Samuel Dick
Our country owed much of its rapid development to those who came here from foreign lands to seek their fortunes. Among these, in proportion to its size, Ireland has been the most prolific. Fully one quarter of our population have some Irish blood in their veins. Among these hardy immigrants was Samuel Dick, a native of the county of Antrim, where he was born on the 21st of April, 1764. His parents, who were in a respectable position of life, died when he was quite young, and left him to the care of some relatives. In the Spring of the year 1783, being then nineteen years of age, he sailed from Belfast for America. Two of his brothers were settled in Baltimore, where they had been selling goods, but on his arrival they proposed to take him into partnership, and establish themselves in business in Gettysburg. He refused this offer, although they were well-to-do and he was poor, for he had resolved to carve out his own fortunes. He went, however, with his brothers to Gettysburg, with the intention of going to school that Winter; but only a few days after his arrival he met some one who wished to have brandy distilled from apples. Mr. Dick was somewhat acquainted with the process, and offered his aid. It was accepted, and in this same employment he remained all Winter, being well compensated.
The next Spring the young man crossed the Alleghanies, and among other things he engaged to teach the son of Mr. George Gillespie the art of distilling. This necessarily brought him much about the house, and in frequent intercourse with the family, which resulted in an intimate and lasting friendship. Mr. Gillespie had a daughter, Martha of comely figure and good disposition, whom Mr. Dick admired very much. One day her father treated her rather harshly, and in a fit of exasperation she said she would accept the first respectable man that offered. Mr. Dick was close by, and said to her, laughingly, '' Here is your man." In the end what was said in a joke was taken in earnest, and he married her in 1785. They lived in great harmony together until her death, at the homestead on Indian Creek, in 1833.
The place where he was residing at the time of his marriage was Washington County, Pennsylvania; but in 1790 he concluded to go farther West, taking his wife and two children with him. He purchased a lot in the new settlement of Cincinnati, on which he erected a house. He opened a grocery, and occasionally was engaged in forwarding provisions and supplies for the troops at Fort Hamilton and other forts in the interior. He afterward kept a tavern in the house where he resided. He was one of those who went forth to the relief of Dunlap's Station, when it was attacked, and also saw Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne each march out on their respective expeditions.
At an early period he became the purchaser of a section of land containing six hundred and forty acres, lying on the head-waters of what is now known as Dick's Creek, adjoining the Butler County line, in Warren County. The United States lands west of the Great Miami River were first brought into market in the year 1801. At the first sale Mr. Dick bought six hundred and forty acres in the rich bottom of Indian Creek, in the present town of Ross, where he removed the next year. On this land he spent the remainder of his days, bringing up his family in great respectability.
Mr. Dick was one of the grand jurors in July, 1803, at the first session of the Court of Common Pleas of Butler County. At the general election in October, 1803, he was elected a member of the House of Representatives of the State of Ohio that met at Chillicothe, on the first Monday of December in that year. He served in the Legislature during that session, but ever afterward refused to permit his name to be used for office.
He died at the house of his son-in-law, Judge Fergus Anderson, in Ross Township, on the 4th of August, 1846, aged eighty-two years; and was buried beside his wife, in the burying-ground at Bethel Chapel. He was a man of high moral principle, thorough and painstaking, prompt in his engagements, and full of sagacity. His business undertakings were successful, and he amassed a considerable fortune. During a great portion of his life he was a member of the Presbyterian Church, and in his will bequeathed a legacy to the one in Venice, which he attended.
He left five sons and four daughters. George, who married Jane Anderson; David, who married Judith Bigham; Samuel; James; Elizabeth, who married Joseph Wilson; Jane, who married John Wilson; Mary, who married Fergus Anderson; Martha, who married James Bigham; and Susan, who married Thomas J. Shields.
From A History and Biographical Cyclopædia of Butler County Ohio, With Illustrations and Sketches of its Representative Men and Pioneers, Western Biographical Publishing Company, Cincinnati Ohio, 1882.