A genius at any age

ow does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished, in squalor grow up to be a hero and a scholar?”

The opening song of Broadway’s smash “Hamilton” gets right the harrowing origins of New York’s most influential Founding Father. Now comes historian Michael E. Newton to settle the longstanding riddle of when the brilliant aide to Gen. George Washington, author of most Federalist Papers and first treasury secretary was born on the tiny isle of Nevis.

Hamilton himself and his sons pegged his birth year as 1757; a document from his mother’s death said 1755. Historians have long split into those two camps.

Examining thousands of pages of contemporaneous records from the former Danish colony of St. Croix archived in Copenhagen and now online, Newton found and translated from the handwritten Gothic Danish script young Alexander’s own testimony from a court case, as well as testimony of his aunt from his mother’s divorce proceeding.

Doing the math, the historian narrowed the date to between February 1754 and August of that year, a year older than anyone thought. And the once-universally accepted birthday of Jan. 11 now looks shaky.

Newton’s revelations are in his new 300page book, “Discovering Hamilton,” out today, which we know for certain was Hamilton’s fateful Weehawken duel with Aaron Burr 215 years ago.