A rare letter from New York Post founder Alexander Hamilton to James Madison sold this week for $113,850, surging past the original estimate of up to $10,000.
The 1790 handwritten missive from America’s first Treasury secretary mentions Thomas Jefferson and chronicles the events that inspired “The Room Where It Happens,” from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical “Hamilton.”
The letter, which connects the three founding fathers, sold at auction by Lion Heart Autographs Inc. in New York on Wednesday.
Hamilton wrote it while he and Jefferson, the secretary of state, were at odds until with Madison’s assistance they worked out their differences and agreed to the Compromise of 1790.
It provided for the nation’s capitol to be moved to a location on the Potomac and the passage of Hamilton’s resolution that the government assume the debts incurred by the states that had fought in the Revolutionary War.
Hamilton, a scrappy immigrant from Saint Kitts and Nevis, composed 51 of the Federalist Papers before a scandalous affair scuttled his chances for a bigger political future.
But one of his enduring achievements was founding The Post, the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States.
The first issue was published on Nov. 16, 1801, nearly three years before Hamilton would die in an infamous duel with Aaron Burr.