Samuel & Sarah (Hoy) Rigal

Samuel Rigal

Samuel Rigal, son of Philip and Catherine Keller Rigal,

was born near Reading, Pennsylvania,

April 14, 1807. His ancestors are said to be

among the first soldiers who settled in

Pennsylvania at the close of the Revolutionary War.

When Samuel was nine years old, his father came

to Ohio and settled in Lithopolis, Fairfield County, Ohio as a farmer, also practicing as opportunity afforded, his trade as a weaver. The son had little chance for schooling, and pursued the labors of the farm with little intermission until 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, also receiving one hundred and sixty acres from his young wife, formerly Miss Sarah Hoy, of Fairfield County, daughter of one of the oldest settler's of that region, to whom he was married on New Years Day of that 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

quite life, comparatively freed from business cares,

enjoying the fruits of his long and hard labors. He has

never been in politics, but has held several township

offices, and is, with his wife, a member of the

Evangelical Association or "Albright" church in Westerville.

The Biography Excerpt and Portrait Sketch's of

Samuel & Amanda (Wilson) Miller - Rigal

All Appear Courtesy of:

Mrs. Leona L. Gustafson

"The History of Franklin & Pickaway Counties,

Ohio with Illustrations And Biographical Sketches;

Some of the Prominent Men and Pioneers"

(Williams Bros., 1880)

Which can be found online at:

http://www.genealogybug.net/FrankPic/frank_pick.htm , pages 482-483

http://www.genealogybug.net/FrankPic/rigal.htm

Amanda (Wilson) Miller - Rigal

Mrs. Amanda (Wilson) Miller - Rigal,

2nd wife of Samuel Rigal, is the daughter of

John & Rebecca Wilson, who were among

the earliest settlers near Newark,

Licking County, Ohio, to which place they

moved in 1805, from Hardy County, Virginia.

In their new home they shared fully in the hardship,

of pioneer life, among the Indians, bears, 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 8 children: three daughters and five sons,

of whom 4 are living: Perry W., who lives in 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.

Mr. and Mrs. Miller, 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 remarried as a widow something more than 4 years later,

when she was married, as already noted to 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.