The Harper Family
About the family name:
Lowland Scots often took their surname from the craft in which they were employed; thus, Harpers were most likely craftsmen or poets employed as musicians or bards. Among musicians in early Scotland, Harpers were the only ones who enjoyed the status of "freemen."
The Harper family of Harpersfield, NY:
One branch of the Harper family emigrated to Ireland, county of Derry, in the early 1700s, then the United States, Casco Bay Maine. They later moved to Boston, then Connecticut, and finally settled, in 1754, in the Cherry Valley area of New York State.
Harpersfield, a small town in the Catskills, is named after this enterprising family. For a complete history of the settling of Harpersfield, see the The History of Delaware County, by W.W. Munsell.
The family of William Harper:
There are those families who left the Highlands to escape "the Clearings,” emigrating to the states, who do not celebrate their kinship to the clans. Many of these men were farmers and/or skilled craftsmen, who lived not by the mottos (often war cries that name the homeland or something to the effect of honor and duty above all else) of the clans who, in many cases, stole their lands and goods, but by a more simple idea never quite expressed as motto: "Let my work speak for me." They worked hard, and their sense of honor and worth stemmed from both the quality of their work and the ability to make the lives of their children better than their own.
This is an accounting of one of those families, descendents of William Harper, born in 1755, in either Scotland or Ireland.
In 1794, this Harper family—brothers William, Henry, Samuel, and John—came from Ireland to live in the Cherry Valley area of New York. They settled on lot 142 and adjoining lot 7 in Banyar's Patent.
Note on the family homestead:
After the Revolution and up to 21 April 1825, an alien in New York could obtain the right to hold and dispose of real estate only by act of the Legislature. William Harper, Henry Harper, Samuel Harper, and John Harper were granted that right in the Legislative Act of 3 April, 1797.
Current members of this Harper family:
Updated January 2007
DKH 2007
