Today is January 11th, widely believed to be Alexander Hamilton’s birthday. How long ago the famous founder’s birthday was, however, remains something of a mystery.

Hamilton is a slightly unusual figure amongst America’s Founding Fathers, in that he only arrived in what became the United States in 1772. Nevertheless, he threw himself into the American Revolution with a will – famously firing cannons on British troops holed up in what is now Princeton University at the aptly named Battle of Princeton – and soon found himself on George Washington’s staff.

Where was he born? Nevis, the junior partner in what is now St. Kitts and Nevis, a tiny Caribbean nation where the British monarch is still, to this day, head of state. When was he born? 1755. Maybe. It could have been 1757. It turns out we don’t actually know.

WHY DON’T WE KNOW? 

Hamilton’s father, a Scottish merchant, abandoned him and his mother when he was a boy. His mother, a Frenchwoman, had him out of wedlock, while still married to another man (who had already had her imprisoned for adultery).

She did not last long after her relationship with Hamilton’s father failed, moving to St. Croix in what is now the U.S. Virgin Islands but dying within two years.

Despite this trying boyhood, the young Hamilton was recognized as a talented writer by his island community, and it was they who raised the money to send him to New York to study. No one on the mainland knew his age when he arrived, and we have been left with conflicting accounts – leading to the confusion that is still with us today.

Hamilton himself intimated he was born in 1757, and this is the date listed on his impressive funerary monument in Manhattan.

However, a transcript of a probate hearing following his mother’s death – which incredibly, is still with us (though his birth and baptism certificates are not) – records a relative as testifying he was born in 1755.

Why Hamilton would have claimed to be younger than he was – if he did – is unknown. Historians speculate that as an ambitious young writer, he may have wished to come off as more of a prodigy than he was. It is also possible he thought presenting himself as a younger lad would increase his chances of being able to secure opportunities such as apprenticeships.

Unless there are papers in some hitherto unnoticed corner of Nevis, we will likely never know. Hamilton took the secret with him to the grave, when he was shot dead in a duel by Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804.

It was not a completely inglorious end for the Federalist thinker. It was Burr who demanded the duel, over a perceived insult. Hamilton wrote he intended to “throw away” his shot, influenced, perhaps, by the fact his firstborn son was killed in a duel, devasting him and his wife. It is claimed Hamilton did fire into the air above Burr’s head, striking a tree branch, to spare his life.

Burr, however, took deliberate aim at Hamilton, delivering what proved to be a mortal wound to his midsection. His contemporaries did not remember him kindly.

Happy 266th or 268th birthday, Mr Secretary!