Nicholas Cruger (1743-1800)

He was born at New York City and became a merchant trading between there and the West Indies where he acquired significant plantations. He was a friend of George Washington and for whom Washington had his portrait taken in Philadelphia; and, he was the early patron of Alexander Hamilton and it was in his counting-house that Hamilton began his mercantile apprenticeship. His first wife, Ann, was the daughter of Bertram Pierre de Nully, of Santa Cruz (St. Croix), by his wife Catherine, daughter of Gen. Pierre Heyliger, Governor-General of the Danish West Indies and Chamberlain to Christian V. In 1780, he purchased "Rose Hill," on 131-acres north of New York City roughly where 23rd Street and 4th Avenue now intersect. It was originally owned by the Roosevelts and in 1747 John Watts bought it from James Delancey.