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THE DUFF FAMILY.
John and Alexander McIlDuff were two brothers who came from Ireland and settled in this township about 1780, on a tract of three hundred and thirty-one acres, "with an allowance proportioned to six per cent.," in pursuance of a warrant dated Aug. 26, 1786, which tract was surveyed by John Moore, deputy surveyor. It was bounded then by the lands of William Callan, Peter Hill, Philip Drum, James Gibson, and Michael Hoffman (or Joseph Workman’s). This tract is now owned by John, Robert, William, and Mary Duff and Ebenezer Steel. The name MclIduff was, after a few years, changed to Duff. John McIlduff had two brothers,— Oliver and Alexander. His children were Alexander, born 1783, and died in 1854; John, Robert, and Ann, married to John Watt. Of these, Alexander married Mary Lusk, who came from Ireland with her parents when she was only three years old. By this union were born the following children: John, Mary (unmarried), Ann, died single, William, Elizabeth, married to William Chambers, Alexander (deceased), Margaret, married to John Doncaster, and Matilda, married to Dr. James C. Laughrey, of Pittsburgh.
John Duff and his wife built their cabin and cleared a small corn-patch, and the following year, when they were walking out one Sunday evening, leading their little and oldest boy by the hand, and were returning from their walk, they saw a smoke arise towards their cabin, when he ran forward, by good luck only far enough to get a glimpse, when he saw it in flames and surrounded by Indians. Mr. Duff, with his wife and boy, hid in the thicket all night. At this invasion of the savages many of their neighbors were massacred and Hannastown burned. Many of the offspring of the ancestral Duffs have been and are still prominent in the professions of medicine and divinity, and among the former is Dr. J.H. Duff; of Pittsburgh. John McIlDuff (afterwards changed to Duff) was the foremost man in the Seceders’ Church in this region, and gave the lot for the old log meeting-house and graveyard from his vast estate.
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