Local Revolutionary War Hero (Unsung) - Simon Duryee 1757-1814

By Candy Willis for The Montgomery News | Posted July 16, 2026

Simon Duryee was born November 30, 1757 of Joost Duryee and Maritie Van Liew. He was baptized Seymen Derye the next year. He grew up on what we know today as Washington Well Farm on what is now Route 518 in Skillman.

He is buried in the Duryee family burying ground at that site. (Find-a-Grave incorrectly notes that he was born in 1767.)

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The Duryee family burial plot is located on private land in Skillman, near the Washington Well Farm. The headstone of Simon Duryee states he died on July 2, 1814 in his 57th year.

Photos by Barbara A. Preston.

Simon’s early military career remains elusive. Simon must have had prior unreported military experience because he first shows up in Stryker’s official register as a captain in the militia. He was incorrectly identified as being in the Somerset County’s First Battalion. He was in the Second Battalion. This battalion recording error trickled down to all the men under his command – they were all recorded as being in the First Battalion – and the error was perpetuated to this day.

As an aside, on June 3, 1775, New Jersey’s Provincial Congress approved a plan for a militia, to wit, “That one of more companies…be immediately formed in each township or corporation…with male inhabitants… sixteen to fifty, who are capable of bearing arms, and thereupon form them into companies… of eighty men each…”

Enlistment was voluntary and confirmed by signature. Each company was to select a captain, two lieutenants, and an ensign. Then all the officers of all the companies got together to select a colonel, a lieutenant colonel, a major, and an adjutant to form a regiment.

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The companies were to assemble at least once per month to practice military discipline. Once one enlisted, there would be fines and penalties for “disobedience, refusal to bear arms, or absence at muster.”

On January 3, 1781, Captain Simon Duryee with 35 of his men and Captain James Moore, another local man, with 30 of his men are recorded as being on duty at Raritan Landing in Piscataway.

By 1782, with the effective end of the war due to the British surrender at Yorktown in October 1781, Simon Duryee held a meeting at his house for residents in his military district to stress “the great importance it is to the County to be well represented in the Legislature of this State.”

The companies in the militia planned to take an active role in politics and present a united front in upcoming elections. Simon was 25 years old at the time.

John Snyder’s 1775 Somerset County map.

Image courtesy of Van Harlingen Historical Society archive .

Property Divisions

By 1785, Simon is co-owner, with his father, of 264 acres. Property divisions ensued over the next several years until 1794, when the father died. Simon and brother William took ownership.

Simon’s father, all this time, had been recorded as having one slave. By 1797, a gentleman identified as Jack Duryee (Negro) appears in the 1792 Montgomery tax ratables. He had a horse but no land. By 1802, he had 40 acres.

Is it possible Jack is that slave, and he was manumitted in Joost Duryee’s will? Additional research will tell.

Simon married Mary Covenhoven Statesur and had five children, all baptized in Harlingen Church. He became active in civic affairs, serving for many years as Commissioner of Appeals. He died in 1814.

Candy Willis is Van Harlingen Historical Society librarian.