The Duplex Family: Revolutionary War veteran, Tioga County NY pioneers, church founders, doctor, civil war veterans, mayor, and world war veterans.
Prince Duplex, Sr., was one of at least 289 people of African descent who enlisted in the Connecticut Line during the American Revolutionary War. At birth in February 1754, he was by law the property of Samuel Riggs. While the term "slave" was not in common use, he was a servant "for life," as were his parents, later inherited by Riggs's daughter Abigail and her husband, Rev. Benjamin Chapman. He enlisted in the 8th Connecticut Regiment on 18 May 1777, recorded on the muster roll as a “free man of color.” It is not documented whether he was already free, or granted freedom on condition of serving as a soldier.
From 1777 to 1780, Duplex served in several battles of the Pennsylvania Campaign, including the Battle of Brandywine Creek on 11 September 1777. The 8th Connecticut marched in General Alexander McDougall's Brigade, part of the column commanded by General Nathaniel Greene, down Limekiln Road, in the surprise attack on British General Howe's main camp at Germantown on 4 October 1777. Duplex also fought in the defense of Fort Mifflin at Mud Island (10–15 Nov. 1777), and spent the winter at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, beginning in December 1777. Duplex remained among 346 soldiers in the regiment, 233 of them fit for duty, who marched out in June 1778 in General Varnum's Brigade, Lee's Division, to fight at Monmouth, on 28 June. Duplex was discharged at Morristown, New Jersey, 16 May 1780, paid four pounds, six shillings, and one penny for his service.
Duplex married Lement Parker on 20 February 1782, at the Congregational Church in
Wolcott, Connecticut, Reverend Alexander Gillett, pastor of the church, presiding. Re-enlisting, Duplex served until 1783 with regiments guarding Horseneck and Stamford, Connecticut. Duplex owned two and a half acres in Wolcott by 1804. The couple had nine children, two dying in infancy. In 1816, Duplex and his wife joined their oldest son, George, and two daughters, Arsena and Craty, moving to Danby, New York. Among the earliest pioneer families to settle in the village, George Duplex acquired a substantial farm, and may have been providing partial support to his parents. As a private soldier in the Revolutionary War, Prince Duplex was allowed $96 a year, paid monthly, commencing 27 April 1818, and up to his death 29 October 1825, received $721.14.
Prince Duplex, Jr., born in 1796, was selected as the first clerk to serve the African Ecclesiastical Society, founded between 1820 and 1824 in New Haven. Completing a new building in 1829 on Temple Street, the church grew to over one hundred members. The Temple Street African Congregational Church developed a Sabbath school, a day school, and a temperance society. It continues to the present day as the Dixwell Avenue United Church of Christ.
Edward Parker Duplex, son of Prince Duplex Jr. and Adaline L. Francis Duplex, was elected mayor of Wheatland, California, on 11 April 1888. He owned a barber shop in the city. Vashti Duplex, the first teacher of African descent in New Haven, married John Creed; their son, Cortlandt Van Rensselaer Creed, graduated from Yale Medical College in 1857, and was appointed assistant surgeon of the Thirteenth Connecticut Volunteers in 1863. One Creed descendant served in World War I in the Harlem Hellfighters (369th Regiment), and another in World War II, with the Tuskegee Airmen (99th Pursuit Squadron).