The i forgot to tell you who i am. I am joe kelly, the chapter president. Chapter president of the Alexander HamiltonAwareness Society of the state of pennsylvania. And i was very proud tonight to i was about to introduce our president , but a special guest has asked if they may say a few words. Ladies and gentlemen, i have been given the honor tonight and the privilege of introducing our distinguished and special guest. He prefers to call himself a farmer. His accomplishments go far beyond the tilling of the earth. He has served as a member of the house of burgess in virginia and as a delegate to the Continental Congress. He has received an Honorary Degree of doctors of law from harvard university, yale college and other renowned institutions. He is a member of the american philosophical society, and the president general of the society of cincinnati. In the french and indian war he served as as commander of the virginia militia. Our guest served also as the commander in chief of the Continental Army during the war of american independence. He was the presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention. In 1789 he took the oath of office and was sworn in as our nations first chief magistrate, a position for which he now stands in his second term in office. Please, everyone, stand. Ladies and gentlemen, i give you his excellency, the president of the United States of america general George Washington. [ applause ] no need to stand on ceremony. Sit yourselves down. What a great pleasure it is, truth be told with mixed emotions that i stand on the banks of the Delaware River yet again. There is a great deal of history connected to the delaware, but then again, you all know that. You know, i have read that if hiftor yog rafrs would tell the story of the formation of this country it would be given the epithet of fiction, and it will not be believed. I played a small part in that story, but tonight you are going to be illuminated, treated, if you will allow, to a story about a gentleman who played no small part with regard to the formation of this country. A gentleman colonel Alexander Hamilton who i consider an aide, an adviser, an indispensable secretary and perhaps my closest and the finest adviser. I could elucidate for you all with regard to that last, but i think our guest speaker this evening will do a fine and far better job than myself. So to the matters at hand, you will forgive me, i have not only grown gray in the service of my country, but nearly blind as well. [ applause ] our guest speaker is mr. Rand chalet. Mr. Chalet, make no mistake, is an analyst and he covers the early revolution and early constitutional periods. He has been featured as a speaker on cspan at the National Park sites throughout, daughters of the American Revolution, sons of the American Revolution, the museum of american finance, colombia university. That, of course, used to be called Kings College before the war, hamiltons college, washingtons headquarters and other historical societies and locations and venues. Hes contributed to articles in the new york times, cnbc, smithsonian, times, and im quite certain i dont know what any of those are. Our speaker has 22 years of analytical skills with ibm in unique ways to the field of history. His findings in the essence of Alexander Hamiltons greatness have given audiences a fresh look at who really deserves the utmost credit for contributing to my successes as well as the vision and foundations that have served our nation so well to offer 225 years. Todays speaker is currently in his sixth year serving as president of the Alexander HamiltonAwareness Society, aha. It is a 501c3 nonprofit education association. Would you please join me in welcoming a gentleman that has come from the florida, mr. Rand chalet, please. [ applause ] since this is a professional presentation, i will not say here comes the general. Here comes the general. We cut that part out. Id like to thank the friends of the Washington Crossing park its great that they have these presentations to help educate and share the history of both the pennsylvania side and the new jersey side including trenton in philadelphia and to cspans American History tv that shares this across the nation and as well as the world especially with a lot going on with the hamilton musical, there is a lot of world interest in Alexander Hamilton so its a great opportunity. Thank you, joe. Joe had this question when we found out that the aha society was invited up to the grand opening of the museum in philadelphia which ill talk about in a moment yesterday, and he said well, when youre up how would you like to speak at Washington Crossing, and i thought about it wondering and i said well, im not throwing away my shot. Im not throwing away my shot, so i said yes. I said yes. And you know why . I want to be on the site where it happened, on the site where it happened, the site where it happened any patriotic american who comes to this spot has to have goosebumps because the difficulty we were in, it was devastating, and it was challenging for not only general washington, and we have a lot at risk. In fact, the thing thats surprising to me that a lot of people dont know in our nation is that this, remember, it was christmas 1776. Do you know there was only one week left on their enlistments . It was terrible. It took them so long to make some sense out of it and it wasnt the u. S. Army like today. It was 13 militias from 13 states and they were finally starting to get their thing together and their act together and there was so much riding on what happened here on this site before they went forward with the treacherous waters just outside of the center here, and so it was really, really special to be here in this prestigious place. Washington is an indispensable partner and this is the essence of alexanders legacy, part one. And thanks again to the Washington Crossing historic park. It was wonderful and a lot of you will look forward to that. Theres another person id like to introduce for a moment that also was invited to the museum and that is the Vice President of the aha society, nicole scholet. Please stand to be recognized. [ applause ]. Many historical organizations are really good on their site. What nicoles been able to do, young people know how to do this especially with social media, websites that connect and we started five and a half years ago, and the work nicole has done and put in place, now that theres an interest in hamilton is invaluable the work that shes done, so i encourage you to look into that. Okay. So yesterday in philadelphia, i dont know if youve seen the building. Its a beautiful building. And its something thats a surprise to us, nicole are walking in to go eat and what did we see . There say bronze relief sculpture, one is the declaration and one is here and it was a chineseamerican woman who wanted to say thank you to america, for the freedom and opportunity and she funded both of those. I always wanted to be in that iconic picture. I thought about it for many years and sometimes you find a way to get the bucket list done, but mostly i wanted to see the size and scope of it. Im 62, and you can see the brick and its really, really good. You should be proud from here that its depicted as one of the two quick relieves. It doesnt make sense that i was here today, i was an average history student and a history student. For some reason the teachers had ideas about what the answers should be, and i thought i came up with good answers so i would get bs and krscs, and it was tr false and thats why this presentation is a bit different than what normally happens, so i hope you enjoy this unique way of looking at it. So this is how it began. A group of us had just won a Softball Championship down in florida. We went to celebrate and my friend richard said you know much about sam adams . I dont really know anything and sort of related to john adams and he stirred things up and you used to read a book on him and i dont read books on history. Okay. I read. I want to let you know that what i just thought of last night is do you know that beer is a gateway drug to American History. Watch this. Watch this. So the first book i read in history was this book, and i couldnt believe that i read it, i am such a patriotic american, i dont know what this precious person did for our nation, so im, like, wow if this author could get me excited in history, what else did he write . A used bookstore owner and it was fascinating and i just kept going and being a type a personality, i just kept going. So i was focused on early American History, and there were these new discoveries and so within the first three and a half years, i read 51,000 pages. Seven days a week. Sorry, thats just the way i am, and so it was in these clone and constitutional history and the first president ial terms, but the thing thats really strange that im here today is the one person i would not study. I studied 46, what i call Founding Fathers and key contributors to the founding of the nation, the last person wases this guy called Alexander Hamilton, overbearing, egotistical monarchist, only cared aboutwase this guy called Alexander Hamilton, overbearing, egotistical monarchist, only cared abo this guy called Alexander Hamilton, overbearing, egotistical monarchist, only cared about rich people and he was in the area of finance and i kaerpt figure it out, but it has, like, six founders in it. Okay. Its a short chapter and ill read this on Alexander Hamilton. I was in business transformation for ibm and transforming anything thats really, really difficult. Jefferson didnt do this, washington did this, and its important so he did something important, and so then i started reading. I end up reading 44 books on Alexander Hamilton after thousands of hours on all of the others and it was this weekend in 2011 because my family got tired of every time id read more about Alexander Hamilton. So what i did for these 47 people, i was making a list every time and not knowing i would have a purpose, but what they actually did of the 47, and then this list for him just kept going and going, and im, like, so with the reaction from my neighbors and friends, i was not going to be able to share Alexander Hamilton, the secret. Not only was he not bad, he was a pretty good guy. So it was this weekend and i couldnt figure it out. It was 4 00 in the morning and all of a sudden the thought came to my mind and i should have given up, and this thought came to the ibm consulting in palisades, new jersey. They sent us there for dealing with difficult engagements, and that was in aerospace and Automotive Industries and i said, boy, this is a difficult engagement. 57 minutes later. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. For five days it came and restructured and a lot of it didnt and it wasnt necessary anymore, and ill share with you now is one page that tells the whole story of 51,000 pages and i just finished my 70th book, but ill share that with you and my objective is to share a remarkable record and a very efficient, short amount of time, for someone who really deserves our gratitude. I know this is quite an astute history and knowledgeable crowd and how many have heard this description of George Washington . Wow thats a lot. Probably 80 . First in war, and first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen. Washington played an undispensable part. What does indispensable mean . Cant do without. In their cities and their states, were talking about washington, who of the key seven founders that i shared with you did the most . Washingtons indispensable partner was second in war. Second in peace, but soy sad. So together well work on this. So what i did, first of all, im one person, and i came into this whole thing that was an average american, washington, jefferson and franklin and still theyre heroes of mine and that was it. And i was, like, well, what does the rest of the nation think . I found a rasmussen here and theyre pretty reputable and fair and balanced and they dont do it every year and maybe every ten years. I dont know how frequently they do it, but they said that washington was considered by half the people as the greatest founding father and then john adams and okay, thats who we all believe is the most important Founding Fathers, and so i took those five as a starting point, and then i took the old youll notice the other names that were in my studies, even lesser known, but still incredibly, and it is so great to see our nation and the new museum of the American Revolution has a lot of balance and representation of all of the countries and i mean, the women were growing the food that the soldiers needed to eat to grow. They were growing the children that were going to become the next generation, so they didnt write the letters and they didnt file reports and stuff, but just incredible contribution by everybody. So these are all of the ones i had studied and one of the things i had a difficult time with in high school was remembering dates and theyre pretty easy to go along with the story and 1776, the declaration of independence, and what . It took us eight years to go from declaring, do you know how many people in the nation fought . I asked, a year, year and a half. Eight difficult years and then, right . We got our independence and then what happened . Constitution sprung forth, right . No. It was another five years, and then washington was our first constitutional president of the United States and why do i say constitutional president . Because we used to have those who presided over the Continental Congress and the congress of confederation. They presided and this was the first time an executive branch ever existed and he was the first constitutional president , and then George Washington i hope hes not here. He passed away december 14th. I dont want to let him in on this news. December 14, 1799. Okay, and i also found out a lot of people didnt know about George Washington. They thought he just looked good. He does look good, doesnt he . They thought he looked good on the horse and things sort of happened, but they really dont know how awesome. Theres no real cheerleaders out there and its just a given and its great that its a given, but people dont realize it was eight years that he was the commander of the Continental Army and then he went back to mount vernon for a while, and then we had the constitutional call and the adoption and ratification for two years. So he came back and presided over that. Then he had the first term as president and second term as president and i dont see too many hands on this one, how many people ever heard of the quasi war and know what it is . Wow thats a lot. The quasi war, 1798 to 1800 and because of the jay treaty, we started becoming better trading partners with britain and that upset the french and that startsed taking our sailors and taking our goods and we were pretty impotent because we didnt have any ships and any army so we were pretty susceptible, but the nation was determined were going to war against france. So adams, president adams at the time asked general washington to please come back and serve his country again. Well talk about it. So these are all of the responsibilities for 25 years that George Washington served our nation once he became a commander. So then when i did this and i said okay, well find out who is really important at each point in time, and in that time slice he contributed to him who contributed most to George Washington. So i took the four that we all knew about, so five total, and i added these three for my research. John j. , Alexander Hamilton and henry knox and people would say who are you, scholet that you picked those three . And so i they said to me very forthly, youve never written a book on history. You dont even have a degree in history so who are you trying to pick those three . Thats a very good point. Fortunately, the next year in 2012, the Franklin Mint comes out with the seven key Founding Fathers. [ laughter ] and only knox was not on there. He deserves to be on there. So i was feeling, okay, at least Something Else happened the next year. The greatest resource and many of you dont know about and already in the last three months and two reenactors and two historians feel their life is changed because of this tool for free. Founders online and it is so great. You can say i want to know, who from . George washington and ben franklin and between what month and year and it brings up seven or 12, and you used to have to be important to go into one of the Founding Fathers looks or into their line wares and they only picked you if you could stay away from the and there are real shocks and shifts going on because guess who the six are . The only one and this is just the beginning and theyll be adding john j. And others and i felt good enough to proceed with my presentation. These two things have happened and her