James Duane (1733-1797)
Judge, Mayor of New York City & Founder of Duanesburg, New York etc.
He was born in New York City, the son of an Anglo-Irish Officer in the Royal Navy who became a prosperous merchant there. He studied law under James Alexander and was admitted to the bar of New York in 1754. He was successively: Clerk of the Court of Chancery (1762); Attorney-General of New York (1767); Boundary Commissioner (1768); New York State Indian Commissioner (1774); Member of the First the Continental Congress (1774-83); Member of the Provincial Congress (1776-77); Member of the New York State Senate (1782-85, 1788-90); Mayor of New York City, (1784-89); and, U.S. District Judge of New York (1789-94). Between 1766 and 1767 he acquired 64,000-acres in the Vermont Hills and founded the town of Duanesburg in Schenectady County, New York, where he died. He married Maria, daughter of Robert Livingston, 3rd Lord of the Manor of Livingston, and they had ten children (five boys, five girls) but only one son and four daughters lived to adulthood (listed).
