Duff family's roots extend across Western Pennsylvania
The roots of the Duff family tree extend across much of Western Pennsylvania, including to Murrysville, where the surname should ring a bell as the namesake of the municipality’s first park.
Duff Park was acquired by the municipality in 1968, and was originally formed from three parcels totaling about 143 acres, 88 acres of which belonged to the Duff family.
When they first arrived in the area, however, they were the McIlduff family.
According to local historian Dick Byers, when family patriarch John McIlduff died in 1816, his three sons changed their surname to Duff.
John (now) Duff grew up and worked on the family farm in Export. His fourth surviving son, James Henderson Duff, graduated from medical school in the 1840s and opened a practice in what was then the Newlonsburg neighborhood, before serving as a Union doctor during the Civil War.
When James Henderson Duff returned from the Civil War, he sold the family’s 119-acre Export farm and bought a new one, about 300 acres, in the Newlonsburg area. Part of this property would later become Duff Park.
James Henderson Duff had several children, including Joseph M. Duff Jr. and his brother James H. Duff. James would go on to become Pennsylvania governor from 1947 to ’51, and a U.S. Senator from 1951 to ’57. Duff Park is said to be named for the former governor.
Today, thanks to a 74-acre acquisition in 2014 by the Westmoreland Land Trust, Duff Park encompasses 237 acres in southern Murrysville, and is home to one of the few remaining old-growth forests — meaning completely undisturbed tree stands which have never been cut — in Pennsylvania.
That old growth includes a white oak, near the pavilion at the park’s entrance, which stands more than 107 feet tall and is estimated to be more than 300 years old.
The park has also been designated by the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources as a wild plant sanctuary. More than 60 species of wildflower and 41 species of tree are found within the park.
Patrick Varine is a TribLive reporter covering Delmont, Export and Murrysville. He is a Western Pennsylvania native and joined the Trib in 2010 after working as a reporter and editor with the former Dover Post Co. in Delaware. He can be reached at pvarine@triblive.com.
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