Politics / Business & brands / Food
William C. Duncan
1820–1877 · brewer, mayor of Detroit, state senator
Great Lakes steamer steward turned Detroit brewer who was the first president of the city council and mayor during the Civil War years of 1862–1863.
- Born
Lyons, New York- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 57- Birth name
- William Chamberlain Duncan
- Also known as
- William Chamberlain Duncan
- Detroit years
- 1849–1877
- Field
- Politics, Business & brands, Food
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
William C. Duncan grew up in Rochester, New York, and in 1841 went to work as a steward on passenger steamers crossing the Great Lakes, later serving on a Lake Superior boat. In 1849 he settled in Detroit and became a brewer, one of many who supplied the growing city's saloons and beer gardens. A Democrat, he was elected alderman in 1852 and served five years, becoming the first president of the council after a charter revision created the post. He was mayor for 1862 and 1863, the middle years of the Civil War, when Detroit was sending regiments south and was shaken by the March 1863 race riot, and in the fall of 1863 he was elected to the Michigan Senate. He briefly went into banking in 1865 but ill health made him give it up; he managed his property and traveled to Europe. In 1873 he declined another mayoral nomination. He died in 1877.
Highlights
- Mayor of Detroit, 1862–1863
- First president of the Detroit City Council
- Michigan state senator elected in 1863
- Detroit brewer from 1849