ORCHARD

SAMUEL M. ORCHARD, a native of Bourbon County, Ky., was born August 11, ~1802. He is the second son and fourth child in a family of eleven children, and was reared and educated in his native place, until he was sixteen years of age. His parents, Isaac and Margery (Mitchell) Orchard, came to Washington County, Ind., in 1819, and purchased a farm of 160 acres, where they remained until their deaths. The subject of this sketch and his brother John then came to Bloomington and started a wool carding machine on the lot where the " Orchard House " now stands, which they ran from 1823 to 1836, when they sold out. Meanwhile, in 1826, they started in the manufacture of linseed oil, of which they made quite a success. Ten years later, they started a stage line from Indianapolis to Leavenworth, and one from New Orleans to Louis­ville. They also had a blacksmith shop in Bloomington. They built the old " Temperance Hotel" on College avenue. In 1837, the subject began butchering, and in connection with his many other enterprises continued about twelve years. The two brothers then built the " Orchard House," which the subject purchased in 1855: he has since been its proprietor, but the hotel is at present managed by his son, I. S. Orchard. Mr. Orchard owns sixty acres of good farm land and considerable city property. He was married in 1830 to Martha C. McPheeters, daughter of James McPheeters, of Washington County. They have had nine children, six of whom are living, Elizabeth, John, Emily, Baynard R., James and Samuel. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and politically is a Republican. He is one of Monroe County's oldest settlers and pioneers, and assisted greatly in the building, up of Bloomington, his present residence. - Counties of Morgan, Monroe and Brown, Indiana Historical and Biographical, By Charles Blanchard, Published by F. A. Battey & Co, 1884, Page 586

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