In Memory of William B. Duryee
In Memory of William B. Duryee
*First agricultural teacher, 1913-1914
*First agricultural agent, 1914-1917
*Sec. of Agriculture, State of New Jersey, 1925-1937
*Member of Monmouth County Planning Board, 1954-1964
*First Chairman, Shade Tree Commission of Monmouth County, 1962-1964
Dedicated by Shade Tree Commission of Monmouth County, May 1965
So, you happen across plaques like this all the time and wonder for a couple seconds, maybe, about the person being memorialized. I encountered this plaque a long time ago, in 2010. My couple seconds of wondering about William B. Duryee passed long ago. But going through old pictures, here he is again.
I'll note in passing that Duryee was enough of a personage in New Jersey government that he rated a four- or five-paragraph wire service obit in The New York Times when he died in December 1964. The piece didn't tell you much more about him than the plaque does.
But our magic global library, which will cough up answers to obscure questions as long as the servers stay alive, produces a little more on Mr. Duryee.
In the midst of the Great Depression, he wrote a book called "A Living on the Land." The book, which got several printings from a major publisher, offered practical advice — even encouragement — to urbanites and suburbanites looking for economic opportunity during hard times. Here's the opening paragraph:
"Homesteading days are here again. The present movement of people back to the land is of a different type and has different objectives from those which prevailed when a continent was to be conquered and exploited. Today we know that many urban industries will operate on a seasonal basis and we know too that periods of unemployment and shorter working days will provide more leisure and probably lower incomes for hundreds of thousands of families. The utilization of this leisure time to supplement incomes, to raise the standards of living and of health, and to attain some measure of economic security will tend more and more to settlement on the land."
The full text is online if that grabs you. And you might even find a vintage copy for sale if you're really smitten with Mr. Duryee's work. Me, I just think of all the misadventures awaiting the city dweller who bought the idea of going back to the land "to attain some measure of economic security."
Submitted by: @danbrekke