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Pennsylvania AHGP Hyman Van Duzer Hyman Van Duzer was born in Manniakating, Sullivan County, New York, November 14, 1826, the seventh child of Obed and Esther Van Duzer. He had six brothers and three sisters. The father was a fanner and hotel-keeper. The subject of this sketch lived at home till he was twenty-three years of age, at which time, in company with his brother Benjamin, he went to work at the carpenter trade, following it for two years in Sullivan County, at the end of which time, in 1852, they came to Litchfield, Bradford County, continuing at his trade for two years in this place. March 1, 1854, Mr. Van Duzer bought a farm of one hundred acres in the township of Sheshequin. September 7, of the same year, he married Clara White, daughter of Josiah and Lutheda White, who was born in Litchfield, October 8, 1836. Her father, Josiah White, was among the early settlers of that township, and died, at the advanced age of eighty-three, at Athens, February 2, 1878. They have had but one child, Josiah B., born January 22, 1856, who was married May 25, 1876, to Ella M. Parks, daughter of Enos P. and Eliza Parks, of Sheshequin. At the time Mr. Van Duzer purchased his farm in Litchfield, there were but fifteen acres cleared. He stumped and cleared the balance of the hundred acres, also the greater part of a forty and fifty-two acre lot which he afterwards purchased. A fine farm-house, surrounded with productive fields subdued from the wilderness, will always bear witness to years of persevering hard work. October 15, 1862, Mr. Van Duzer volunteered as private in Co. D, 17th Regiment Penna. Mounted Volunteers, and served to the end of the war, being mustered out June 21, 1865. If for no other reason, this fact alone would entitle Mr. Van Duzer to grateful mention in a history of the county of his adoption. Having, perhaps, the example of his father in view, in 1876 he parted with his farm and purchased the property now known as the Gothic Hotel in the village of Athens, and for the last two years has been proprietor of the same. In politics, first a Whig, later a Republican, but never a seeker of office. © Pennsylvania American History and Genealogy Project
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