John Durang: Man of the American Stage By Lynn Matluck Brooks

Critical as it was to be with settled family for their child’s birth, Jacob Durang sought his own ground. He was drawn to the recently founded town of York, west across the Susquehanna River.²¹ An account by British Lieutenant Anbury, traveling through Pennsylvania as a prisoner of the Continental Army about ten years after the Durangs arrived, compared Lancaster and York:

So did Jacob Durang; as a small, neat, trade-focused town, “Little York in Pennsylvania proved a field to his advantage” (4). A nose for opportunities would be a trait that Jacob’s son John would inherit.

Jacob Durang’s skill as a barber-surgeon was a “novelty” to York’s settlers, and his “customary address and politeness, accompany’d with the French and German language” (4), suited his newly chosen community. Just what “profession” Jacob actually followed in York is not certain because professional registries were not published until the 1850s. Deeds to his properties identify him as a “barber.” But due to the paucity of medical personnel in the colonies, a settlement like York would welcome a barber-surgeon, probably calling on him for bleeding, setting fractures, pulling teeth, and so on.²³ The Durangs’ native tongue, German, was spoken throughout York, and their French might have been handy in this period following the French and Indian War. To supplement his income, Jacob kept farm animals and a shop where he sold “necessaries”—perhaps cloth, tea, soap, and such—which he provisioned through visits to Philadelphia, ninety miles away. The Durangs’ “frugality and economy” gained them “respect and wealth” (4) enough to buy land, which Jacob purchased at the corner of Beaver and Philadelphia Streets, as recorded in November 1774; a second lot, on High (Market) Street, was deeded to the Durangs in April 1777.²⁴