John Barker Church was born in Lowestoft, England, befriended the cause of the American Revolution (while making a fortune as a supplier to the Continental and French armies), was Commissary General of the French Army in America, and financially aided the new government. Returning to England after the war, he was elected a Member of Parliament. The Church family moved back to America for good in 1799, where he became a founding director of the Manhattan Company[1] and a director of the Bank of North America. Church married Angelica Schuyler, a daughter of General Philip Schuyler whose sister Elizabeth married Alexander Hamilton. Their son, Philip Schuyler Church served as aide de camp to Hamilton; married Anna Matilda Stewart, daughter of General Walter Stewart; and was a founder of the Erie Canal and Erie Railroad. John and Angelica Church befriended many French upper-class refugees from the French Revolution, helping them settle in Allegany County, New York and elsewhere in the United States.
Belvidere, the Church family estate in rural western New York, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 as a prime example of Federal style architecture.[2]
Church was an experienced duellist, and owned the Wogdon pistols used in the 1804 Burr-Hamilton duel. The weapons had already been used in an 1801 duel, in which Hamilton's son Philip was killed. Following the Burr-Hamilton duel, the pistols were returned to Church, and reposed at his Belvidere estate until the late 19th century[3].
Later legend claimed that these pistols were the same ones used in a 1799 duel between Church and Burr, in which neither man was injured. This makes sense according to the accepted rules of the 'code duello', in which the challenged (in this case, Church) had the right to choose the weapons[4]. However, the same rule was apparently ignored in the 1801 duel, where Philip Hamilton was the challenger and also supplied the weapons borrowed from his uncle. Also, Aaron Burr claimed in his memoir that he, not Church, supplied the pistols for his duel with Church, and that they belonged to him[5]. Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow accepts Burr's version of the story[6].