FORREY, Judge Samuel

FORREY, MCDILL, PARKER

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 1/18/2014 at 10:52:13

Biography ~ Judge Samuel Forrey

"Biographical and Historical Record of
Ringgold and Decatur Counties, Iowa"
(Lewis Publishing Company (1887)), pp. 522-23:

JUDGE SAMUEL FORREY, of Leon, Iowa, was born in Columbia, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1826. He was educated at Wyoming Seminary, and read law under the instruction and in the office of the Hon. THADDEUS STEVENS, at Lancaster. Here he spent two years, and in 1853 began his practice in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. In 1855 he started westward, going to Kansas, but owning to the troubles then existing there remained but a short time, and on looking further for a location was pleased with Southern Iowa, and decided upon Leon as his future home. He has been in constant practice, and has practiced longer in Decatur County, by a number of years, than any other resident attorney. He came to Iowa when the Republican party was coming into existence on the ruins of the old Whig party. He had been a Whig of rather a conservative type, but his experiences in Kansas had been such as to determine him to ever after oppose the institution of slavery, and he took a prominent part in the early history of the Republican party in Decatur County, and has always been influential in its councils. In September, 1870, he was appointed judge of the Second Circuit, of the Third Judicial District, vice Judge JAMES W. MCDILL, who was elected judge of the Third Judicial District, and the following fall was elected to complete the unexpired term. After the expiration of his term as circuit judge, in 1872, he was elected to complete the official term of JUDGE MCDILL, who had resigned on account of being a candidate for Congress, and in 1874 was re-elected for a full term of four years. In 1880 he was elected mayor of Leon, and also justice of the peace, serving in both positions efficiently and satisfactorily. He was married in Leon, to ABIGAIL JANE PARKER, daughter of Judge WILLIAM PARKER. They have four children – two sons and two daughter. In his religious views JUDGE FORREY is Orthodox, his parents being adherents to the Mennonite faith.

Transcribed by Sara LeFleur, Decatur County Historial Society Musuem, January of 2014