attention by championing the cause of fourteen-year-old Mary Neal in 1788. Neal had been lured into a Dublin brothel and then assaulted by Lord Carhampton. Hamilton Rowan publicly denounced Carhampton and published a pamphlet A Brief Investigation of the Sufferings of John, Anne, and Mary Neal in the same year. An imposing figure at more than six feet tall, Hamilton Rowan's notoriety grew when he entered a Dublin dining club threatening several of Mary Neal's detractors, with his massive Newfoundland
Newfoundland (dog)
The Newfoundland is a breed of large dog. Newfoundlands can be black, brown, gray, or black and white. They were originally bred and used as a working dog for fishermen in the Dominion of Newfoundland, now part of Canada. They are known for their giant size, tremendous strength, calm dispositions,...
at his side, and a shillelagh
Shillelagh (club)
A shillelagh is a wooden walking stick and club or cudgel, typically made from a stout knotty stick with a large knob at the top, that is associated with Ireland and Irish folklore.- Construction :...
in hand. The incident won him public applause and celebrity as a champion of the poor.
In 1790 Hamilton Rowan joined the Northern Whig Club, and by October had become a founding member of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen, working alongside famous radicals such as William Drennan
William Drennan
William Drennan ,a physician, poet, educationalist and political radical, was one of the chief architects of the Society of United Irishmen...
, and Theobald Wolfe Tone
Theobald Wolfe Tone
Theobald Wolfe Tone or Wolfe Tone , was a leading Irish revolutionary figure and one of the founding members of the United Irishmen and is regarded as the father of Irish Republicanism. He was captured by British forces at Lough Swilly in Donegal and taken prisoner...
. Hamilton Rowan was arrested in 1792 for seditious libel
Seditious libel
Seditious libel was a criminal offence under English common law. Sedition is the offence of speaking seditious words with seditious intent: if the statement is in writing or some other permanent form it is seditious libel...
–a political charge –when caught handing out "An Address to the Volunteers of Ireland", a piece of United Irish propaganda. Unknown to him, from 1791 the Dublin administration
Dublin Castle
Dublin Castle off Dame Street, Dublin, Ireland, was until 1922 the fortified seat of British rule in Ireland, and is now a major Irish government complex. Most of it dates from the 18th century, though a castle has stood on the site since the days of King John, the first Lord of Ireland...
had a spy in the Dublin Society, Thomas Collins, whose activity was never discovered. From February 1793 Britain and Ireland joined the War of the First Coalition against France, and the United Irish movement was outlawed in 1794.
Hamilton Rowan’s reputation for radicalism and bluster grew during this time when he left Ireland to confront the Lord Advocate of Scotland about negative comments made in respect to his character and that of members of the Society of United Irishmen. As a prominent member of the Irish gentry, Hamilton Rowan was an important figure in the United Irishmen and became the contact for the Scottish radical societies as a result of his visit. Upon his return to Dublin, he was charged and was found guilty of seditious libel, even though he was excellently defended by the famous John Philpot Curran
John Philpot Curran
John Philpot Curran was an Irish orator, politician and wit, born in Newmarket, County Cork. He was the son of James and Sarah Curran.-Career:...
. Hamilton Rowan was sentenced to two years imprisonment, received a fine of ₤500, and was forced to pay two assurities for good behavior of ₤1,000 each. In January of 1794 Hamilton Rowan retired to his apartments in Dublin’s Newgate Prison
Newgate Prison, Dublin
Newgate Prison was a place of detention in Dublin until its closure in 1863. It was initially located at Cornmarket, near Christ Church Cathedral, on the south side of the Liffey, and was originally one of the city gates.-From city gate to prison:...
.
Treason and exile
While imprisoned, Hamilton Rowan met The Reverend William JacksonReverend William Jackson
The Reverend William Jackson was a noted Irish preacher, journalist, playwright, radical, and spy who lived much of his life outside of his homeland.-Early life:...
, an Irish-born Anglican clergyman who was working as a spy for the French Committee of Public Safety
Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety , created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793, formed the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror , a stage of the French Revolution...
. Jackson’s mission was to assess Ireland’s readiness for revolution and French invasion. Jackson, Tone, and others met in Hamilton Rowan's Newgate cell to discuss the state of Ireland and the population’s willingness to overthrow British rule. But Jackson was betrayed by a friend acting as a spy for the British Government, was arrested and charged with high treason. Immediately following Jackson's arrest, Hamilton Rowan fled in order to escape being tried for high treason. He convinced his jailer to allow him to visit his wife on the pretense of signing legal documents. While the jailer sat in the dining room of their home in Dublin, Hamilton Rowan excused himself to the bedroom, where he climbed down a rope made of knotted bed sheets to a waiting horse. Unwilling to be taken alive, he kept a razor blade in his sleeve and fled south to the coast. There he hired a boat to sail to France, and upon his arrival he was immediately arrested as a British spy. While in prison he was interrogated by Robespierre, who found him innocent of the charges raised against him and had Hamilton Rowan freed.
In Paris, Hamilton Rowan became close friends with Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
and kept a faithful correspondence with her for many years. Hamilton Rowan soon found himself in the middle of the Thermidor Revolution
Thermidorian Reaction
The Thermidorian Reaction was a revolt in the French Revolution against the excesses of the Reign of Terror. It was triggered by a vote of the Committee of Public Safety to execute Maximilien Robespierre, Antoine Louis Léon de Saint-Just de Richebourg and several other leading members of the Terror...
. He recalls:
In two days after the execution of Robespierre, the whole commune of Paris, consisting of about sixty persons, were guillotined in less than one hour and a half, in the Place de la Revolution; and though I was standing above a hundred paces from the place of execution, the blood of the victims streamed under my feet.
Deciding that France was too dangerous, Hamilton Rowan moved next to Philadelphia, then the capital of the United States. He reached Philadelphia on July 4, 1795, reuniting with fellow United Irishmen in exile. To his dismay, he discovered Philadelphia to be as full of backstabbing and partisanship as France (albeit of a less bloody nature). His more radical Irish friends were already inserting themselves into the dispute between Jefferson’s Republican faction against Adams’ Federalists. He chose to leave Philadelphia for the more peaceful and less expensive shores of the Brandywine River in Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
.
After fleeing Ireland, Hamilton Rowan was unable to access his fortune and was reduced to supporting himself by his own labor. He was able to borrow money from William Poole, a prominent Quaker in Wilmington, and purchase a calico mill. In Wilmington
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...
, Hamilton Rowan led a very public life, enjoying the company of prominent Wilmingtonians such as Poole, John Dickinson
John Dickinson
John Dickinson may refer to:* John Dickinson , lawyer, Governor of Delaware and Pennsylvania, signer of U.S. Constitution, and namesake of Dickinson College* John D. Dickinson , lawyer and U.S...
, and Caesar A. Rodney
Caesar A. Rodney
Caesar Augustus Rodney was an American lawyer and politician from Wilmington, in New Castle County, Delaware. He was a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, who served in the Delaware General Assembly, as well as a U.S. Representative from Delaware, U.S. Senator from Delaware, U.S. Attorney...
, who later became Secretary of State for Jefferson. Living in constant fear of summary deportation under the Alien and Sedition Acts
Alien and Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts were four bills passed in 1798 by the Federalists in the 5th United States Congress in the aftermath of the French Revolution's reign of terror and during an undeclared naval war with France, later known as the Quasi-War. They were signed into law by President John Adams...
, Hamilton Rowan took pains to socialize with both Federalists and Republicans, and he studiously avoided American politics. On Christmas Day 1797 his cottage on the Brandywine burned to the ground killing his two dogs, destroying most of his library, and leaving him homeless. The next year his business partner refused to make up the accounts for the calico mill, so Hamilton Rowan was forced to pay the bills out of pocket, and take over the entire operation himself. But with little knowledge of the operations or business, the press was sold at a loss of $500. Hamilton Rowan then worked for the flour mills hauling grain and flour by wheelbarrow to and from Wilmington.
During his time in America, Hamilton Rowan began writing his Memoirs, fearing he would never return to Ireland. He begins with an address to his family,
My dear Children, Whilst residing at Wilmington on the Delaware, in the United States of America, not expecting to return to Europe, and unwilling to solicit my family to rejoin me there, I was anxious to leave you some memorial of a parent whom in all probability you would never know personally.
However, thanks to the persistence of his wife, in 1799 he received permission to travel to a neutral European country without being arrested and he moved from Wilmington to Hamburg, Germany, where he was reunited with his wife and children and lived until 1803. He continued to seek a pardon and was permitted to live in England from 1803. His father Gawen died in 1805 and he was allowed to return to Ireland in 1806.
Later life
Hamilton Rowan returned to the ancestral home of Killyleagh CastleKillyleagh Castle
Killyleagh Castle is a castle in the village of Killyleagh, County Down, Northern Ireland. It dominates the small village and is believed to be the oldest inhabited castle in the country, with parts dating back to 1180. It follows the architectural style of a Loire Valley château, being redesigned...
, County Down, receiving a hero’s welcome. He was a respected figure, spending time in both Killyleagh
Killyleagh
Killyleagh is a village in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is on the A22 road from Downpatrick, on the western side of Strangford Lough. It had a population of 2,483 people in the 2001 Census. It is best known for its 12th century Killyleagh Castle...
and Dublin. While he had agreed to be a model citizen under the conditions of his return to Ireland, he remained somewhat active in politics and (contrary to the biographical tradition) never lost his youthful radicalism. Following his last public appearance at a meeting in the Rotunda
Rotunda Hospital
The Rotunda Hospital is one of the three main maternity hospitals in the city of Dublin, the others being the The Coombe and The National Maternity Hospital...
in Dublin "organized by the Friends of Civil and Religious Liberty" on January 20, 1829, he was lifted up by a mob and paraded through the streets. After the deaths of his wife in February 1834 and his eldest son, Gawen William Rowan Hamilton, in August, Hamilton Rowan died in his home on November 1, 1834, an old man. While several of his radical acquaintances, like Tone and Jackson, died as a result of their political activities, Archibald Hamilton Rowan was able to escape this fate and live to the full age of 84. He was buried in the vaults of St Mary's Church, Dublin.
Hamilton Rowan was unable to finish his memoirs, and after his death, his family handed his papers and the task off to his friend, Thomas Kennedy Lowrey, who was also unable to finish them. Lowrey in turn passed them off to William Hamilton Drummond who finished the job and published Hamilton Rowan’s Autobiography in 1840. According to Harold Nicholson (his great-great-grandson), none of Hamilton Rowan's working papers exist, and some of them were burned by either his great-aunt Fanny or his great-aunt Jane. However, Hamilton Rowan produced several versions of his memoirs (in varying degrees of completion) at his own lithographic press in Dublin. These can be found in libraries in Ireland (Royal Irish Academy, National Library) and in Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...
(The Historical Society of Delaware). And manuscript versions of the memoirs by various hands (again, in varying degrees of completion) are preserved in the Royal Irish Academy, The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, and The Delaware Historical Society.