Obituary: Anthony Drexel Duke, Heir Who Led N.Y. Youth Charity
May 6, 2014 | Read Time: 1 minute
Anthony Drexel Duke, a scion of three of America’s richest families who founded a celebrated New York charity for disadvantaged youths, died last week in Gainesville, Fla., at age 95, The New York Times reports.
The cause of death was cancer, according to Boys & Girls Harbor, the educational and social-service nonprofit descended from a summer camp for needy children that Mr. Duke opened in 1937, when he was a 19-year-old Princeton University student. The charity has served more than 50,000 children from the New York area, with Mr. Duke remaining closely involved in its operations until his final years.
Mr. Duke’s father was a member of the family that founded the American Tobacco Company and endowed Duke University. His mother was an offspring of the Drexel and Biddle banking dynasties in Philadelphia.
