At the height of their day, the Hamiltons were a wealthy, respected family of South Carolina purebloods, the only hint of scandal attached to the family name in the public eye being the long-running, almost comically pointless feud with the St. Martins, another prominent family. The height of the Hamilton's day has been over for about two hundred and fifty years. Over a century ago, the family had dwindled to ninety-seven-year-old Augustus Hamilton and his seventeen-year-old granddaughter, Belinda. One last stroke of luck came for the Hamiltons when Augustus managed to arrange Belinda's marriage to nineteen-year-old Anthony Carey IV, then of the Virginia Careys, assumed heir of Anthony Carey III. Her wedding marked the end of the Hamilton line, since, though several families carried Hamilton blood from previous generations, a tendency towards small nuclear families and daughters had lead to the lack of any male heir.

The Virginia Careys ensured that Augustus, as the grandfather of the next matriarch, wanted for nothing for the remainder of his life, which ended early for one of that family when he succumbed to tuberculosis at 107. Upon his death, the Hamilton estate passed to his grandson-in-law, Anthony, who at the time had little use for it except as a retreat for himself, Belinda, and their two children, Catherine and Anthony V. He had the vague intention of securing it to Catherine and her heirs upon her marriage, but that intention went for nothing when she died in a boating accident with her fiancé at age sixteen. When the Virginia Careys broke apart in the struggle between Anthony IV, his twin brother Thomas, and their cousin Richard for the patriarchy, Anthony took his wife, son, and daughter-in-law Marianna to the old Hamilton estate to ensure neither of the other combatants used them against him, but refused to admit that he had lost the fight for another twenty years.

The Hamilton estate is now the main estate of the Charleston Careys. Its occupants - Anthony IV, Belinda, Anthony V, Marianna, Anthony VI, Laura, Anthony VII, Lorraine, and Anthony VIII - are the last group identified with the original Hamilton family, largely because they continued the feud with the St. Martins despite everyone on both sides having long since forgotten what exactly they've been fighting about. Though Anthony V is the technical heir to the estate, most assume it will end up in his son's hands instead, taking into account Anthony VI's unseemly level of open ambition and Anthony V's increasingly delicate health. Since Anthony IV is still in impressively good health for a man his age, no one quite dares to debate this openly.