Angier Buchanan Duke

Angier Buchanan Duke (December 8, 1884 – September 3, 1923) was a trustee of Duke University from 1914–1923, as well as vice president and president of its Alumni Association.

Early life Duke was born on December 8, 1884, in Durham, North Carolina. He was the only son of Sarah Pearson (née Angier) Duke (1856–1936) and Benjamin Newton Duke, and an heir to the American Tobacco Company fortune. He was the brother of Mary Lillian Duke (who married his wife's brother, Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Jr.), and first cousin to the flamboyant heiress Doris Duke.

Duke attended Durham's Trinity College, the institutional predecessor of Duke University.

Career After his graduation from Trinity, he went into the family business with his father. He was a member of the Racquet and Tennis Club and the Calumet Club, as well as the Ardsley and Sleepy Hollow Country Clubs. Cordelia was a daughter of bank heir Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Sr. Together, Angier and Cordelia were the parents of two children:

Angier Biddle Duke (1915–1995), the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, Spain, Denmark, and Morocco. He married four times. Anthony Drexel Duke (1918–2014), who became a prominent philanthropist. He married four times.

After separating in December 1918, they divorced in 1921. After their divorce, Cordelia remarried to Thomas Markoe Robertson in 1924.

Following the accidental discharge of his gun in 1905 during a hunting trip, his left arm was amputated below the elbow. After a funeral at the Duke family home in Durham, he was interred in the Duke Mausoleum in Maplewood Cemetery in Durham.

In popular culture John Davidson portrayed Duke in the 1967 musical film The Happiest Millionaire.