I found a box with a note saying “Duane Papers” attached to it, containing conserved manuscripts, photos, and engravings that were waiting to be placed in folders and labeled. The empty cover pictured below was in an old file envelope at the bottom of the box, suggesting the loose items and the cover went together.
Unsure of what I had found, I looked for clues in the legal file for the Duane Family Papers (Mss.Sms.Coll.2) and found a list titled Memoir of William J. Duane, Illustrated by William Duane that matched many of the items in the box. The memior’s subject, William J. Duane (1780-1865), was the father of William Duane (1808-1882), the memoir’s illustrator.
Still, there were more items on the list than were in the box, so my search continued. Working from the list and cross checking our finding aids, I found matches in the Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection (Mss.Ms.Coll.200) that had been given to the APS by the family years before, and wondered if the Duanes had removed them from the Memoir, Illustrated. I also found that other pages from the list had been distributed throughout the larger collection of the Duane Family Papers and in the Thomas Jefferson Papers (Mss.BJ35).
Gathering all the pieces together, I realized that the Memoir, Illustrated had originally been a very special scrapbook. Interspersed with pages from a different memoir—the 1868 Biographical Memoir of William J. Duane by William Duane—the scrapbook tells exciting tales about multiple generations of Duane family members.
A note written by Rev. Charles W. Duane (1837-1915), son of William Duane and grandson of William J. Duane states: "...the collection of illustrations having been begun by him (William Duane) and completed by myself.”, November 30th 1889.
I wanted to try to put the scrapbook back together following its original order. I had the good fortune to find that someone had microfilmed Memoir, Illustrated in 1962, prior to leaves being removed by the family or having been disbound for conservation in 2007.
One of the highlights from the scrapbook includes correspondence from English physician John Fothergill, writing from London in 1766, warning Americans against having an “impetuous temper” over the Stamp Act. He writes to his friend (possibly James Pemberton) that “B. Franklin has served you ably & uprightly.”
Through the scrapbook, we learn that Col. William Duane (1760-1835), William J. Duane’s father, was disowned by his mother for marrying a Protestant. He decided to leave Ireland to learn the printing business in England, and from there, landed a job in Calcutta, India as the editor and manager of the newspaper, the Bengal Journal. After a falling out with the owners, he re-entered the newspaper business as proprietor and editor of The World. All was well until he ran afoul of the East India Company for something he wrote, and was kidnapped and unceremoniously deposited back on the shores from whence he came. Next, he decided to go into business in America with Benjamin F. Bache as co-editor of the newspaper, Aurora.
By 1807, a number of years following the death of B. F. Bache to yellow fever, we read correspondence from one James Perdue, challenging Col. Duane to a duel and simultaneously applying for Duane’s job as editor; perhaps in anticipation of an imminent vacancy?
Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger B. Taney is also in the scrapbook, commemorating the time William J. Duane was dismissed as President Jackson’s Treasury Secretary for refusing to withdraw the government's deposits from the Second Bank of the United States (see header image), without the consent of Congress. Taney replaced Duane under a recess appointment.
Beyond the scrapbook, the collection includes manuscripts that are a testament to the perils faced by colonists once they declared independence. For example, members of the Secret Committee of Correspondence—Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Harrison, and Robert Morris—wrote to Stephen Cleveland, Captain of the Continental Navy’s Brig Dispatch, on July 30, 1776, asking him to carry secret information to and from France. If he should be captured, they said he was to attach a stone to the packets and throw them overboard.
Another manuscript of note is a Memorial written in 1808 from merchant Samuel Grove to James Madison asking for help with an "illegal seizure of his ship and her cargo of 220 slaves by a privateer commissioned by General Ferraud of St Domingo." In the lower corner of the memorial, President Thomas Jefferson responds, “The government of the U.S. will not make itself an accomplice in the crimes of invading a foreign nation which never did it a wrong, in the abduction of their people and selling them in slavery.” (Mss.B.J35.57)
Resources:
- Duane Family Papers, American Philosophical Society
- Thomas Jefferson Papers, American Philosophical Society
- Little, N. (n.d.), Transoceanic Radical: William Duane: National Identity and Empire, 1760-1835. Pickering & Chatto.