History of Crawford and Clark Counties, Illinois, Vol. II.
William Henry Perrin, ed.
(Chicago: O.L. Basking & Co. Historical Publishers)
1883.
Samuel L. Bennett, hardware, Hutsonville, was born in Sullivan County, Ind., November
13, 1847, to Vance and Elizabeth (Armstrong) Bennett. His father was born in Virginia
April 13, 1806, emigrated to near Lancaster, Ohio, in 1822, and to Sullivan County, Ind.,
in 1824, where he died October 15, 1866. He was a farmer. His wife, the mother of
our subject, was born in Fayette County, Ky., in February, 1810, and died in Sullivan
County, Ind., October 3, 1865; her father, Thomas Armstrong, was a soldier in the
Revolutionary war. Samuel was the tenth child of the eleven children born to his
parents;
he was raised on a farm and educated from the common schools, and the U. C. College at
Merom. At seventeen years of age, he enlisted in the late rebellion, serving from
February, 1865, to the close of the war, in Company G, One Hundred and Forty-ninth Indiana
Volunteers, under command of Col. Fairbanks. After the close of the war, he returned
home, and assisted to till the home farm until 1867, when he entered the college at Merom.
In 1869, he began teaching the common schools of Crawford County; in 1872, engaged
in the drug business at Robinson, continuing the same but a few months, when he engaged as
clerk in the dry goods house of Frank Lucas. In 1874, in company with Howard Lutes,
engaged in the clothing business; in
October, 1875, he came to Hutsonville, where he has been engaged in the hardware business,
the firm being Draper & Bennett. In Crawford County, in 1873, May 6, he married
Miss Mattie Draper. He is an active member of the Masonic order. Politically,
is a Republican.
Submitted by mccachern@att.net