Durant was born in
England to William Durant and Alice Pell. Prior to July 1658 he resided for a time in
Northumberland County,
Virginia, where he had purchased . He married Ann Marwood on January 4, 1658, and shortly thereafter moved to
Nansemond County, Virginia, where he lived for about two years. Durant was associated with
Nathaniel Batts, a
fur trader, and Richard Batts, a sea captain, and together with them explored the
Albemarle Sound area of Virginia. On August 4, 1661, Durant purchased, in the second oldest recorded deed of the area, land from
Cisketando, king of the Yeopim Indian tribe. On March 13, 1662, a second purchase was made from
Kilcocanen, another Yeopim. By 1662 Durant was living in Virginia on property adjacent to the Albemarle Sound, which became part of the Carolina colony in 1665. His plantation, called "Wicocombe" (subsequently known as "Durant's Neck"), was located in
Perquimans County, North Carolina. The exact location of his home is unknown, but the present town of Durant, on the peninsula between the
Perquimans River and the Little River, lies on the neck of land five miles east of
Edenton, that was sold to George Durant by the two Indian leaders. A mariner turned planter, Durant was one of the ablest and most influential men in the county and a leader of the 1677
Culpeper's Rebellion, an uprising over the requirement that all colonial goods be transported in British ships. Durant's open opposition to
Seth Sothel, one of the
Lords Proprietor, led to his arrest and imprisonment. But when Sothel confiscated of Durant's property, residents of the Albemarle region rose in defense of Durant and banished Sothel from the area. The Durant family Bible, printed in 1599 and brought by Durant to the New World, is displayed in a locked cabinet at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Durant died on February 6, 1692, at the age of 59. ==References==