Centennial portrait and biographical record of the city of Dayton and of Montgomery County, Ohio: containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens, together with biographies and portraits of the presidents of the United States and biographies of the governors of Ohio. (A.W. Bowen, 1897).
SAMUEL HAMMEL, [pages 1126-1128] an old settler of Montgomery county, Ohio, and an honored citizen of Clay township, is of sterling Irish ancestry and was born in Dauphin county, Pa., November 21, 1814, a son of William and Susan (Kelley) Hammel.
William Hammel came from Ireland to America at the age of eighteen years, settled first in Baltimore, Md., and took an active part in the war of 1812. He married Susan Kelley in Dauphin county, Pa., whither he had removed after the war, and where he worked at his trade of mason. This marriage resulted in the birth of nine children, viz: Isabel, Samuel, William, Prudence, Henry, James N., Joseph W., Eliza and Andrew J., the majority of whom were born in Ohio, as the father brought his wife and his Pennsylvania-born children to Montgomery county, this state, in 1818, and settled in Salem. Here he worked at his trade until his removal to Madison township, about 1828, when he made his home near Air Hill until 1832. He then removed to Darke county and bought a farm of 160 acres near Greenville, where he passed the remainder of his days, dying at the age of sixty-five years in the faith of the Presbyterian church, in which faith, also, his widow died at the age of seventy-four years. In politics Mr. Hammel was a Jacksonian democrat. He enjoyed the fullest esteem of his fellow-men, and his wife was equally well known for her strength of character and her many womanly qualities.
Samuel Hammel was a lad of but four years when brought to Ohio by his parents. He received as good an education as the pioneer schools of his early youth afforded and was reared to the pursuit of farming, although his entrance upon this career did not at first promise great results, inasmuch as he worked from his eighteenth to his twenty-first year for the compensation of $100 per year and clothed himself. But he was industrious and economical and was prepared to take unto himself a wife when he, had reached his majority, his choice of a helpmate being Miss Catherine Wright, whom he married near Brookville, Ohio, December 3, 1835. This lady was born October 15, 1815, in Dauphin county. Pa., and was a daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Wright.
Robert Wright, the father of Mrs. Hammel, was born in Ireland, but came to America when a young man, settled in Pennsylvania and there married a lady of German descent. They came to Montgomery county, Ohio, about the year 1827, and settled on 100 acres near Brookville, where they lived until Mr. Weight's accidental death on the railroad near Brookville. He and wife were the parents of five children, named George, Robert, Mary, Catherine and Alexander, and were faithful members of the Presbyterian church.
Samuel Hammel, when married, had not sufficient means with which to buy a farm, but with his willing wife began his wedded life in a log cabin, with a puncheon floor and the usual rude finishings, situated on a farm owned by his uncles, Samuel and John Kelley, and there farmed for three years or more. He was a man of great industry and of rigid economy, through which he accumulated the means to purchase his present farm in 1844, and on which he settled in 1847. He continued to work for other persons in order to earn money with which to stock and improve his home place, to which he has constantly added until he now owns a handsome farm of 249 acres, which will vie in fertility and productiveness with any other in the township.
To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Hammel were born seven children, viz: Joseph, who died at the age of ten years; Robert, William H., John K., Abraham F.; Catherine, who died in infancy; and Leah I. The mother of the children died in November, 1892, in her seventy-eighth year, a devout member of the United Brethren church, respected by all who knew her and honored for her devotion as a wife and mother. Mr. Hammel has also been a member of the United Brethren church for many years. In politics he was an old-line whig and voted for William Henry Harrison for the presidency of the United States; later he became a republican, on the formation of that party, and voted for its first candidate for the presidency—John C. Fremont. Mr. Hammel has served fifteen years as township trustee, and has always been an advocate of a liberal public and free education to the youth of the land, having served as school director for over thirty years. He is more than a fair example of what is usually called a self-made man, and his life has been one that might be profitably emulated by the young of the present generation. He has lived to see his descendants increase and multiply, and is now the grandfather of seventeen, and great-grandfather of six children.
