My Genealogy Hound

SAMUEL A. DUFF, ice-merchant, post office Chartiers, was born in 1834 on the place where he now resides, in Chartiers township, this county, and is a son of Samuel and Isabella L. Duff. The father was born in Ireland, immigrated to this country in 1818, and located in Philadelphia, where he remained until 1832, following the business of carpenter and contractor. In 1831 he came to this county, where he purchased 175 acres of land in Chartiers township at eighteen dollars per acre, and the following year moved from Philadelphia in a covered wagon to his new home in Chartiers township, where he resided the remainder of his life, improving his farm. The tract of land he purchased in 1831 is said to be worth at the present time $1,500 per acre. He married Isabella, daughter of Joseph and Agnes Calderwood Lawson, and their children were Matilda (Mrs. Scully), Mary, Joseph L., John L., Samuel A., William G., Thomas McKee (deceased), James K. P. and Thomas L. (deceased). The father died in 1863, at the age of sixty-eight years, and the mother in 1886, at the age of eighty-four years, both members of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Duff received his naturalization papers in 1825, which are still in possession of his son Samuel A. He was assessor in 1844, before Chartiers township was divided.

Samuel A., whose name heads this sketch, married, in 1863, Matilda M., daughter of Rev. Samuel Lawson, of Westmoreland county, Pa., and their children were William H. (deceased), Edward E. (in the People’s Savings Bank of Pittsburgh), James K. (holding a position in the same bank), Catherine, Samuel L., Matilda S. and Mary D. (twins), Ella, Henry D. and Clara. Mr. Duff has been assessor and school director six years, and has held various offices in Chartiers township. He owns twenty acres of the old homestead, and is engaged in the ice business in Washington county, where he has an ice-plant with stowing capacity of 20,000 tons.