"[1]: 222  Due to his widowed mother's poverty after Alexander Hamilton's death in 1804, during his childhood Philip "was denied those advantages accorded to his elder brothers, and had, in every sense, to make his own way.

[4] In 1851, during the California Gold Rush, Hamilton moved to San Francisco to practice law as a partner of his wife's brother Robert Milligan McLane.

[5]: 16–18  At the end of the Civil War, Hamilton served as Judge Advocate of the Naval Retiring Board at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

[2] Hamilton's son characterized his career as "a hard, up-hill professional life," with legal clients that included a "very great" number of the poor, especially sailors, and much of his time "given up to unselfish acts.

"[1]: 222 An abolitionist, Hamilton assisted the Underground Railroad in the escape of at least one slave by concealing the fugitive in his cellar until he could safely resume his travel to Canada.