SAMUEL ROYAL—The
broad and honorable career of Samuel Royal, of Fairview township,
Mercer county, has covered a number of diverse fields, for he has
gained a standing both as a soldier, a blacksmith, a farmer and an
earnest and effective Prohibitionist, He is an English man, born in
Weymouth, Dorset, England, on the 24th of May, 1841. His father, John
Royal, was a native of the same locality, and was for many years a
relief officer there. He married Margaret Harris, of Dorset, England,
and the eight children of their union were as follows: Lettuce; Henry;
Margaret; John, Jr.; Thomas; William H.; Samuel; and Joseph
H. The mother of the family died in 1848 and the father in
1867, their children being now residents of British Columbia,
Australia, America, and other quarters of the globe.
Samuel
Royal received a fair education at what were known as the British and
Town Hall schools and at the age of fourteen was apprenticed to the
trade of a blacksmith. In 1857, two years thereafter, he sailed for
America to improve his prospects in this country. He first located in
Ashtabula county, Ohio, where he remained for one year and there formed
the acquaintance of old John Brown, the noted Abolitionist. He then
went to Warren, Ohio, where he followed his trade until the breaking
out of the Civil war in 1861. He enlisted in Company G, Sixth Ohio
Volunteer Cavalry, and was honorably discharged in the following year.
He became a resident of Otter Creek township, Mercer county, in 1863,
establishing and conducting a small blacksmith shop in that locality.
But the war fever was in his blood and in 1865 he abandoned his forge
and re-enlisted for service in the Union cause, joining Company K,
Ninety-first Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. With this command he
served until the close of the war. Returning from the front he resumed
his work as a blacksmith, founding and establishing a shop at Fredonia,
which he conducted until 1893, when he retired from the active business
life on account of his health and located on his present farm.
On
October 6, 1860. Samuel Royal was united in marriage to Miss Mary Ann
Baker, who was born in Warren, Ohio, in 1841, and is now deceased. The
five children of their union are as follows: J. F., now living at
Warren. Ohio; Samuel H., a resident of Hempfield township, Mercer
county; Lettuce A., now Mrs. Warren Stewart, who married a Delaware
township farmer; Mary E., the wife of W. M. Mowry, of Greenville,
Pennsylvania; and Margaret, Mrs. William Stewart, also a resident of
Warren, Ohio. In 1872 Mr. Royal married as a second wife Mary Ann
Kashner, a native of Delaware township and daughter of James and Abbie
(Smith) Kashner. The three children of this union were: William H., a
farmer of Fairview township, who married Carom I. Billig and has three
children, Robert, Martha Cora, and Anna M., who died July 8, 1899, as
the wife of Austin Kremis; and Warren, a resident of Greenville,
Pennsylvania, an engineer on the Bessemer Railroad, who married Kate
Young, and is the father of Howard, Theodore R. and Floyd. Both Mr. and
Mrs. Royal are stanch members of the Reformed church, and, as stated,
Mr. Royal is one of the best known advocates of Prohibition in the
county.
Source: (Twentieth Century History of Mercer County, 1909, pages 843-844)
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