Samuel McGrath is an old settler of Jo Daviess County. He has the indomitable will that is not vanquished by ordinary obstacles, but carries him unswervingly forward to his goal. He lives on section 28, Harlem Township, and is engaged in agricultural pursuits.

Mr. McGrath's parents were Samuel and Jane (Denning) McGrath, both natives of Ireland. They came to America when quite young, the father being about fourteen years old. When he married, he and his wife settled in Pennsylvania, but emigrated to Jo Daviess County, Ill., in the spring of 1836, where they lived until their death. He was a preacher who stopped not because of weather or distance. It is related of him that he would walk forty miles to fill an appointment. One Sunday morning he walked from his home to Savanna twelve miles, and preached in the morning, then walked to Mt. Carroll eight miles and preached in the afternoon, then to Cherry Grove six miles, and preached at night, then walked home, a distance of sixteen miles that night. Mr. Samuel McGrath, Sr., was ninety-four years old at the time of his death which occurred in 1878. The elder McGrath had a family of eleven children, eight boys and three girls.

The subject of this sketch was the sixth child and was born in Beaver County, Pa., Aug. 31, 1823. He was raised on a farm and his entire schooling was obtained before he was twelve years old. Only the first two of the three R's, "readin', 'ritin' and 'rithmetic," were afforded to him and these very imperfectly. After coming to Illinois he studied arithmetic at Galena. When he was only a boy he came with his parents to Illinois and lived at home until he became of age. Mr. McGrath when a lad of thirteen had an experience with a band of Indians which vividly impressed itself upon his memory. Trouble was brewing between the whites of the neighborhood and the Indians, and Samuel was out looking for the cows when a band of Indians, thirty-two in number, decorated as for war, spied him in the distance. A volley of shots was fired at him, several of the bullets passing through his clothes, but fortunately he was unhurt. He secreted himself in the forks of a fallen white oak, and when the redskins were searching for him they stepped time and again upon the tree which furnished him shelter. He was engaged in farming in Jo Daviess County until the spring of 1869, when he came to Stephenson County and settled in Harlem Township, where he has since resided. He has acquired 160 acres of good land there, improved with comfortable buildings. Mr. McGrath was married in Jo Daviess County, Oct. 9, 1851, to Miss Jane Atchison, daughter of Mathew and Mary (Dollin) Atchison, of Scotch and Irish ancestry. The wife's parents first settled in Mercer County, Pa., where the father died. The mother afterward married Thomas Gault, and came to Jo Daviess County, where she died. Mrs. McGrath was the eighth child of a family of nine children, and was born in Mercer County, Pa., Feb. 10, 1833.

Mr. and Mrs. McGrath have had six children, as follows: William A., Orrin D., Luella A., Rollin A., Cora E. and George H. William married Miss Mary R. Furst, and resides in Harlem Township; Orrin died June 23, 1883, when twenty-nine years old; Luella is the wife of Walter Agney, and resides in Harlem Township. Mr. McGrath, despite his humble origin, is held in high estimation by his neighbors and has been awarded some of the minor offices of the township. In politics, Mr. McGrath is a Prohibitionist, and he and his wife are devoted members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Contributed by Carol Parrish Portrait and Biographical Album of Stephenson County, Ill. (1888), p. 549.