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MfiMOtR Of THE HON. JAMES DUANE.

could carry into effect his intention of fixing his permanent residence in Duanesburgh. His privatebusiness gave him sufficient occupation, his estate consisting principally of wild lands purchasedbefore the revolution, and which by leasing and improving in his own hands he was endeavoring torender productive. His Vermont lands had been released to that state by New York , against hisconsent, under promise of a trifling equivalent, and even that not paid until some time after hisdeath. He considered our State bound to make good the loss of its citizens in relinquishing theselands, and among his papers is part of a brief on the subject prepared for Mr. Harrison, whoonce argued the matter before the Assembly on behalf of the proprietors. In 1795 he had thegratification of witnessing the consecration, by Bishop Provost, of an Episcopal church he haderected in Duanesburgh, at his own expense. In 1796 he commenced building a house in thattown for his own residence, but he never lived to complete it. On the morning of the first ofFebruary, 1797, just as he was about to rise, he was taken with an affection of the heart, andexpired immediately.

This notice of his public employments shows the esteem and respect in which the Hon. JamesDuane was universally held ; in private life there is no tradition of his having ever lost a friend.He was of a kind, cheerful, and social disposition, fond of society, and well calculated to bear aprominent part in it, whether the amenities and courtesies of life were required to be exercised, orwhether grave matters of business were topics of discussion. Many societies in other statesenrolled him among their members. He was an honorary member of the Cincinnati Society in July,1784, attended their meetings, was one of their committee of correspondence, and aided in procuringthe alteration in their constitution that took away the jealousy of so many of the ardent democracyof the country. No layman of the Episcopal church was more instrumental than himself in unitingall its members in the United States under one constitution, and in obtaining the consecration of herfirst bishops.

At his death Judge Duane was survived by his widow, one son and four daughters. The sonwas the late James C. Duane, of Schenectady . His oldest daughter married the late General Northof Duanesburgh, and is long since dead. His second daughter married George W. Feather-stonhaugh, an English gentleman, who after her death returned to England, and has been for someyears consul at Havre. Another daughter married the late Alfred S. Pell Esq., and is yet livingin the city of New-York , and the remaining daughter resides in Duanesburgh, and for herdisposition and deeds of charity, is the worthy representative of her distinguished father.

Judge Duane is interred under the church he built in Duanesburgh, and a neat mural tablet withinthe church is erected to his memory. His widow survived until 1821, and is buried beside herhusband, and a similar monument to his, records her memory, and reminds us of her virtues. Thereare two original portraits of Judge Duane preserved; one by Coply, painted about the year 1773,now in the possession of his great granddaughter, Mrs. Weston, of Augusta, Maine ; the other paintedby C. W. Peale, about the close of the revolution, now in the possession of his grandson, JamesDuane, of Franklin county, and of which the one in the City Hall, of New-York , is a copy.