Havens Family of Columbia Township, Bradford County PA Columbia Township Page
HAVENS FAMILY BIBLE
Columbia Township, Bradford County, Pennsylvania
***Statement written by Charles Haven at a reunion at his home in 1868 in Havenss Family Bible****
Memorandum of a few early events in my life to my children on my 64th Birthday. I was born in the town of Sullivan, Chesire County, New Hampshire on February 22, 1804. My father's name was John Haven and my mother Abigail Fay. I, with my father's family of six sons and one of two daughters moved to the wilderness of Pennsylvania in early winter of 1815 when I was eleven years old. We came on two sleds, one drawn by a pair of horses, the other by two heavy yoke of oxen. We found good sleighing the whole distance. One horse team made the trip in fifteen days, but the oxen team took eighteen days. My father and two brothers came the year before, summer of 1814, bought a possession and built a log house. Chopped and cleared five acres and sowed wheat, it was about where Charlie Smith's barn is now and on the little flat above the barn at the foot of the hill farther west. This we harvested the first summer. Also chopped, cleared and sowed to wheat ten acres near the Haven schoolhouse and as far south as a row of apple trees that Nahum Haven planted. Our nearest grist mill was Long's Mill near Troy, PA., nine or ten miles distance. Nearly all the way was woods. I commenced to chop and clear my farm when I was twenty years old and married Clarissa Dart, formerly from Vermont, but then of Charleston, Tioga County, Pennslyvania, the 23rd day of February 1826. Settled on my farm and here since. I have hauled wheat to Elmira, New York 20 miles and sold it at 0.62 to 0.69 cents per bushel to pay for land that cost in it's wild state at $3.00 per acre. I have done nothing but regular farming: was never a speculator and consequently was obliged to be economical and work hard as well as my wife and my family. I am 64 years old today and feel my work is almost done.. Signed 22 January 1868 by Charles Haven
A copy of this was given to me by my uncle, apparently copied from a family bible. Charles Haven (or Havens) was not a direct ancestor of ours, but could have been a brother or cousin of my 3rd Great Grandfather John Havens who was born around 1815 (11 years after Charles). The "s" may have been added to the name Haven later on.. Submitted by Lauren Welty Tennent. Note from Joyce M. Tice: Charles died on Feb 15, 1868 shortly after writing this document summing up his life.ys