| de Lancey family | |
|---|---|
 Arms: Or, an eagle wings displayed, sable, charged on the breast with a shield azure, three tilting lances, or, in pale, points upward [1] | |
| Parent family | de Lancy |
| Current region | England, United States, Canada |
| Place of origin | France |
| Connected families | Schuyler, Van Cortlandt |
The de Lancey family was a distinguished colonial American and British political and military family.
Of French origin, the de Lancey family was a Huguenot cadet branch of the House of Lancy, recognized in 1697 as part of the noblesse d'ancienne extraction (nobility of old extraction), [1] as its noble status had been proven since the 15th century. The earliest known head of the house, Guy de Lancy, was the first viscount of Laval and of Nouvion, and held those fiefs in 1432. His great-great-grandson, Charles II, the fifth viscount, had three sons, including his second son, Jacques, who converted to Protestantism. [2]
The grandson of Jacques de Lancy, Étienne, fled to London following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, where he obtained denization on March 11, 1686, after taking an oath of allegiance to James II and becoming a British subject. [1] He then sailed for New York, arriving on June 7, 1686, and obtaining denization on July 7. Anglicizing his name to "Stephen de Lancey," he married into the influential Van Cortlandt family and became a prominent merchant and member of the provincial assembly. [1] His eldest surviving son, James (1703–1760), became successively Chief Justice of New York and Lieutenant-Governor of the province. [1]
The De Lanceys remained one of the most prominent and politically influential families in the Province of New York until the American Revolution, [3] when they sided with the Loyalists and raised units of Loyalist troops. [1] Consequently, following the end of the conflict in 1783, their estates were confiscated and the family exiled to Britain and Canada. [3] The branch of the family descended from Oliver de Lancey (1718–1785), youngest son of Stephen Delancey, emigrated to Britain, several of its members becoming distinguished officers in the British Army. [1] [2] While most of the family permanently left the United States following the Revolution, John Peter (1753–1828), the son of James De Lancey, resigned his commission in the British Army and returned to New York in 1789, having missed his homeland. His son, William H. DeLancey (1797–1865), served as the Provost (chief administrator) of the University of Pennsylvania and subsequently became the first Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Western New York. [1] [2]
The following genealogical tree illustrates the links among the more notable family members: [1] [4] [5] [6]
Stephanus van Cortlandt was the first native-born mayor of New York City, a position which he held from 1677 to 1678 and from 1686 to 1688. He was the patroon of Van Cortlandt Manor and was on the governor's executive council from 1691 to 1700. He was the first resident of Sagtikos Manor in West Bay Shore on Long Island, which was built around 1697. A number of his descendants married English military leaders and Loyalists active in the American Revolution, and their descendants became prominent members of English society.
Caleb Heathcote served as the 31st Mayor of New York City from 1711 to 1713.
James De Lancey served as chief justice, lieutenant governor, and acting colonial governor of the Province of New York.
Stephen Delancey was a major figure in the life of colonial New York. His children continued to wield great influence until the American Revolution.
James De Lancey Jr. was a colonial politician, turfman, and the son of Lieutenant Governor James De Lancey and Anne Heathcote.
Colonel Sir William Howe De Lancey was an officer in the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. He died of wounds he received at the Battle of Waterloo.
The Schuyler family was a prominent Dutch family in New York and New Jersey in the 18th and 19th centuries, whose descendants played a critical role in the formation of the United States, in leading government and business in North America and served as leaders in business, military, politics, and society. The other two most influential New York dynasties of the 18th and 19th centuries were the Livingston family and the Clinton family.
The Van Cortlandt family was an influential political dynasty from the seventeenth-century Dutch origins of New York through its period as an English colony, then after it became a state, and into the nineteenth century. It rose to great prominence with the award of a Royal Charter to Van Cortlandt Manor, an 86,000-acre (35,000 ha) tract in today's Westchester County sprawling from the Hudson River to the Connecticut state line granted as a Patent to Stephanus Van Cortlandt in 1697 by King William III.
General Oliver De Lancey, also known as Oliver De Lancey Jr., was a British Army officer of French Huguenot and Ashkenazi Jewish descent, from two prominent families in colonial era New York state. His surname is sometimes written as de Lancey or DeLancey.
Major-General Oliver De Lancey was a merchant and Loyalist politician and soldier during the American Revolutionary War. His surname is also sometimes written as de Lancey or Delancey.
Stephen De Lancey was a lawyer and political figure in New York state and Nova Scotia. He represented Annapolis Township in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1784 to 1789.
James De Lancey was a colonial American who led one of the best known and most feared of the loyalist units, De Lancey's Brigade, during the American Revolution. He was known as the "Commander of the Cowboys" by the loyalists and by the Patriots he was known as the "Outlaw of the Bronx". He later became a political figure in Nova Scotia. He represented Annapolis Township in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1786 to 1794. He has become a controversial figure for unsuccessfully trying to use the courts to retrieve a slave he brought to Nova Scotia.
William Heathcote DeLancey was a bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America and the sixth Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. DeLancey was known as a High Churchman, and served as the first bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York. He was elected a Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and then as the ninth provost of the university.
Lancey is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Stephen de Lancey was Chief Justice of the Bahamas and Governor of Tobago.
Edward Floyd DeLancey was an American lawyer, author, and historian.
John Watts was a Scottish-American businessman and landowner.
DeLancey Divinity School was a seminary of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America located in Geneva, New York, and Buffalo. It was founded in 1850 by William Heathcote DeLancey (1797-1865), first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York as a diocesan seminary at Geneva. The Rev. Dr. William Dexter Wilson (1816-1900) was its first warden, and it operated until 1858. On February 1, 1861, Bishop DeLancey opened a new diocesan school at Geneva under the direction of the Rev. James Rankine (1827-1896). In 1866, it was renamed the DeLancey Divinity School in memory of the founding bishop. DeLancey acquired the library of St. Andrew's Divinity School (Syracuse) in 1906. In 1920 it moved from Geneva to Buffalo. It was closed in 1935 by Bishop Cameron J. Davis.
These arms, originating before crests were introduced in heraldry, were modified, like his name, by Etienne de Lancey, on becoming a British subject, to make them more like English arms, most of which have crests...They are thus blazoned : — Arms: azure, a tilting lance proper, point upward, with a pennon argent bearing a cross gules, fringed, or, floating to the right, debruised of a fesse, or. Crest : a sinister arm in armor embowed, the hand grasping a tilting lance, pennon attached, both proper. Motto : Certum voto pete finem. Though they are given, as so modified, in English armories, the change was never officially registered in the English "College of Arms."
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