Note Type
Historical NoteNote
The Duryeas have been a prominent family in Montauk, N.Y., for generations, starting with Perry B. Duryea Sr. (1891-1968), an attorney who moved from Amityville to Montauk in the 1920s. He took over the seafood business that E.B. Tuthill had been operating in the fishing village on Fort Pond Bay. He was an East Hampton Town supervisor, having served during the devastating Hurricane of 1938. In 1941, Duryea Sr. was elected to the New York State Senate to fill a vacancy in the 163rd New York State Legislature. He was reelected in 1942 and 1944. He then went on to become the New York State Commissioner of Conservation and a representative of the New York State Advisory Council on Employment and Unemployment Insurance.
Perry Sr. married Jane Steward and the couple had two children, Perry Jr. and Jane Duryea. His sister, Anne, married Major General Norman T. Kirk, who was the Army’s Surgeon General during World War II. The Kirks bought E.B. Tuthill’s former home, and they and the Duryeas spent a great deal of time together in Montauk, as can be seen in some of the photos in the Duryea Family Collection.
In the early 1930s, Perry B. Duryea Sr. purchased the business on the east side of Fort Pond Bay that had been founded in 1882. In the early Duryea days it sold provisions, paint, rope, boots, boat supplies, and gasoline as well as ice and seafood, but before long it was known as Perry B. Duryea & Son and focusing on seafood distribution and ice manufacturing. When Perry Jr. (1921-2004) returned to Montauk from World War II, he rejoined the family business and seized upon an opportunity to connect with lobster dealers in Maine and Nova Scotia. He would bring the lobsters to Montauk and warehouse them at the Duryea’s seafood business, then ship them out to supermarkets, restaurants, and fish markets to the west.
Perry Jr. and his first wife, Elizabeth, had two children: Lynn and Perry III (Chip), and one of the boats the Duryea’s business used to import lobsters – the other, larger one had been a submarine chaser during the war – was named for their daughter. Perry Jr. was a member of the New York State Assembly from 1961 to 1978 and served as its speaker from 1969 to 1973. He ran unsuccessfully for New York State governor in 1978. A former Navy pilot, he was a founder of the Montauk Airport in the 1950s and flew a private plane to Albany when he was in office. A state office building in Hauppauge and the Montauk post office both are named for him.