What legends are made of

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent CREDIT U.S. Treasury

By Patra Ann Taylor

The French Protestant (Huguenot) Church in downtown Charleston is striking not

because it dazzles the eye, but because it refuses to. Completed in 1845, it was Charleston’s first Gothic Revival church, yet it has no stained-glass windows, painted Madonnas, or gilded crucifixes — only clear glass windows, plaster walls, and visual symmetry.

That simplicity isn’t incidental; it is theology. The heirs of 16th century French Protestantism have continued to keep their sanctuary largely free of religious iconography even as the city around them became more lavish and ornate.

What adorns the church’s interior instead are names carved in stone: rows of commemorative plaques honoring generations of Huguenot descendants who helped build and steer our country. And among the many impressive family names, two plaques stand out for what they say about power, money, and the endurance of the Huguenot community. This recent point of pride is that it now claims kinship — spiritual in one case, literal in another — with both the first and the 79th secretaries of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton and Scott Bessent.

Hamilton’s connection is through blood and belief rather than a membership roll. Born on Nevis in the Caribbean, he was the son of Rachel Faucette, whose family was of English and French descent. Her Huguenot father, John Faucette, left France for the West Indies after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which reignited France’s Wars of Religion and stripped Huguenots of their freedom to worship.

Bessent’s tie is closer to home. Born in Conway in 1962, he grew up in Little River, a natural outgrowth of the Huguenot colony of French Santee. He is a member of the French Protestant Church in Charleston.

In a modest sanctuary without crosses or religious paintings, that double claim — first and 79th — lands with quiet force. A persecuted minority that once fled France is literally etched into the institutional memory of America’s financial leadership.

Alexander Hamilton’s résumé is familiar but worth reviewing. Orphaned young, he made his way from a counting house on St. Croix to New York, fought in the American Revolution, and became George Washington’s indispensable aide before serving as the first United States secretary of the Treasury from 1789 to 1795.

He drew up the young nation’s financial blueprint: assuming state debts, establishing public credit, and creating the Bank of the U.S. He also helped launch the Federalist Party —America’s first organized political party — and wrote a torrent of pamphlets and essays, from “The Federalist” papers to sharp-edged attacks that hit his opponents with almost reckless energy. In short, Hamilton turned Huguenot thrift and discipline into a national finance system that favored order instead of improvisation. His tools were ledgers, law and an aggressive pen.

Scott Bessent’s path runs through different institutions but intersects Hamilton’s job description at a surprising number of points. From public schools in Horry County, he went to Yale, then to Wall Street, building a career as a global macro investor and eventually becoming a partner and chief investment officer at Soros Fund Management.

In 2015, he founded Key Square Group, his own macro hedge fund, and later became a prominent economic adviser and donor to Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign. After Trump’s reelection, Bessent was nominated and confirmed as the 79th secretary of the Treasury in early 2025, trading the trading floor for the office once held by Hamilton.

If Hamilton had to explain public credit to a largely agrarian Congress, Bessent faces the task of steering an economy shaped by algorithmic trading, artificial intelligence and global capital flows. In interviews, he often talks about the need for the U.S. to stay ahead in AI and quantum computing and urges young Americans to master those tools if they want to get ahead. One of the most striking parallels between the two men is how much time each spends talking to the country around him. Hamilton rarely met an argument he didn’t want to print; his pamphlets and essays flooded the early republic’s public sphere, defending his financial plans and swiping at rivals.

Bessent operates in a different medium but with similar relentlessness. He appears on television and digital platforms. In his cool, deliberate tone, he describes the economic risks and defends the administration’s policy (which he influenced) with long, careful answers that leave little room for interruption. When confronted with ignorant questions, he can be sharp and unwavering; in one clip, he suggests to an interviewer that she get rid of whoever does her research — a modern equivalent of Hamilton’s habit of footnoting his opponents into oblivion. In that sense, Bessent is a 21st‑century pamphleteer: not writing essays for printers but delivering data‑heavy monologues for audiences who will see them chopped into short, shareable sound bites.

Both men, too, have carried controversy alongside responsibility. Hamilton’s personal life and combative writing culminated in the duel with Aaron Burr, which cost him his life in 1804 and cemented his legend as both a statesman and a cautionary tale.

Bessent’s battles are of a different kind — less fatal, more digital. His years at Soros Fund Management and his closeness to certain figures in global finance make some on the populist right uneasy, even as he backs policies aimed at returning industry to America and tightening immigration‑related benefits. Bessent’s tenure will be judged on whether he manages inflation, technological disruption and fiscal strain without breaking the institutions he now oversees.

What links these two men, beyond their office, is a shared inheritance of resilience and austerity. Huguenots fled France rather than surrender their faith; they prized education, work and community, and they quietly built durable institutions wherever they settled — from Nevis and New York to Charleston and Little River.

On the eve of Jerome “Too Late” Powell making his exit as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the question is, “Will Trump finally unleash his secret weapon?” All eyes will be on Bessent as he steps to the plate and aims for the stands.

In the unadorned sanctuary on Church Street, the plaques for the first and 79th secretaries of the Treasury hang without flourish, part of a larger grid of names. No images, no crosses, no stained glass — only letters cut into stone, reminding visitors that influence does not always announce itself with trumpets and fanfare. Sometimes it comes softly in the night … to change everything.

Patra Ann Taylor is the author of “Christmas Angels” and “Edge of Summer,” the first novel in her Anna Ghere Mystery series. She invites you to visit her website at patraanntaylor.com or email her at patra@patraanntaylor.com.