Isacc Marshall Clayton gives his grandchildren, Theodore, Bonnie, and Trudy Mefferd, a ride on the big tractor in the summer of 1945. Grandfather Marshall's mother was a member of the Susquehannock tribe, natives of areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries from the southern part of what is now New York, through Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Susquehanna in Maryland.

Benjamin Mefferd and his wife. They farmed the original "Mefferd Farm" in Cross Keys, Pennyslvania, about ten miles from Shade Gap. (Their grandson, Theodore, met Violet Clayton in Shade Gap, and married her.) "Grandma Mefferd" is holding a butternut squash. Benjamin Mefferd is Andrew Mefferd's great great great grandfather on the paternal side of the family.

Isacc Marshall Clayton and his wife, Sophia Mae Clayton bought the Shade Gap farm in 1928. (They are Andrew Mefferd's great-great grandparents.) The farm became known as the Mefferd Shade Gap Farm. Marshall was a successful farmer and ran a big lumber business during the fall and winter. Isacc and Sophia had worked there as teenagers, and later bought the property. In this 1890s photo, Isacc and Sophia pose with their daughter, Abigail Clayton. Abigail later had a daughter of her own, Violet. Abigail died in a flu epidemic in 1928. Violet, then eight years old and both motherless and fatherless, begged her grandfather to go ahead with the purchase of the farm. Violet was raised by her grandparents as a Clayton. She met Theodore Mefferd circa 1936 and the two married. Violet Mefferd out-lived her husband, and she was able to pass on to her grandson Andrew "an endless source of information when it comes to the old way things were done on the Mefferd land." Violet drove the mules and rode the binder for her family from the time her feet could reach the pedals until after she was married. A farm girl through and through, she continued to live on the farm through 2007.

Black and white aerial photo above was taken in the early 1960s.