Rev. Samuel Penrod
Rev. Samuel Penrod was born in the State of Pennsylvania in the year 1800. His father had died when he was quite young. About the year 1812 his mother, with her family, emigrated to Montgomery County, Ohio. Here, as a boy, he took some part in the struggle of the war of 1812. At the age of 22 years he married Miss Rachel Chambers, of the same county. With empty but willing hands they commenced the battle of life together. The first start Mr. P. got was by taking contracts and working on the canal near Miamisburg. With the money he saved he came to the wilds of Cynthian Township and entered land. In the year 1832 he brought his family and settled on a piece of land he afterward bought in section 29, where he lived until the time of his death in 1879. They reared a family of seven children. Mrs. Penrod died in 1867. These children are all still living in the county, except William C., who died from the effects of wounds received at the battle of Murfreesborongh. When Mr. Penrod’s family first came to the township there were no religious meetings in the neighborhood. Mrs. Penrod spent her first Sabbath in the woods shedding tears because she had no place to attend worship. The men in the neighborhood took their rifles and went hunting on the Sabbath instead of meeting for worship. Mr. Penrod felt that the good of the community demanded that they should spend the Sabbath in a more sacred way than by hunting and sporting. Accordingly on Monday morning he interviewed some of his neighbors with regard to holding prayer meetings on the Sabbath day. To this they all agreed. Accordingly they met at the home of John Gearhart the following Sabbath. From this beginning, meetings for worship have been held in that neighborhood ever since. They had no minister to preach to them; Mr. Penrod would talk to the people by way of exhortation. He soon began to preach, and was in 1837 regularly ordained as a minister in the Christian Church. He filled the office of a minister from that time to the time of his death, and when he passed away he died with an assurance of an immortal life.
From History of Shelby County, Ohio; R. Sutton & Co, Philadelphia PA, 1883