Peter De Lancey was the second son of Etienne and Anne Van Cortlandt De Lancey. He was born in New York City, 26 August 1705; died at West Farms on October 17, 1770. A man of wealth and influence, he sat in the New York Assembly for Westchester County from 1750 to 1768, when he declined re-election in favor of his second son, John. Stephen was the oldest of his six sons. Of his five daughters, Alice married Ralph Izard, the South Carolina senator, and Susan became the wife of Colonel Thomas Barclay, the first British consul appointed in New York after the peace of 1783. This profile is based on a sketch in NYCD 6:469.
Legal: The best book on colonial lawyering still is Paul M. Hamlin, Legal Education in Colonial New York (New York, 1939). De Lancey later submitted a claim for the loss of his law library. However, his many public offices worked against a large legal practice or an active role in acquiring frontier land!
Family connections: He was the grandson of Lieutenant Governor Cadwallader Colden - who called him "my grandson" when describing his clerk's appointment to superiors. Stephen's famous uncles were James (1703-60) and Oliver (1718-85), De Lancey - brothers of his father.
1776-1809: His life during and after the war is still under consideration! See "A Loyalist attorney's Critique of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, 1786" Nova Scotia Historical Review 11:1 (1991).
