Washington Duke
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Washington Duke (December 18, 1820 - May 08, 1905) was an American tobacco industrialist and philanthropist.
Duke was born George Washington Duke in Durham County, North Carolina to Taylor Duke (c1770-1830) and Dicey Jones (c1780-ukn). On August 9, 1842, he married Mary Caroline Clinton (1825-1847) with whom he had two children: Sidney Taylor Duke, 1844-1858 and Brodie Leonidas Duke 1846-1919.
After Mary Duke's untimely death at the age of twenty-two, he married Artelia Romey (1829-1858) on December 9, 1852. Both Mary and Artelia died of typhoid fever. With Artelia Duke he had three children: Mary Elizabeth Duke (1853-1893) who married Robert E. Lyon; Benjamin Newton Duke (1855-1929) and James Buchanan Duke (1856-1925).
Washington Duke served in the Confederate Navy (1863-1865) during the American Civil War. After the war he grew tobacco but in 1874 he sold his rural home and moved to the city of Durham, where he began his tobacco business by hand processing tobacco to make it into a form that could be sold by the bag for people to smoke in pipes or to hand roll their own cigarettes. In 1881, the W. Duke Sons and Company was established as a tobacco manufacturer and was soon a marketer of pre rolled cigarettes.
After a "tobacco war" among the five large manufacturers, Washington's son James Duke became president of the dominant American Tobacco Company and son Benjamin its vice-president. They would buiild the company into a multinational corporation and a monopoly. In the 1880 US Census the Dukes are residing in Durham, North Carolina and Washington is living with his son James and two sister-in-laws: Bettie Romey (1830-?) and Annie Romey (1846-?). Also in the household are Jennie Procter (1862-?) as "house assistant" and two servants: Louisa Sparkman (1867-?); and Laura Hopkins (1869-?).
Washington Duke used his influence to have Trinity College built in Durham and the institution opened in 1892 with he and son Benjamin as the institurion's principle benefactors. A major benefactor, in 1896 Washington Duke gifted the college with $100,000 on the condition that it open its doors to women.
Washington Duke is interred in the Duke University Chapel crypt on the campus of Duke University.