James Duane (February 6, 1733 – February 1, 1797) was an American

Founding Father The following list of national founding figures is a record, by country, of people who were credited with establishing a state. National founders are typically those who played an influential role in setting up the systems of governance, (i.e. ...

, attorney, jurist, and American Revolutionary leader from New York. He served as a delegate to the First Continental Congress, Second Continental Congress and the Congress of the Confederation, a New York state senator, the 44th Mayor of New York City, the 1st post-colonial Mayor of New York City and a United States district judge of the

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. Duane was a signatory of the

Continental Association The Continental Association, also known as the Articles of Association or simply the Association, was an agreement among the American colonies adopted by the First Continental Congress on October 20, 1774. It called for a trade boycott against ...

and the Articles of Confederation.

Early life

Duane was born on February 6, 1733, in New York City, in the

Province of New York The Province of New York (1664–1776) was a British proprietary colony and later royal colony on the northeast coast of North America. As one of the Middle Colonies, New York achieved independence and worked with the others to found the U ...

, to

Anthony Duane Anthony Duane (–1747) was a Protestant Irish people, Irish immigrant to Province of New York, New York who was the father of James Duane (Continental Congress), James Duane, later a Continental Congress, congressman, Mayor of New York City, ...

and his second wife, Althea Ketaltas. Anthony Duane was a

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

Irishman from County Galway who first came to New York as an officer of the

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in 1698. In 1702, Anthony Duane left the navy to marry Eva Benson, daughter of Dirck Benson, a local merchant. They had two sons, Abraham and Cornelius. Duane prospered and bought land for investment, rental, and future development. After his wife's death, Anthony married Althea Ketaltas (Hettletas), the daughter of a wealthy Dutch merchant. By the time of James' birth, his father had become a wealthy colonial settler.Burrows & Wallace (1999), p. 221 Duane's mother died in 1736, and his father married a third time in 1741 to Margaret Riken (Rycken). When Anthony died in 1747, James became the ward of Robert Livingston, the 3rd Lord of Livingston Manor, where he completed his early education.

Career

Duane completed preparatory studies and read law in 1754, with James Alexander. He had an impressive command of the law and was admitted to the bar on August 3, 1754."James Duane", Historical Society of the New York Courts
/ref> He maintained a private practice in New York City from 1754 to 1762, when he became a clerk of the Chancery Court of New York. Duane was acting attorney general of the Province of New York in 1767Vorhees, David William. "Duane, James" in , p. 380 and a boundary commissioner in 1768 (and again in 1784), before returning to private practice in New York City in 1774 and 1775. He was a delegate to the New York Convention which ratified the United States Constitution in 1788. Duane was a member of the Federalist Party.

Law practice and other activities

Duane represented Trinity Church in the very protracted legal action brought by heirs of

Anneke Jans Anneke is a Dutch and Low German female diminutive given name, meaning ''little Anna'' or ''little Anne'', i.e., ''Annie'', an alternate pet or endearing form of Anna. The given name and later surname ''Anneke'' also ''Annecke'' is a diminutive of ...

, who claimed that they, and not the church, were the lawful owners of much of lower

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, a tract which had been given to the church by the British crown. By the early 1770s, his practice earned him 1,400 pounds annually. At the height of his success, Duane had a house in Manhattan, one in the country, and an estate near Schenectady, New York, of and 253 tenants. He was a vestryman of Trinity Church, was appointed one of the church's nine trustees during a post-war crisis about the church's

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...

leanings, and was also a trustee of Kings College, the precursor to Columbia University. In 1761, Duane acquired from Gerardus Stuyvesant a farm known as ''Krom Mesje'' ("little crooked knife") in reference to a small brook that flowed into the East River. He named it "Gramercy Seat". In addition to the farm, Duane also had a house on King Street (later changed to Pine Street).Pine, John B., "Gramercy Park", ''Valentine's Manual of Old New York'', No. 4, (Henry Collins Browne, ed.), New York. Valentine's Manual Inc., 1920, p. 194
In 1765, he was granted a patent for land in Schenectady County, which became the township of Duanesburg. With his boyhood friend

James De Lancey James De Lancey (November 27, 1703 – July 30, 1760) served as chief justice, lieutenant governor, and acting colonial governor of the Province of New York. Early life and education De Lancey was born in New York City on November 27, 170 ...

, Duane was one of the Socialborough Proprietors, holding an area obtained by grant in 1771 and located on both sides of Otter Creek in the present towns of Pittsford and Rutland, Vermont.

American Revolution

Duane was politically conservative. Until his marriage to Mary Livingston, he had been a member of

's political faction, which opposed to the Crown's policies but did not endorse the use of mob violence to protest British measures. His efforts to support resistance in New York led to his being chosen with others to represent the Province of New York at the Congressional meetings in Philadelphia. He remained active in both capacities. Duane was a delegate to the First Continental Congress held in Philadelphia during the autumn of 1774 in reaction to the British Navy's blockade of Boston Harbor and the passage of the

Intolerable Acts The Intolerable Acts were a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws aimed to punish Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest of the Tea Act, a tax measur ...

by Parliament in response to the December 1773

Boston Tea Party The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell t ...

. He was one of the many who were most disposed to reconciliation with Britain and supported the Galloway Plan of Union, which was rejected by the majority of the delegates. Upon his return to New York, he was named to the '' Committee of Sixty'', a committee of inspection formed in the City and County of New York (Manhattan, New York City) in 1775, to enforce the Continental Association, a boycott of British goods enacted by the First Continental Congress. He was a delegate to the Provincial Convention held in New York City on April 20, 1775, where delegates were elected to the Second Continental Congress. It included the delegates to the First Congress as well as five new members. The scope of the Provincial Convention did not extend beyond electing delegates, who dispersed on April 22, the day before news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord arrived. The Second Continental Congress convened its first session on May 10. Duane served as a delegate from 1775 to 1781. Alexander Hamilton, an aide to General

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...

, wrote Duane to ask him to get Congress to expedite supplies. The Committee of Sixty was replaced by a more representative Committee of One Hundred on May 1, 1775. The Committee still considered itself loyal to the British Crown but was opposed to the laws of the Parliament of Great Britain, which it considered unconstitutional because the colonies had no representation in it. The Committee of One Hundred was officially replaced by the New York Provincial Congress which first convened on May 23, 1775. Despite initial reservations regarding independence, he later supported the

Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of th ...

. Because of his service with the Provincial Congress, Duane was not in Philadelphia to sign the Declaration. When the British occupied New York in late summer 1776, he withdrew his wife and family to the relative safety of her father's home at Livingston Manor. He was a member of the New York Constitutional Convention which assembled at White Plains, New York, on Sunday evening, July 10, 1776, for the purpose of drafting a constitution to replace the colonial charter. In July 1778 he signed the Articles of Confederation in Philadelphia. Duane was a member of the Congress of the Confederation from 1781 to 1783. He remained active as a political leader throughout the war and returned home to Gramercy Seat in 1783. He commented that his home looked "as if they had been inhabited by wild beasts".

Post war activities

He was Mayor of New York City from 1784 to 1789, appointed by the Council of Appointment.Burrows & Wallace (1999), p. 267 As mayor, one of Duane's first acts was to donate to the poor the money usually spent on entertainment for his inauguration, about 20 guineas. During his time in office, he strove to help the city revive itself after the damage done by the war and the British occupation, but he was unable to maintain the city's status as the capital of the United States. As head of the Mayor's Court, he heard the landmark case of '' Rutgers v. Waddington'', handing down a Solomonic decision that pleased neither party. After he was called before the State Assembly to explain his thinking, he was censured by that body. He was a member of the New York State Senate from 1782 to 1785, and from 1788 to 1790. In 1785, Duane was one of 32 prominent New Yorkers who met to create the New York Manumission Society, which was intended to put pressure on the state of New York to abolish slavery, as every state in the north had done except New York and New Jersey. He was chosen a member of the Annapolis Convention in 1786 but did not attend.

Federal judicial service

Duane was nominated by President George Washington on September 25, 1789, to the United States District Court for the District of New York, to a new seat authorized by . He was confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

on September 25, 1789, and received his commission on September 26, 1789. He resigned on March 17, 1794, because of ill health.

Personal life

On October 21, 1759, Duane married Mary Livingston (1738–1821), the eldest living daughter of his former guardian Robert. Their children were: * Mary Duane (b. 1762), who married Gen.

William North William North (1755January 3, 1836) was an American soldier and politician. Early life William North was born in Pemaquid, Maine, to John North and Elizabeth Pitson in 1755. John was an Irish immigrant and Elizabeth a native of Boston. He had ...

(1755–1836) on October 14, 1787 * Catharine L. Duane * Adelia Duane (1765–1860), who married merchant Alfred Sands Pell. * James Chatham Duane (1769–1842), who married Mary Ann Bowers (1773–1828) * Cornelius Duane (1774–1781), who died young * Sarah Duane (1775–1828), who married George W. Featherstonhaugh (1780–1866) on November 6, 1808 Duane's grandchildren included George W. Featherstonhaugh Jr. (1814–1900), Robert Livingston Pell (1811–1880), James Duane Pell (1813–1881), George W. Pell (1820–1896), and Richard Montgomery Pell (1822–1882). His great-grandchildren included Alfred Duane Pell (1864–1937) and James Chatham Duane (1824–1897).

Death and legacy

Duane died on February 1, 1797, in Duanesburg, Schenectady County, New York.He may have died in New York City, according to his Congressional Biography. He was interred under Christ Church in Duanesburg. Duane Street in Manhattan was named in his honor., p. 45 Duane Park, at the corner of Duane and Hudson streets is named for him. The

Fire Department of New York The New York City Fire Department, officially the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY), is an American department of the government of New York City that provides fire protection services, technical rescue/special operations services, ...

operated a

fireboat A fireboat or fire-float is a specialized watercraft with pumps and nozzles designed for fighting shoreline and shipboard fires. The first fireboats, dating to the late 18th century, were tugboats, retrofitted with firefighting equipme ...

named ''James Duane'' from 1908 to 1959. The town of Duanesburg, New York, in the western part of Schenectady County, is named for James Duane, who held most of it as an original land grant. The Northern District of New York Federal Court Bar Association presents the annual Judge James Duane Award upon "...a distinguished member of the bar who has carried on Judge Duane’s legacy of excellence in the practice of law, unwavering integrity, and a tireless commitment to the legal profession.""Annual Dinner …", Northern District of New York Federal Court Bar Association, November 29, 2012
/ref> James Joseph Duane, an American law professor at the Regent University School of Law, is a living descendant of James Duane who has received online attention for his video lecture "Don't Talk To Police". Ed Jewett portrayed Duane in the 2008 ''

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of t ...

'' miniseries directed by

Tom Hooper Thomas George Hooper (born 5 October 1972)''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005''. 5d: 2485. is a British-Australian filmmaker. Hooper began making short films as a teenager and had his first professional short, ...

. He appeared in episode 2 "Independence."

Notes

References

Sources

*
The Duane Family Papers 1700-1945 at the New York Historical Society
*

James Duane Historic Marker

Gramercy Park's Hawk Gets a Name

External links

James Duane, The Irish American Who Rebuilt New York
{{DEFAULTSORT:Duane, James 1733 births 1797 deaths Livingston family American people of Irish descent Continental Congressmen from New York (state) 18th-century American politicians Signers of the Articles of Confederation Mayors of New York City Judges of the United States District Court for the District of New York New York (state) state senators People from Duanesburg, New York United States federal judges appointed by George Washington 18th-century American judges United States federal judges admitted to the practice of law by reading law People of the Province of New York Duane family People from Gramercy Park Members of the New York Manumission Society Signers of the Continental Association