Vincent van gogh childhood

Christopher, and Rachel Fawcett. Rachel's father was a Huguenot physician and planter. While very young, she had been married to and divorced from a Danish proprietor on St. After her divorce, the court prohibited her remarriage. The marriage to James Hamilton was acceptable socially in the West Indies, but not elsewhere. The union resulted in the birth of two sons, but they were living apart less than 10 years later.

When did vincent van gogh start painting

Rachel and her boys lived on St. Croix, dependent on her relatives. She passed away in His father survived until — but the boys were virtually orphans before they were even teenagers. At the age of 12, Hamilton began work as a clerk in a general store, but the boy had a keen intellect and ambitious goals. He was an excellent writer, in French as well as English.

In , a hurricaine ravaged the West Indies. Hamilton wrote a letter about the devastating storm, published in the Royal Danish American Gazette, of such poetic eloquence that a subscription fund was taken up to send the promising young intellectual to North America for a formal education. Even as a young man he had a strong grasp on political issues concerning British and American government, which he exhibited in a series of anonymous pamphlets so discerning, they were attributed to John Jay.