Jacob Duché Jr. (153)

Elected to the American Society.

Jacob Duché Jr.  (31 January 1737–3 January 1798) was an Anglican clergyman and member of the American Philosophical Society via his 1768 election to the American Society. His father, Jacob Sr., was a wealthy merchant, later mayor of Philadelphia, and also an APS member. Jacob Jr. studied at the Academy of Philadelphia and then the College of Philadelphia, graduating as valedictorian of its first class in 1757, before sailing to London to pursue ordination at Cambridge. He left after a year with an ordination to the deaconate, taking posts at Philadelphia’s Christ Church (assistant minister) and the College (professor of oratory), before marrying Elizabeth Hopkinson, the daughter of first APS president Thomas Hopkinson. In 1762, Duché returned to England, received orders to the priesthood, and quickly decamped back to Philadelphia, remaining an assistant minister until his elevation to pastor in 1775. Beginning with the opening prayer to the first Continental Congress in September 1774, Duché established himself as the religious voice of the early rebellion, preaching publicly on the providential support of the cause for liberty. He became the chaplain of Congress in July 1776 but resigned in October due to the strain of tending his congregation amidst ill health. Despite his earlier warmth for the rebel cause, Duché in 1777 wrote an infamous letter to George Washington enumerating a potpourri of reasons the American effort was doomed. The letter quickly appeared in print, and in December 1777 Duché made way for England; his property was confiscated and his family sent into flight, joining him only in 1780. From 1782 on he made a fairly comfortable life in exile at the head of the Orphan’s Asylum in St. George’s Field, Lambeth, but he longed to return, doing so in 1792 after the repeal of anti-Tory laws. Although he argued in the early 1780s he remained the rector of Christ Church, a reunion was preposterous for multiple reasons: the damning letter to Washington, of course—but also the fact that fellow APS member William White had supplanted him, and that Duché’s religiosity took a mystical and Swedenborgian turn. (PI)