My Genealogy Hound

Samuel H. Rye is one of the most successful and prominent farmers of the township in which he lives if not in the county. He was born near his present place of abode March 10, 1849, to Tristram and Peggy (Drummond) Rye, the former going to California in 1853, in which State he died in the spring of that year. He was a farmer, and on going to California left his wife, with ten children, to conduct the farm, and after rearing this family to honorable manhood and womanhood she died in 1880. When nineteen years of age Samuel H. Rye began doing for himself by renting land on the farm he now owns, and in connection with two brothers purchased a fine piece of land, containing 320 acres, upon which he settled. After improving fifteen acres he sold his place and purchased a portion of his present farm, being now the owner of 560 acres, of which 350 acres are under fence and the greater portion in a good state of cultivation. His crops consist mostly of cotton and corn, but he also raises considerable wheat, oats, millet and potatoes with very good success. He is interested in stock-raising, and is trying to work into a better grade of stock, especially hogs. He has a good frame residence, besides all other necessary farm buildings, and has also six good tenement houses on his place, with necessary buildings surrounding. His marriage, which took place in 1870, was to Miss Mattie M. Brown, a daughter of John and Laura Brown of this county, and by her Mr. Rye is the father of six children: R. E., Albert, Nannie, Ella, Stella and Harvey. Mr. Rye was made a Mason at the age of twenty-one years, and is now a member of Silex Lodge in this township, and is also lecturer of the local Farmers’ Alliance. Politically he is a Democrat. At one time, in 1872-73, he paid $4,000 as security for an acquaintance who was in the mercantile business, and in the year 1880 he met with the loss of his house and all his household goods by fire. He had no insurance, and everything to the value of $2,000 was a total loss. Notwithstanding these misfortunes he has been successful, for he is an able financier and is industrious and economical.