Daniel Dulany, Sr. (1685-1753 )
MSA SC 3520-371
New DNB Sources sheet
Subject's name Dulany Daniel 68543
MATERIAL USED IN THE PREPARATION OF THE ARTICLE
1* E. C. Papenfuse, A. F. Day, D. W. Jordan, and G. A. Stiverson, eds., A biographical dictionary of the Maryland legislature, 1635-1789, vol. 1, A-H (1985)
2* A. C. Land, The Dulanys of Maryland: a biographical study of Daniel Dulany, the elder (1685-1753), and Daniel Dulany, the younger (1722-1797), (1968)
3 A. C. Land, Colonial Maryland - a history (1981)
4 R. J. Brugger, Maryland: a middle temperament (1988)
5 M. D. M[ereness], Dictionary of American biography, vol. 3 (1958)
6 A. Day, A social study of lawyers in Maryland (1989)
ARCHIVAL DEPOSITS
SUBJECT'S ARCHIVE
Dulany Family Papers, MS.1919, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Maryland
Dulany Family Papers, MS.1562, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Maryland
OTHER IMPORTANT DEPOSITS
None
SOUND ARCHIVES
None
MOVING-PICTURE ARCHIVES
None
LIKENESSES
Justus Engelhardt Kuhn, portrait (oils), n.d., Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Maryland
WEALTH AT DEATH
Value of estate or
possessions at death £10,921.9.8 current money, including 187 slaves and 2,594 oz. of plate, but not including substantial sums out on loan; c. 10,000 acres in five counties and lots in Annapolis.
Source of data Biographical Dictionary, 1:286
INFORMATION ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR Date completed:
10/1/01
YOUR NAME FOR PUBLICATION Edward C. Papenfuse
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Surname Papenfuse
Full forenames Edward Charles
Title(s) Ph.D.
INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION
Post State Archivist and Commissioner of Land Patents
Institution Maryland State Archives
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE
Address Maryland State Archives
350 Rowe Boulevard
Annapolis, Maryland
Post/zip code 21401 Country USA
Telephone (410) 260-6401
E-mail edp@mdarchives.state.md.us
New DNB Information sheet
SUBJECT'S NAMES
Main Name Dulany Daniel
Variants of main names none
Alternative names none
Name as known none
TITLES
none
BIRTH AND BAPTISM SEX Male x
Birth 1685 Queen's County, Ireland
Source of data and comments: Biographical Dictionary, 1:284
Baptism unknown
FATHER
Main name Dulany Thomas
Alternative names none
Titles none
Birth date unknown Death date unknown
Occupation unknown
MOTHER
Maiden name unknown
Alternative names unknown
Titles unknown
Birth date unknown Death date unknown
Occupation unknown
Source of data and comments: Biographical Dictionary, 1:284
EDUCATION
Dates: Institution:
?-? University of Dublin
ca.1703-ca.1706 Studied law with Col. George Plater, Charles County, Maryland
20 Feb 1717 Admitted to Gray's Inn, Inns of Court, London, England
Source of data and comments: Biographical Dictionary, 1:285;
Land,
Dulanys, 4, 33
RELIGION
1685-1753 Christian: Church of England
Source of data and comments: Biographical Dictionary, 1:285
FIRST WIFE
Main name Smallwood Charity widow of Bayne
Former name Courts Charity neé
Titles none
Birth date 1680 Death date 1711
Occupation none
Relationship married x
Date started 1710 Ended 1711 by death
Source of data and comments: Biographical Dictionary, 1:285
SECOND WIFE
Main name Smith Rebecca
Alternative names none
Titles none
Birth date ca.1695 Death date Mar 1737
Occupation none
Relationship married x
Date started 1717 Ended Mar 1737 by death
Source of data and comments: Biographical Dictionary, 1:284;
Land,
Dulanys, 151
THIRD WIFE
Main name Chew Henrietta Maria widow of Samuel
Former name Lloyd Henrietta Maria neé
Titles none
Birth date unknown Death date 1766
Occupation none
Relationship married x
Date started Sep 1738 Ended 5 Dec 1753 by death
Source of data and comments: Biographical Dictionary, 1:284-85;
Land,
Dulanys, 152
RESIDENCE
Date Address
1685-1703 Ireland
1703-ca.1713 Port Tobacco, Charles County, Maryland
ca.1713-1720 Nottingham Town, Prince George's County, Maryland
1720-1753 Annapolis, Maryland
Source of data and comments: Biographical Dictionary, 1:284
GEOGRAPHICAL/ETHNIC ASSOCIATIONS
By descent Ireland
By association Maryland, England
DEATH AND BURIAL
Death 5 Dec 1753 Annapolis, Maryland
Cause of death unknown
Burial 11 Dec 1753 St. Anne's churchyard, Annapolis, Maryland, "near the north entrance of the church"
Source of data and comments: Biographical Dictionary, 1:284;
Maryland Gazette, 6 Dec 1753 and 13 Dec 1753.
Missing data
None not noted above.
ARTICLE CHECK-LIST
Birth, death, burial x
Parents x
Spouse/partners x
IN YOUR ARTICLE TEXT
Double spacing x
Quotations x
Daniel Dulany (1685-1753), lawyer and placeman, was born in Queen's County, Ireland, one of three sons of Thomas Dulany. He attended the University of Dublin but after his father's remarriage the family could no longer afford his tuition. Dulany and his two brothers emigrated to Maryland, arriving in the spring of 1703. Daniel's indenture was purchased by Col. George Plater (ca.1664-1709), a wealthy planter and officeholder, who employed Dulany as a clerk in his law office.
Dulany completed a legal apprenticeship with Plater and was admitted to the Charles County bar in 1709, and soon qualified to practice in several county courts and the Provincial Court. In 1710 Dulany married Charity Courts Smallwood (ca.1692-1711), daughter of Col. John Courts (1656-1702) and widow of Bayne Smallwood (?-1709). Charity brought two plantations and a slave to the marriage, but Dulany retained only the slave and her child after Charity's death in 1711.
Dulany moved his law practice to Nottingham Town in Prince George's County ca. 1713 and began to buy land there, now styling himself as "gentleman." In 1716 Dulany traveled to England and was admitted to Gray's Inn on 20 Feb 1717, although he returned to Maryland that spring. In the same year, he married Rebecca Smith (ca.1695-1737), daughter of Col. Walter Smith (?-1711) of Calvert County.
In 1720, Dulany, ready for a larger arena for his talents and ambition, established himself in Annapolis. He practiced in the courts of central Maryland and represented clients in the provincial courts of Appeal and Chancery. In Sep 1721 Annapolis voters selected Dulany as a common councilman and in 1722 sent him to the lower house. From 1721 to 1725 Dulany served as attorney general and from 1721 until 1724 as one of the commissary generals. Despite the proprietary offices that he held, during the early years of his political career Dulany and fellow lawyer Thomas Bordley led lower house efforts to circumscribe the proprietor's prerogative powers through the protection of English statute and common law. Dulany in 1728 argued his position in The Rights of the Inhabitants of Maryland to the Benefit of the English Laws. Charles Calvert, 5th Lord Baltimore, kept his copy of the pamphlet (the only one that survives) but never responded directly to Dulany's arguments.
An implicit response may be inferred, however, from Calvert's actions when he visited Maryland in the winter of 1732-1733. Before returning to England, the proprietor disarmed lower house opposition by offering Dulany three of the most lucrative patronage positions at his disposal: agent and receiver general, vice-admiralty court judge, and attorney general. The services of the ablest lawyer in the province (Bordley, his closest rival, having died) were now employed on behalf of the proprietor.
During these years, Dulany did not confine his interests to the law and politics. Already one of the province's largest landowners, in the 1720s Dulany began to survey and patent extensive holdings in the undeveloped Piedmont backcountry. As frontier conditions stabilized, Dulany promoted settlement through sale of family-sized tracts at modest prices or leaseholds that eventually sold as improved farms. To serve the needs of the farmers of this region, the fastest growing in Maryland, Dulany laid out a market town, named Frederick after Lord Baltimore's son; by 1750 it had become the colony's largest town.
In 1731 Dulany joined four other investors to found the Baltimore Ironworks Company. His initial capital of £700 increased in value to £10,000 by the time of his death, as the company became the most profitable of the Maryland ironworks. Dulany engaged in money lending on a large scale, dealing in sterling, currency, and tobacco loans to small tradesmen and planters, and invested in the slave trade, profiting both from slave sales and from loans made to their buyers.
Daniel and Rebecca Dulany had three sons and four daughters before Rebecca's death in March 1737. In Sep 1738, Dulany married for the third time, to Henrietta Maria Lloyd Chew, daughter of Philemon Lloyd (ca.1674-1733), and widow of Samuel Chew (ca.1704-1737). Dulany added six stepchildren (three boys and three girls) to his family by this marriage, and had two more sons by Henrietta Maria.
Dulany continued to serve in the lower house until his appointment to the governor's council in 1742, a position he retained until his death. He resigned as agent and receiver general in November 1734 to become commissary general, or judge of the probate court, a position he still held at his death. Dulany's most notable service in his last decade occurred when his letters to Lord Baltimore in favor of compromise over the issue of officers' fees finally proved persuasive. Strong public support existed during the 1740s for a tobacco inspection act to improve the quality and therefore the prices paid for Maryland's tobacco, but the lower house refused to accept inspection and the resulting elimination of trash tobacco without a compensatory scaling down of officers' fees and clerical salaries. The proprietor had long rejected any legislation that regulated fees as an infringement of the prerogative. The arguments offered by Dulany, himself a recipient of substantial fees, at last convinced the proprietor and in 1747 resulted in legislation that mandated inspection and reduced fees and tithes accordingly.
Daniel Dulany died at his home in Annapolis, after a "long and lingering Illness" (Land, Dulanys, 211), on 5 Dec 1753 and was buried in the family vault in the St. Anne's churchyard. He left a substantial estate that included personal property worth £10,921.9.8 current money (including 187 slaves and 2,594 ounces of plate), sizable sums out on loan, and about ten thousand acres of land in five counties.
Edward C. Papenfuse 941 words