Alexander Hamilton and Son

Alexander Hamilton and his son Alexander D. Hamilton were African American builders in Atlanta from the 1890s into the 1920s. Their contracting firm, Alexander Hamilton and Son, began in 1890, when the younger Hamilton joined his father's business.

Alexander Hamilton was born a slave, circa 1840, likely in either Georgia or North Carolina. He served in the Union army during the Civil War (1861-65) and married Martha "Mattie" Ann Coker. Their son Alexander Daniel Hamilton was born on November 24, 1870, in Eufaula, Alabama. The couple also had four other sons before Martha Hamilton's death.

While in Alabama, the senior Hamilton served for two years in the state legislature and was also elected to the Eufaula city council. In 1877 the Hamiltons moved to Atlanta, where thesenior Hamilton married Katie Grant and became a respected contractor. In 1894 he moved into a house, which he built for himself, on Hilliard Street in the Sweet Auburn district of Atlanta, and lived there until his death on May 26, 1911. Other residences for which Hamilton served as contractor likely exist in the neighborhood as well.

The younger Hamilton attended Atlanta University (later Clark Atlanta University) for three years before joining his father's contracting firm in 1890. Two years later he married Nellie Marie Cook, and the couple had seven children: Alexander D. Jr., Eunice Evelyn, Theron Bertram, Henry Cooke, Marion Murphy, Nellie Marie, and Joseph Thomas. In 1930 Henry Cooke Hamilton married Grace Towns, who in 1965 became the first African American woman elected to the Georgia