Tipton-Wayne-Henry County IN Archives Biographies.....Martindale, Samuel P. 1820 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/copyright.htm http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/in/infiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com April 9, 2007, 1:35 am Author: Charles Blanchard, Editor (1883) SAMUEL P. MARTINDALE, a free-thinker in religion and politics, was born in Wayne County, Ind., May 6, 1820. His father, Elder Elijah Martindale, was born in South Carolina in 1793, and died at New Castle, Ind., July 21, 1875; he was the son of John Martindale, who married Eliza Burns, a close relation of the "Scottish Bard," Robert Burns. John was the son of William Martindale, born in Philadelphia, and died in Miami County, Ind., in 1851, when over one hundred years old. William's father was born in England, and was one of the three brothers who, coming to New York, separated, and never saw each other afterward. Elder Elijah, the father of our subject, was a preacher of the Gospel. He had no superior as an exhorter, and he built up and preached for many religious societies in Eastern Indiana; he kept up family worship to the day of his death. The mother of our subject was Elizabeth Boyd, daughter of Samuel Boyd, a Revolutionary soldier. She was born November 25, 1792, and is still living at New Castle, Ind., at the advanced age of ninety-one; she enjoys all the faculties of mind, but is impeded in her locomotion by rheumatism and the stiffness of her arms and one of her lower limbs, caused by having them broken. She is the mother of fifteen children, nine sons and six daughters, fourteen of whom are heads of families. Our subject was educated by going to subscription schools three months in winter until he was about-nineteen years old; he then commenced teaching in the winter and going to school in the summer. At the age of twenty-three, he was married to Miss Armilda Oldaker, of Wayne County, Ind. They have four children, viz.: Josephine L., wife of Rev. J. B. Blount, of Rush County; James M.; Elijah B. and Samuel P., Jr. In 1844, our subject settled on 160 acres of land in Blue River Township, Henry Co., Ind., for which he paid $500, by teaching school at $15 per month. He lived on it for fifteen years, cleared seventy-five acres, built a frame house and sold the entirety for $4,000. He then moved to Delaware County and bought 240 acres of land for $5,500. In 1860, he sold out for $6,000, and moved to Indianapolis to educate his children at the then N. W. C. University. In 1865, he removed to Cloverdale Township, Putnam Co., Ind., where he bought 550 acres of land, and engaged in the sheep business, which, however, was not very successful, and in 1870 he disposed of his land and removed to Tipton and engaged in the mercantile business with his two sons, under the firm name of Martindale & Sons. The business proved successful for three years, when his sons took a contract to put out all the ties necessary for the construction of the L. M. & B. R. R., through Tipton County, amounting in all to $17,000. They put out the ties, but the railroad, after taking up and paying for $10,000 worth, became insolvent, which produced a financial crisis in the affairs of our subject, for the first time in a business career of one-third of a century. This cloud hung over his financial horizon for eight or ten years; but finally it was dispelled. Mr. Martindale is now engaged in the marble business. He is a member of the I. O. O. F. Additional Comments: Extracted from: COUNTIES OF HOWARD AND TIPTON, INDIANA. HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL. ILLUSTRATED. CHARLES BLANCHARD. EDITOR. CHICAGO: F. A. BATTEY & CO. 1883. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/in/tipton/bios/martinda922gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/infiles/ File size: 3.9 Kb