Commissioners of Common School     Minutes of 1854   Commissioners
City of Schenectady 1854

REV. ISAAC GROOT DURYEE

Isaac Groot Duryee was born at Glenville, Schenectady County, New York on July 28, 1810, the eldst son of William and Sarah (Groot) Duryee.  His father served in the New York State Militia during the War of 1812 and within a few yeas moved to western New York and thence to Michigan Territory in search of land and a better life.  Young Isaac remained with relatives in Schenectady to receive and education.

While working in the grocery business, Isaac Duryee was converted during the great religious revival of 1832.  Feeling the call of the ministry, he began at once preparing himself for that work by attending school and graduating from Union College at Schenectady in 1838, Andover Theological Seminary in Andover, Massachusetts in 1841, and later from the New Haven Seminary in New Haven, Connecticut.  Rev. Duryee was able to preach and converse in both English and Dutch.  He was a man of strong abolitionist convictions an during his college days he built a church in Schenectady for African-Americans, who were without a place to worship.  The church, now known as the Duryee Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church, is still in existence to this day.

Isaac was attending school at New Haven, when he was united in marriage to Miss Lydia Auger Duington on June 1, 1842.  Rev. Duryee subsequently preached at Glenham, NY for about ten years, then returning to Schenectady as a pastor of the Second Reformed Dutch Church of America, he built a new edifice and stayed until the Civil War.  In April 1854, Rev, Duryee was selected one of eight commissioners on the first Board of Education for the newly formed free school system in Schenectady.