son of Philip and Catharine (Keller) Rigal, was born near Reading, Pennsylvania, April 14, 1807. His ancestors were among the foreign soldiers who settled in Pennsylvania, at the close of the Revolution. When Samuel was but nine years old, his father came to Ohio, and settled in Lithopolis, Fairfield county, as a farmer, also practicing, as opportunity afforded, his trade of weaver. The son had little chance of schooling, and pursued the labors of the farm at home, with little intermission, till he was twenty-one, when he became his own master, but continued farming. In 1828 he removed to Plain township, Franklin county, and entered sixty acres for a farm, receiving, also, one hundred and sixty acres with his young wife, formerly Miss Sarah Hay [Sic. should be Hoy], of Fairfield county, Ohio, daughter of one of the oldest settlers in that region, to whom he was married on New Year's day, of the same year. Losing her by death, he was married, October 12, 1866, to Mrs. Amanda Miller. Upon re-marriage, he sold his farm and moved to Westerville, where he engaged in the hardware business for a year, when he retired, and has since lived a quiet life, comparatively freed from business cares, enjoying the fruits of his long and hard labors. He has had two sons—Daniel and Joseph—both of whom are dead, and three daughters—Diana, now Mrs. Daniel Ullery, wife of a farmer in Delaware county; Catharine, now Mrs. Samuel McClung, a widow, residing in Columbus, her husband having been killed by an accident in Missouri, some years ago; and Fanny, now Mrs. Jonathan Trist, wife of a farmer in Blendon township. He has never been in politics, but has held several township offices, and is, with his wife, a member of the Evangelical Association, or "Allbright" church, in Westerville.

Mrs. Amanda (Wilson) Rigal, wife of Mr. Samuel Rigal, is the daughter of John and Rebecca Wilson, who were among the earliest settlers near Newark, Licking county, Ohio, to which place they removed in 1805, from Hardy county, Virginia. In their new home they shared fully in the hardship, of pioneer life—among the Indians, bears, and wolves, the latter of which still abounded in that region. There Amanda was born, May 18, 1818. She received her education solely in the primitive log school-houses of that day. In her twentieth year she was married to Anthony Miller, a young carpenter, and long a schoolfellow and playmate of hers, by whom she had eight children—three daughters and five sons--of whom four are living: Perry W., who lives on the old homestead, at New Albany; John N., a farmer in Blendon township; George W., a farmer in Livingston county, Missouri; and Mrs. Margaret E. Shrock, wife of a farmer four miles south of Westerville. Mrs. Rigal, with her first husband, removed, in 1853, from Licking county to New Albany, Plain township, Franklin county, where he died, of palsy and typhoid fever, March 6, 1862. She remained a widow something more than four years, when she was married, as already noted, to Mr. Samuel Rigal, and has since made her home with him in Westerville, where she is the mistress of a spacious and comfortable mansion, with handsome grounds about it.