James Duane Doty was born in 1800 in Salem, New York to Chillus and Sarah Martin Doty. In 1818, when he was 18, Doty was apprenticed to Attorney General Charles Larned and moved to Detroit where on November 20, 1818 he became a part of the Supreme Court of the Michigan Territory. In 1820, along with Lewis Cass, the Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs of the Michigan Territory, Doty and 40 other men went on an expedition to the explore the territory. Three years later Doty married Sarah Collins in 1823 in Whitesboro, NY and was appointed as the judge for three counties in the Michigan Territory. After the couple married they moved to Mackinac, then Prairie du Chien, then Green Bay where Doty opened a law practice and had his three children: Charles (born 1824), James (1827), and Amelia (1829), who died before turning three. After losing the judgeship he held for nine years in 1832, he became one of the first men to try and make Wisconsin a separate territory from Michigan. In 1838, Doty was elected delegate of Congress from the Wisconsin Territory and became the Wisconsin territorial governor in 1841.
Sources: "The State: A History of Neenah: Doty Cabin." The State: A History of Neenah: Doty Cabin. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 May 2014
Leaman, Harvey R. "Doty Cabin." (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 28 May 2015 <http://images.library.wisc.edu/WI/EFacs/NeenahLocHist/NHHistSFS/reference/wi.nhhistsfs.i0035.pdf>.
Leaman, Harvey R. "Doty Cabin." (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 28 May 2015 <http://images.library.wisc.edu/WI/EFacs/NeenahLocHist/NHHistSFS/reference/wi.nhhistsfs.i0035.pdf>.