Stephen Duncan (March 4, 1787 – January 29, 1867) was an American planter and banker in

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

during the

Antebellum South In History of the Southern United States, the history of the Southern United States, the Antebellum Period (from la, ante bellum, lit=Status quo ante bellum, before the war) spanned the Treaty of Ghent, end of the War of 1812 to the start of ...

. He was born and studied medicine in Pennsylvania, but moved to

Natchez District The Natchez District was one of two areas established in the Kingdom of Great Britain's West Florida colony during the 1770sthe other being the Tombigbee District. The first Anglo settlers in the district came primarily from other parts of Britis ...

Mississippi Territory The Territory of Mississippi was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from April 7, 1798, until December 10, 1817, when the western half of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Mississippi. T ...

in 1808 and became the wealthiest cotton planter and the second-largest

slave owner The following is a list of slave owners, for which there is a consensus of historical evidence of slave ownership, in alphabetical order by last name. A * Adelicia Acklen (1817–1887), at one time the wealthiest woman in Tennessee, she inh ...

in the United States with over 2,200 slaves. He owned 15 cotton and sugar plantations, served as President of the Bank of Mississippi, and held major investments in railroads and lumber. In the 1830s, Duncan was one of the co-founders of the

Mississippi Colonization Society Mississippi-in-Africa was a colony on the Pepper Coast (West Africa) founded in the 1830s by the Mississippi Colonization Society of the United States and settled by American free people of color, many of them former slaves. In the late 1840s, so ...

and helped purchase land in West Africa, known as

Mississippi-in-Africa Mississippi-in-Africa was a colony on the Pepper Coast (West Africa) founded in the 1830s by the Mississippi Colonization Society of the United States and settled by American free people of color, many of them former slaves. In the late 1840s, ...

, to create a colony for relocation of

free people of color In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (French: ''gens de couleur libres''; Spanish: ''gente de color libre'') were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not ...

from the state. He was a

Southern Unionist In the United States, Southern Unionists were white Southerners living in the Confederate States of America opposed to secession. Many fought for the Union during the Civil War. These people are also referred to as Southern Loyalists, Union Lo ...

during the American Civil War and declined to offer assistance to the Confederate cause. He was ostracized in Mississippi due to his pro-Unionist stance and moved from Natchez to New York City in 1863.

Early life and education

Stephen Duncan was born on March 4, 1787, in

Carlisle, Pennsylvania Carlisle is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough in and the county seat of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. Carlisle is located within the Cumberland Valley, a highly productive agricultural region. As of the 2020 United States census, ...

to John Duncan and Sarah Postlethwaite. His family were early settlers to the Cumberland Valley in Pennsylvania and his grandfather received a land grant from

King George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

of Great Britain. In 1793, Duncan's father was killed in a duel when Stephen was only six years old. His mother remarried

Ephraim Blaine Colonel Ephraim Blaine (1741–1804) was an early Pennsylvania settler who served as commissary-general for the middle district of the Continental Army under General George Washington. His great-grandson was Speaker of the House and 1884 president ...

in 1797. He received a medical degree from

Dickinson College , mottoeng = Freedom is made safe through character and learning , established = , type = Private liberal arts college , endowment = $645.5 million (2022) , president = J ...

in 1805.David G. Sansing, Sim C. Callon, Carolyn Vance Smith, ''Natchez: An Illustrated History'', Plantation Pub. Co., 1992, p. 8

/ref> After graduation, he moved to Philadelphia and lived with his mother and sisters while apprenticing as a physician under

Benjamin Rush Benjamin Rush (April 19, 1813) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father of the United States who signed the United States Declaration of Independence, and a civic leader in Philadelphia, where he was a physician, politician, ...

. Duncan married Margaret Ellis, and they had two children together, John Ellis and Sarah Jane Duncan. After his wife died, Duncan married again in 1819, to Catherine A. Bingaman. They had four children: Stephen Jr.; Charlotte N., M. L., and Henry P. Duncan.Louisiana State University Library: Stephen Duncan Correspondence
/ref>

Antebellum career

Map of plantations in Carrol Parish, Louisiana and Issaquena County MS

In 1808, shortly before the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...

, Duncan moved as a young man to

, a developing river town that was important for trade along the Mississippi River. In the

antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum ...

South, Natchez became a thriving city due to the booming

cotton industry Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

. In Natchez, he became a banker and planter.Harold D. Woodman, ''King Cotton and His Retainers: Financing and Marketing the Cotton Crop of the South, 1800-1925'', Beard Books, 199, p. 16

/ref> He served as the President of the Bank of Mississippi (former bank), Bank of Mississippi. The Bank of Mississippi charter was revoked in 1831 and Duncan became one of the founders of the Agricultural Bank of Natchez in 1833. Auburn, Auburn Boulevard, Duncan Memorial Park, Natchez vicinity (Adams County, Mississippi)

Auburn, Auburn Boulevard, Duncan Memorial Park, Natchez vicinity (Adams County, Mississippi)

Duncan purchased

Auburn Auburn may refer to: Places Australia * Auburn, New South Wales * City of Auburn, the local government area *Electoral district of Auburn *Auburn, Queensland, a locality in the Western Downs Region *Auburn, South Australia *Auburn, Tasmania *Aub ...

plantation from Lyman Harding in 1827. Duncan owned 15

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

and

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

plantations A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

including L'Argent, Camperdown, Carlisle, Duncan, Duncannon, Duncansby, Ellisle, Homochitto, Middlesex, Oakley, Rescue, Reserve, Attakapas, and

Saragossa Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributari ...

. He also owned shipping, railroad and lumber businesses in Mississippi and New England. He was a partial owner of the Erie & Kalamazoo, Columbus, Pequa & Indiana, Terre Haute & Richmond and

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

railroads. Duncan sold his crops through the merchant firm Washington, Jackson & Co. in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

, instructing them to sell it through their subsidiary Todd, Jackson & Co. in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

, England. The revenue derived from the cotton and sugar sales was sent to Charles P. Leverich & Co., his bank headquartered in New York. His plantations yielded returns of US$150,000 annually. As a result of these financial transactions, Duncan became the richest cotton planter. In the 1850s, Duncan owned more than 1,000 slaves, making him the largest resident slave holder in Mississippi. By 1860, Duncan's ownership of 858 slaves in Issaquena County made him second nationally to the estate of

Joshua John Ward Joshua John Ward, of Georgetown County, South Carolina, is known as the largest American slaveholder, Duncan became a backer of the

American Colonization Society The American Colonization Society (ACS), initially the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America until 1837, was an American organization founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to encourage and support the migration of freebor ...

. In the 1830s, together with major slave owners

Isaac Ross Isaac Beattie Ross (born 27 October 1984) is a New Zealand rugby union player. He plays in the lock position for the Austin Gilgronis of Major League Rugby (MLR) competition. Professional career Ross is of Māori descent, and played for Ne ...

Edward McGehee Edward McGehee (November 8, 1786 – October 1, 1880) was an American judge and major planter in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. He owned nearly 1,000 slaves to work his thousands of acres of cotton land at his Bowling Green Plantation. In the 183 ...

John Ker John Ker (8 August 1673 – 8 July 1726), born John Crawford in Crawfurdland, Ayrshire, was a Scots Presbyterian linked with Cameronian radicals who between 1705 and 1709 acted as a government informer against the Jacobites. Dogged by financi ...

, and educator

Jemeriah Chamberlain Jeremiah Chamberlain (1794–1851) was an American Presbyterian minister, educator and college administrator. Educated at Dickinson College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he served as the president of Centre College in Kentucky from 1822 to ...

, president of Oakland College, Duncan co-founded the

. Their goal was to relocate free blacks and newly freed slaves to the developing colony of

in West Africa.Mary Carol Miller, ''Lost Mansions of Mississippi'', Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2010, Volume II, pp. 53-5

/ref> The organization was modeled after the

, but it focused on freedmen from Mississippi. They bought a portion of land for the colony. Free blacks were thought to threaten the stability of slave societies, and Mississippi's population had a majority of slaves, outnumbering whites by a three-to-one ratio. The Mississippi colony eventually became part of

Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...

American Civil War and postbellum career

During the Civil War, Duncan remained a steadfast Unionist. He declined to offer any assistance to the Confederate cause and was ostracized by other Southerners.
Read online
Access date: June 20, 2021. With investments worth $1,060,000 unrelated to his plantations, he was able to live comfortably regardless of the outcome of the war. In 1863, Duncan left Natchez and moved to New York City. He unsuccessfully attempted to lobby the Lincoln administration to protect his slaveholdings in Union occupied Mississippi.

Death

Duncan died on January 29, 1867, in New York City. He was buried in the

Laurel Hill Cemetery Laurel Hill Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery in the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia. Founded in 1836, it was the second major rural cemetery in the United States after Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts. The cemetery is ...

in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Legacy

In 1910, his heirs donated the Auburn mansion and its gardens to the city of

Natchez Natchez may refer to: Places * Natchez, Alabama, United States * Natchez, Indiana, United States * Natchez, Louisiana, United States * Natchez, Mississippi, a city in southwestern Mississippi, United States * Grand Village of the Natchez, a site o ...

. The mansion and grounds were designated as Duncan Memorial Park by the city of Natchez.

Citations

Sources

* *

External links

LSU Libraries - Stephen Duncan papers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Duncan, Stephen 1787 births 1867 deaths 19th-century American businesspeople 19th-century American physicians American bankers American colonization movement American planters American people in rail transportation American slave owners Burials at Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia) Businesspeople in wood products Businesspeople from Mississippi Businesspeople from New York City Businesspeople from Pennsylvania Dickinson College alumni People from Carlisle, Pennsylvania People from Natchez, Mississippi Southern Unionists in the American Civil War