Cunningham, Samuel

CUNNINGHAM

Posted By: Linda Ziemann (email)
Date: 3/31/2005 at 22:03:47

History of Monona County, Iowa
Chicago: National Pub. Co., 1890

SAMUEL CUNNINGHAM, of the firm of Cunningham & Gray, dealers in hardware, lumber, sash, doors, lime, brick & cement, at Blencoe , Iowa , is among the leading merchants of that thriving little town. He is a representative of that shrewd and thrifty people known as the Scotch-Irish, descendants of the Cameronians, who settled in the North of Ireland when fleeing from persecution in their native home amid the braes of Scotland . He was born in Ireland , April 1, 1844 , and is the son of Samuel and Martha Cunningham, the former of whom died in in the Emerald Isle in 1869. The mother of our subject came to America in 1869, and died about 1873.

Mr. Cunningham was reared at home and availed himself of all the means of education offered in the days of his youth. Early in 1867, he determined to seek in free America a larger field for his efforts, and crossed the ocean, and, on landing upon Columbia 's shores, came at once to Monona County , arriving here on the 4th of February. He purchased a farm on section 17, Sherman Township , which, after cultivating some seven years, he sold to James McIntyre. Upon a farm on section 10, in the same township, which he then purchased, he carried on farming until 1883, at which date he sold out and started in his present business, in company with A. O. Gray.

Mr. Cunningham was married June 11, 1874 , to Miss Nancy Glenn, also a native of Ireland , and an acquaintance of his youth, who came to the United States in early life, and is the daughter of John Glenn, of Sherman Township , a sketch of whom may be found in this work.