Elias Durand was born on January 25, 1794, in Mayenne, France.

He was a French-born American pharmacist and botanist. He apprenticed as a chemist and pharmacist in Mayenne from 1808 to 1812, studied pharmacy in Paris, and on his graduation in 1813, he joined the medical corps of Napoleon's army. In 1814, he resigned and became an apothecary in Nantes where he studied botany. In 1816, he sailed to New York and settled in Philadelphia, where he established a successful drugstore. In 1825, he became a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and in 1832, he was elected a corresponding member of the Societé de Pharmacie in Paris. In 1835, he was the first to begin bottling mineral waters in the United States. In 1854, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society. Durand became thoroughly familiar with the flora of North America, collecting an herbarium that included a remarkable 10,000 species of North American plants. He presented it to the museum of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris in 1868.

In 1820, he married Polymnie Rose Ducatel (1803–1822) and in 1825, he remarried Marie Antoinette Zelia Berauld (1801–1851). He died on August 15, 1873, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.