Background
Peter Hamilton was born on November 7, 1817, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of William Thomas and Charlotte (Cartledge) Hamilton. His father was pastor of a Presbyterian church.
Peter Hamilton was born on November 7, 1817, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of William Thomas and Charlotte (Cartledge) Hamilton. His father was pastor of a Presbyterian church.
Peter was educated in the schools maintained by Presbyterian church. He attended academies at Newark, New Jersey, and at South Hadley, Massachusetts, and after some private training entered the sophomore class at Princeton. Here he showed special ability in mathematics and graduated in 1835, ranking seventh in a class of fifty-four. He then studied law.
After graduation, Peter Hamilton went to Mobile, Alabama, where his father was pastor of a Presbyterian church. He taught in Barton Academy for three years, and was admitted to the bar in 1838. He soon became a leader in his profession and with his brother formed the law firm popularly known as “Hamiltons, ” for many years one of the most important in the state. Hamilton specialized in chancery cases and cases in the United States courts and in the state supreme court. He was never fond of criminal cases.
Early in 1860 Hamilton became counsel for the Mobile & Ohio Railroad. For sixteen years he served the road in various positions, being at different times director, counsel, and vice-president. At the end of the war all bridges, trestles, stations, and cross ties had been destroyed for 124 miles. Only eighteen engines and two hundred freight cars were fit for use. The road had lost more than five million dollars in Confederate currency. Hamilton restored this road to usefulness and in so doing he rendered no small service to the state of Alabama.
Hamilton drew up the brief for the respondent in the case of Stein vs. Bienville Company which overturned the monopoly controlling the Mobile water supply, and argued successfully in the case of Waring vs. Lewis that his client, Waring, was not liable for trust funds invested by a trustee in Confederate bonds, although he was bondsman for him.
In 1872 Hamilton was elected to the state Senate and served until 1876. He was the representative of the conservative faction of this legislature sent to Washington to negotiate a union of the radical and conservative groups which met as two separate bodies after the election of 1872. He died in 1888.
Hamilton was elected to the state legislature as a Whig and held the position through the difficult decade which preceded the Civil War. He was opposed to secession, but after Alabama seceded he loyally supported the state. After the war he identified himself with the Democratic party, although he never sought a position of leadership. Throughout the reconstruction period he was a leader of the Conservative party. His legal ability proved useful to the conservatives in many ways. He fought the legal battle to prevent the radical state board of education from destroying the independent school system of Mobile.
Hamilton always held himself apart from people and was reflective and reserved rather than aggressive and talkative. These qualities made him a much better pleader before judges than before juries.
Hamilton was married twice: on December 27, 1842, to Anna Martha Beers of Mobile, and, after her death, on May 23, 1863, to Caroline (Cunningham) Goodman.