Author Description

Dr. Alexander Hamilton (1712-1756), a highly educated Scottish physician who immigrated to Maryland in 1738. From an elite European family, Hamilton was immediately confronted with the relatively primitive social milieu of the New World. He faced unfamiliar and challenging social institutions: the labor system that relied on black slaves, extraordinarily fluid social statuses, distasteful business methods, unpleasant conversational quirks, as well as variant habits of dress, food, and drink that required accommodation and, when possible, acceptance. This is his story of his journey from Maryland to Maine and back in 1744. The book is thought by some to be the best single portrait of men and manners, of rural and urban life in the Colonial era of the United States.