Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/58

34 HISTORY OF together and go out in the forests in various directions, selecting a favorable location where the sugar maple trees were standing thickest, would prepare a sufficient quantity of troughs and fuel, and construct a temporary log-hut, which answered the double purpose of shielding their persons from the storm, and in which they boiled their sap. Having made all things in readiness at the camp,'" they repaired to it again at the opening of spring, and frequently remained seve- ral weeks making maple sugar, often returning at the expira- tion of the sugar season with large quantities of delicious sugar. Harpersfield was well adapted to this pursuit, and it is more than probable that the knowledge of this fact induced them to locate there. ^ Persevering in their determination of founding a new set- tlement, they purchased of the Indians a large tract of land, stretching from the Charlotte on the north, to the head waters of the west branch of the Delaware river on the south. Accordingly, in conformity to the above purchase, a grant was secured the following year by letters-patent to J ohn Har- per, William Harper, John Harper, Jr., Joseph Harper, Alex- ander Harper, Andries Riber, and sixteen other individuals, of a tract of land containing twenty-two thousand acres, in- cluded by the present town of Harpersfield. In the spring of 1770, Governor Tryon sent out a surveyor to accompany the patentees and locate the limits of the patent. He was accompanied by John Harper, the principal proprie- tor, and his faithful consort. This heroic woman, whose cou- rage and fortitude entitle her to a conspicuous place among the heroines of those early times, unwilling that her husband should share alone the perils incident to the undertaking, determined to accompany, and if possible, in some degree alle- viate their situation. While the men were surveying, she with her own hands constructed a rude log-hut and covered it with bark. In this hut she frequently was compelled to