SAMUEL J. McGINNIS

MCGINNIS

Posted By: Jake Tornholm (email)
Date: 4/20/2020 at 13:48:50

SAMUEL J. McGINNIS, one of Douglas township’s well known citizens, was born in Champaign county, Ohio, August 4, 1833, son of Samuel H. and Exona (Harbour) McGinnis, both natives of Champaign county, Ohio. His father was a son of William McGinnis, of Scotch descent, a
native of Kentucky, and a soldier of the war of 1812, and of Jenny McGinnis, his wife. The mother was a daughter of Elisha Harbour, a native of Virginia and a soldier in the war of 1812. The Harbours were among the first settlers of the Old Dominion. One member of the family was kidnapped in England and brought to America and sold. Samuel H. McGinnis died when the subject of this sketch was a boy, and his wife died in 1853.

Samuel J. was reared on a farm in the county where he was born, receiving his education in the common schools there. In 1854 he came to Jefferson county, Iowa, and remained one season, after which he returned to Ohio. Two years later he came back to Jefferson county and was married. He then settled in Monroe county, Iowa. During the war he enlisted in Company K, Thirty-sixth Iowa Infantry. He received injury by a comrade’s ax while they were at work in camp, his right thumb being cut off, and lost the use of his index finger. He also lost another finger from the same hand by erysipelas. For loss thus sustained he now receives a small pension from the Government. In August, 1865, he was honorably discharged at Davenport, Iowa, after which he returned to his home in Monroe county. In 1866 he moved to Lucas county, this State, where he
lived seven years; thence to Texas; a year later to Jewell county, Kansas, where he took a homestead and lived two years; spent the next year in La Salle county, Illinois, and, returning to Jewell county, Kansas, lived there three years longer. At the end of that time he sold out and came to Adams county, Iowa, and purchased from Frank M. Davis the eighty-acre farm on which he now lives.

Mr. McGinnis was married in Jefferson county, Iowa, November 19, 1857, to Miss Sarah D. Andrew, who was born in that county eight years before Iowa was brought into the Union, her birth occurring November 8, 1838. She is a daughter of William and Elizabeth (Gaut) Andrew. her father was a native of North Carolina, settled in Iowa about 1836, and died in Lucas county,
this State, at the age of eighty years. Her mother was a descendant of Irish ancestry, and she, too, lived to be an octogenarian, her death occurring in Texas.

Mr. and Mrs. McGinnis have four children, namely: Elizabeth Alfie, wife of Charles McKernon, Douglas township, this county; Mary Alice, wife of John Richeg, also of Douglas township, and was before her marriage engaged in teaching; and Ora Matella and William H., at home. Politically Mr. McGinnis is an Independent. He is a member of Llewellyn Post, G. A. R., Corning, Iowa. He and his wife and daughter Ora M. are members of the United Brethren Church, of which he is a trustee.