Harriet Farra's ancestors were among the first Europeans to settle in the Delaware Valley. Her father, John C. Farra, owned and operated two paper mills along the Brandywine River in Beaver Valley. He moved his family from Delaware about 1840 to land he had purchased in Urbana, Illinois. Between July and August of 1841, Harriet's parents and four siblings died in Urbana. She (then 14) and her brother Daniel (then 17) moved back to Delaware. Francis Vincent, his mother and four younger siblings, arrived in Philadelphia in 1835. They lived in Dover, Delaware for a number of years before moving to Boonton, NJ, where the father found work. Francis did not move with them. He was employed in Dover for a few years before moving to Wilmington. It was there that he met Harriet. They married in Philadelphia and lived their entire married lives in Wilmington. Francis owned a newspaper, wrote a history of Delaware, and was elected a city treasurer and an alderman.